Margaret Matthews

Who is Margaret Matthews?

Margaret Matthews is an American track and field athlete who mainly competed in the 100 meters event.

She competed for United States in the 1956 Summer Olympics held in Melbourne, Australia. Matthews, a native Atlantan and captain of the TSU Tigerbelles, captured the bronze medal in the 4 × 100 meters with three of her U.S. teammates Mae Faggs, Wilma Rudolph and Isabelle Daniels. Matthews was the first American woman to leap a record 20 feet in the broad jump. At the 1956 Olympic trials in Washington, D.C. she set an American record of 19 feet, 9½ inches. At the national AAU outdoor meet in 1957 she won the women's broad jump title. In 1958 she set a new American broad jump record of 20 feet, one inch. Matthews was the first person in her family to finish high school and has devoted 35 years to public education in Memphis. Her son, Barry Todd Wilburn, played professional football in the NFL.