Elizabeth “Betty” Robinson (Schwartz), the first American woman to win an Olympic gold medal in track and field, was a Kappa Kappa Gamma. However when she competed in 1928, she was still a junior in high school. She won the 100-meter dash at the Olympics in Amsterdam. As a 16-year-old she was the fastest woman in the world. And it was only her third official 100-meter race.
Betty Robinson
In a day before women had many avenues for honing their athletic talent, it was said that she was discovered by a high school coach who saw her running to catch a train. After the 1928 Olympics, she returned to her hometown of Riverdale, Illinois, finished high school and then enrolled at Northwestern University.
While at Northwestern, she slipped on ice and twisted her ankle. It made the national news. In this photo taken in the Kappa house, she is nursing her ankle in a bucket of ice.
Betty Robinson nurses her twisted ankle.
Robinson missed the 1932 Olympics because during the summer of 1931 she shattered her leg in a plane crash. Her coaches forbade her from swimming, but she thought a spin with her cousin in his small plane might hit the spot. Instead, something went amiss and the plane headed to the ground. A rescuer drove her to the undertaker convinced that she was dead. She was in a coma for seven months and in a wheelchair for six months after that.
An excerpt from the Northwestern chapter letter in the April 1932 Key.
The doctors who treated her told her she would never race again. She proved them wrong and although she could no longer start a race from a sprinter’s crouch, she was a member of the 1936 4 x 100 relay team. She brought home another gold medal for her efforts.
She lived the rest of her life in relative obscurity in a Chicago suburb, raising two children, serving as an official at athletics events, and working in a hardware store. On May 18, 1999, she died at the age of 87.
