Edward Stanley Temple (September 20, 1927 – September 22, 2016) was a women's

track and field Track and field (or athletics in British English) is a sport that includes Competition#Sports, athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name used in North America is derived from where the sport takes place, a ru ...

pioneer and coach. Temple was Head Women's Track and Field Coach at

Nashville Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...

Tennessee State University Tennessee State University (Tennessee State, Tenn State, or TSU) is a public historically black land-grant university in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1912, it is the only state-funded historically black university in Tennes ...

for 44 years and was Head Coach of the U.S. Olympic Women's Track and Field Team twice, in 1960 and 1964, and Assistant Coach in 1980. He was also a member of the International Women's Track & Field Committee and a member of the U.S. Olympic Council. During his coaching career at Tennessee State University, forty members of the famed Tigerbelle teams represented their countries in Olympic competition. Coach Temple led the team to 34 national titles, and 8 Tigerbelles have been inducted into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame, including Wilma Rudolph, Edith McGuire, Wyomia Tyus, and Chandra Cheeseborough, the current Women's Coach at TSU. Ed Temple statue at First Tennessee Park

Ed Temple statue at First Tennessee Park

Temple is a member of nine different Halls of Fame, including the United States Olympic Hall of Fame, the

National Track and Field Hall of Fame National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...

, the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame, and the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame. On August 28, 2015, a statue to memorialize Temple was unveiled along a greenway near the right field entrance to First Horizon Park, a

Minor League Baseball Minor League Baseball (MiLB) is a professional baseball organization below Major League Baseball (MLB), constituted of teams affiliated with MLB clubs. It was founded on September 5, 1901, in response to the growing dominance of the National Le ...

stadium in Nashville. In 2014, Temple was honoured by becoming the first

USA Track & Field USA Track & Field (USATF) is a United States national governing body for the sports of track and field, cross country running, road running, and racewalking (known as the sport of athletics outside the US). The USATF was known between 1979 and 1 ...

Legend Coach. Temple died on September 22, 2016, following an illness, two days after his 89th birthday.

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* * * 1927 births 2016 deaths Sportspeople from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Tennessee State University faculty American track and field coaches Olympic coaches for the United States {{US-athletics-bio-stub