Lee Edward Evans – to be remembered, celebrated, immortalised in Abeokuta

Lee Edward Evans

A few days into the month of November, my mind is set on my late friend, African/American legendary athlete and international coach, Lee Edward Evans.

I have told his incredible story many times before. I cannot be tired of doing so because he was a good man.

Lee was one of the greatest athletes and international sprints coaches in history. His records are legion. He broke world records 11 times in different middle distance sprints events, including one that lasted for 25 years before it was broken.

He won two Olympic Gold medals, and broke the world records in the process. He retired into coaching of young athletes around the world starting from Nigeria in the mid-1970s working with the Nigerian Sports Commission as well as the Nigerian Athletics Federation at different times and for many decades, supporting, impacting and producing some of the best sprinters in Nigeria’s history.

In 2021, he died in Nigeria, and was buried according to his wishes and that of his family in Africa. The significance of that cannot be lost to anyone.

Having the first African/American athletics legend to be laid to rest on African soil, within the premises of the Segun Odegbami International College and Sports Academy, SOCA, the small sports school where he worked, trained and inspired young boys and girls to follow in his footpath and become the best athletes in the world through programs that would have taken them to the best centres of athletics development in American Colleges, is a big deal.

Although he did not complete his mission before he passed on, during the last two years that we spent together in my house and in the sports school, he shared his dreams with me. I owe him their fulfilment if I can.

I have been planning to