Jesse Robinson Helped Athletes

Compton’s hero Jesse Robinson (“A Hero in His Own Town”) (Southeast/Long Beach sections, Dec. 6) is a guy whose good ranged well beyond the confines of Compton.

Before the Amateur Athletic Union was broken up into national sports federations by the Amateur Sports Act of 1978, Jesse Robinson for two years served as president of the Southern Pacific Assn. of AAU, the Southern California governing body for all amateur sports.

Robinson served the association with distinction. He provided the leadership that ended some bitter intersport feuds that threatened the welfare of the amateur athletes who competed under their jurisdiction. He reformed the democratic process to give athletes a larger voice in the affairs of the SPA AAU. He was for the athlete first and always. In short, Jesse Robinson gave the tarnished bureaucratic SPA AAU a lot of class.

Many times, I have passed the Compton Olympic Park. It means a lot more to me, as well as to many others who know Jesse Robinson, that the park now bears his name. It is a small remembrance for a man who did so much for the athletes of the Southland.

ALBERT SCHOENFIELD

Rancho Palos Verdes