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The defiant one
U-M track star Ralph Rose started an Olympic tradition when he declared that the US flag "dips for no earthly king."
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Sports
The defiant one
September 17, 2008
Ralph Rose shot putting during the 1908 Olympics (Photo courtesy U-M Bentley Historical Library.)
No university has had a greater impact on the modern Olympic Games than has the University of Michigan.
It's not simply the 204 Olympic athletes and 11 coaches Michigan has produced, the 22 countries they've represented, or the 120 medals they've won, 56 of them gold, in both the summer and winter Games. It's not merely because Michigan is the only university whose athletic director, Bill Martin, served simultaneously as the United States Olympic Committee president, or because U-M student Michael Phelps dominated the Beijing Olympics like no other athlete in history.
Michigan's most important mark on the Olympics goes back exactly a century, and has proven to be the most enduring tradition of the U.S. Olympians.
The Olympic Games looked a lot different a hundred years ago than the ones we watched in Beijing. After Pierre de Coubertin resurrected the Games in Athens in 1896, they traveled to Paris and St. Louis, and were headed to Italy for the 1908 Olympics until the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 1906 changed those plans.
On short notice, London graciously agreed to host the Games, thereby keeping the nascent Olympics alive. Of course, it was a lot easier to prepare for the Olympics in those days, when only 2,035 athletes (including just 37 women) representing 22 nations showed up—and they had a generous six months to hold all the competitions. In contrast, the Beijing Olympics hosted 10,500 athletes from 204 nations over just two weeks.
The games of the Games were different, too. London's 22 sports included rugby, polo and tug-of-war, with no sign of basketball on the horizon.
But the London organizers added something new: an opening ceremony, complete with a "Parade of Flags," during which all flag bearers were instructed to dip their banners as they passed King Edward VII's royal box. And that's where things got interesting.
The 1908 U.S. Olympic team had picked Ralph Rose to carry the flag into London's new 68,000-seat stadium. Born and raised in California, Rose boldly enrolled at Michigan, sight unseen, in 1903. But his timing seemed fortuitous: he wanted to play football, and he arrived during the 56-game undefeated streak of coach Fielding Yost's "Point-A-Minute" teams, which stretched almost five years.
Rose was a huge man, even by today's standards, standing between 6-5 and 6-7, depending on who was measuring, and weighing some 250 pounds. And this at a time when few football players topped 200.
But Rose's immense size was his downfall, too, because in this era most football players played both offense and defense for every play of the game. Thus, speed was more important than size. Rose was out of luck and off the team.
He turned his attention to shot put and discus, and this proved a good decision. He won both events easily at the Big Ten meet in Chicago in 1904—his only year on the squad—then joined the United States' Olympic team that summer in St. Louis, where he took a gold, silver and bronze in field events.
Four years later, when he was named the nation's first Olympic flag bearer, Rose felt tremendously honored by his teammates—but not by the host nation. As a proud Irish-American, Rose didn't possess an overwhelming affection for the English.
In fact, most Americans didn't. The British had been America's sworn enemy in the young nation's first two wars. Official relations did not improve until President Grant's administration, and the feelings between the American and British people took even longer to warm up. The London Olympics started six years before World War I bonded the two nations as allies.
Tensions between the U.S. and the U.K. only grew worse once the Games began. In their haste to get ready, the English failed to fly the American and Swedish flags among the 20 others circling the stadium. The Swedes got their revenge by skipping the opening ceremonies. Rose had another idea.
When Rose led the American brigade past King Edward VII's royal box, he did something no other flag bearer dared: he refused to lower his nation's banner in deference to the host nation's leader, stubbornly holding the stars and stripes perfectly vertical.
The English were suitably offended. They took it out on the Americans in every event that involved judges, all of whom were British. They even extended the scheduled 26-mile marathon 385 yards, so the race would end directly in front of King Edward VII's box, in an attempt to "restore the importance of the monarchy" after Rose's rebellion.
But Rose was satisfied. Legend holds that he explained his actions by saying, "This flag dips for no earthly king."
He had a point: The United States is the first modern democracy, after all, founded on the overthrow of kings. It's still one of the few Western powers that does not support a monarchy. But Rose was probably making his stand less for American exceptionalism than for Irish nationalism.
Regardless, we do know Rose's decision was not a matter of official U.S. policy, but a personal decision, a rebellious act he probably expected would be a one-time royal poke in the eye.
At the Stockholm Olympics four years later, Rose won the combined left- and right-hand shot put but was replaced as flag bearer by George Bonhag, who apparently had no reservations about dipping the flag before the King of Sweden.
The "no dip rule" became part of the U.S. Flag Code in 1923, but even after that, the custom was sporadically observed, at best. The same U.S. Olympic flag bearer, Patrick McDonald, who chose not to dip the flag in 1920, did so 1924. What might have been a spontaneous, personal indulgence finally became a permanent U.S. custom in 1936, when the American Olympic team steadfastly refused to dip the flag at the Berlin Olympics for Adolf Hitler. No American Olympian has dipped it since.
Although it's pretty clear Rose intended to thumb his nose—and flag—at the British monarchy for their treatment of the Irish, We will never know how he felt about his precedent being dropped at the next Olympics in 1912. Rose died of typhoid in San Francisco the following year, at the age of 28.
But his actions that day have long outlived him. When the world watches the American team enter the Olympic stadium, or cheers at the Games' signature event, the marathon, we see the effects of one Wolverine's bold decision a century ago.
has written for Time, ESPN and Sports Illustrated, among others, earning national honors for his work. He coauthored his fifth book, Bo's Lasting Lessons, with the late Coach Schembechler, which became a national best seller. He also teaches at Michigan, gives weekly commentary on Michigan Public Radio, and delivers speeches across the country. His website is www.johnubacon.com