Earlene Brown (née Dennis; June 11, 1935 – May 1, 1983) was an American athlete notable for her careers in track and field and roller games. She competed at the 1956, 1960 and 1964 Olympics in the shot put and discus throw and won a bronze medal in the shot put in 1960; she finished fourth in the discus in 1956. Life Brown was born on July 11, 1935 in Latexo, in Houston County, Texas, a town that, according to Isobel Silden, Earlene "(could) no longer find on the map" by 1973. Earlene's father was 'a 6-footer' and a semipro baseball player in the Negro leagues in Texas She was an only child. Her parents separated in 1938 and she followed her mother who joined the second Great Migration of Southern African-Americans to California and moved to Los Angeles. Brown began her participation in track and field activities as a member of LAPD Deputy Auxiliary Police after it was introduced on September 9, 1943, by Mayor Fletcher Bowron. She competed and excelled in the basketball throw, which led up to the shot put. While attending L.A. Jordan High, she was discovered by Adeline Valdez, Josephine Spearman and Clarence Mackey, who tried to get her to turn out for the Helsinki Olympics, but she was then "too busy going to dances". Brown joined the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) at 21 in 1956, by which time she was already married to Henry Brown, a bricklayer, and had a baby boy, Reginald, born November 14, 1955. There, she started weight lifting under the tutelage of Des Koch, while America's original javelin technician Steve Seymour coached her in shot and discus. Seeing Brown throw, Seymour was convinced she had potential as a gold medalist and decided to send her to the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne. Since the Browns could not afford to pay for Earlene's training and traveling expenses, Brad Pye Jr., am influential sports editor of the Los Angeles Sentinel and African-American community activist, led a campaign that raised funds to support her. Shortly thereafter, though, Brown and her husband separated and Reggie was left in the care of his grandmother. To support herself, Brown began attending Henrietta's Beauty College to become a hairdresser. From 1959 on, Brown was associated with the Tennessee State University "Tigerbelles", whose coach Ed Temple was also the head coach of the U.S. Olympic Women's Track and