Jesse Owens arrived in Lincoln, Neb., on a roll. It was July 4, 1935, six weeks after the Ohio State sophomore had burst onto the scene at the Big Ten championships, where he set three world records and tied another in less than an hour. The 1936 Olympics were 13 months away, but Owens’s stunning performance in Ann Arbor, etched into sports history as “the Day of Days,” made his success in Berlin a foregone conclusion.

It was hot in Lincoln. One hundred degrees, according to some reports. Others said 102. A rare photo shows the University of Nebraska’s Memorial Stadium in an unplanned white-out: 15,000 white faces and white shirts glowing under the midday sun, everyone braving the heat to watch America’s new marvel dominate the AAU championships.

The photo shows only four black faces amid the throng. One belonged to a short man peering from behind a starched shoulder about four rows back, the others to three of the six men racing in the 100-meter final. Arthur Daley, who covered track for The New York Times and would sail to Berlin the following summer as the first Times sportswriter to receive a foreign assignment, called the sprinters who took their marks that day the greatest field ever assembled.

Foy Draper of USC, the 5-foot-5 world-record holder in the 100-yard dash, was in Lane 1. George Anderson, the long-legged 10.4 man from Cal-Berkeley, was in Lane 2. Owens, approaching the starting line in Lane 4, his spikes leaving tiny volcanoes in the parched soil, was probably most concerned about the man on his left, in Lane 3. Ralph Metcalfe had won silver in the 100 at the 1932 Los Angeles Games, and two straight AAU golds. “The clash in this AAU championships meeting was supposed to be Owens (the new star) v. Metcalfe (the champion),” wrote Neil Allen of the London Times.

Owens had no fear of the man on his right. He had blown Eulace Peacock off the track while winning the NCAA Championships in Berkeley two weeks earlier, after which he’d gone out dancing to celebrate. He had beaten Peacock and everyone else in San Diego a week after that. There was no reason to expect a different result in Lincoln.