Margaret
Jenkins

BIO:

Margaret Jenkins was Santa Clara County’s first female Olympian. She threw discus at the 1928 and 1932 Olympics, which were the first two Olympic games to include women. However, her preferred event was actually javelin throwing, and she set the world record for javelin throw of over 129 feet in 1928. Unfortunately, this event was not included in the 1928 Olympics, so she got the Stanford track and field coach, RL “Dink” Templeton, to teach her discus just eight weeks before the games began.  

She was born in 1903 in Santa Clara and attended Santa Clara High School, where she was the baseball team’s catcher. After, she attended San Jose Teachers College (which is now San Jose State) graduating in 1925. Throughout her life, she balanced a 30-year teaching career in Santa Clara with training for national and international competitions. She continued to contribute to athletics after her retirement, when she invited the 1968 Olympic track and field team to train at her home in Lake Tahoe, to mimic the altitude of Mexico City. Among the athletes that trained there were Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who made an iconic statement for racial justice on the Olympic podium. Jenkins was inducted posthumously into the San Jose Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.  

Womanhood is a public art and digital media project that promotes the historical contributions of women to Santa Clara County. https://womanhoodproject.org/ 

Womanhood is supported by the County of Santa Clara Office of Women’s Policy.