Wichita Olympic, Paralympic athletes honored

Wichita State University officials and city leaders showered praise Monday on four Wichita-area athletes in a celebration and tree dedication at Koch Arena atrium.

Two-time 2016 Paralympic gold medalist Deja Young was given a key to the city of Wichita by Vice Mayor Lavonta Williams.

The last person to receive such an honor was Nico Hernandez, who won a bronze medal in boxing at the 2016 Olympics. He received his key to the city in August.

“This is just a fantastic, historic day,” said Darron Boatright, WSU director of athletics. “We are here to celebrate Wichita’s place in the world’s stage this summer both with the Olympic and Paralympic Games.”

Oak trees were planted and dedicated at Koch Arena’s plaza in honor of Hernandez and the other athletes. Boatright also said Hernandez had a four-year scholarship to the university whenever he was ready to become a Shocker.

Three Wichitans represented the city during the Paralympic Summer Games in Rio, which included Young, a junior in WSU’s Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and a sprinter at the Paralympic Games; Nick Taylor, volunteer operations director in sport management at WSU and winner of a silver medal who previously had won gold medals in the Paralympic Games in 2004, 2008 and 2012; and WSU graduate Liz Willis, who ran the 100-, 200- and 400-meter races at the Paralympic Games in Rio.

Williams said the athletes put Wichita on the map, and she read a proclamation marking Oct. 3 as their day.

“You have made us so proud,” Williams said.

WSU president John Bardo said the planting of the oak trees is a tradition dating to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

“Adolf Hitler decided there was a master race, and he held the Olympics in Germany. He wanted to use that as a stage to prove the superiority of the Aryans. He arranged that the people participating in that Olympics be given an oak tree to bring back to their country as a symbol of their competition,” Bardo said.

But during that Olympics, an African-American athlete from Ohio State University – Jesse Owens – proved Hitler’s ideas on racial superiority wrong.

The U.S. basketball team also proved Hitler wrong during that same Olympics. It just so happened the team’s assistant coach was Gene Johnson, head coach at Wichita University.

“We have Olympic hope here at Wichita State from a sapling taken off of that 1936 Olympic oak,” Bardo said. “It is to remind ourselves of the value of our university, to remind ourselves that we are human and of hope. When we strive together, that gets us everywhere. Today we are planting oaks to remind ourselves of the strength it takes to be competitive on the national stage but also to be celebrating what it means to be human, what it means to be first.”

This story was originally published October 3, 2016 at 8:03 PM with the headline "Wichita Olympic, Paralympic athletes honored."