Track & Field
Conversation with Usain Bolt
An official I know got me a track team suit from Japan and the necessary credentials, and I sauntered below the Olympic stadium in Rio and onto the practice track where I spotted Usain Bolt as he worked on starts a day before the four-hundred-meter relay final. I jogged over and said, “We’ve already run…
Read MoreMichelle Carter Launches Gold
For years we’ve known that Michelle Carter inherited and refined a talent to put the shot into distant zones entered only by the elite. In fact, her future father, Michael Carter, as a prep in 1979, unleashed a rocket still unchallenged – 81-3 ½ with a 12-pound shot – and difficult to fathom, even by…
Read MoreMichael Carter’s Historic Launch
I remember Michael Carter’s final shot put, of course, no one present will forget that, but first I felt the wind getting stronger throughout that late afternoon in June 1979. I was wearing a tank top, instead of something more protective and professionally appropriate, and the weather gods lashed me as well as several thousand…
Read MoreHead on Rim
I was a newspaper correspondent in the summer of 1979 and assigned to go to a dormitory across the American River from Sacramento State University and get a story about any of the athletes preparing to compete the next day in the Golden West Invitational track meet for high school all stars. A meet official…
Read MoreBruce Jenner Opens Up
I was twenty-three in the spring of 1976 and often played basketball in the Sacramento State University gym and then drove to the all-weather track on the south side of campus and jogged before running wind sprints. People often complimented me for being in good shape, and I considered myself a stud but must’ve known…
Read MoreThe Usain Bolt Gear
Tyson Gay has beaten me in a hundred-meter dash, so has Asafa Powell, and Yohan Blake recently outran me in both the hundred and two hundred at our Olympic trials in Jamaica. Those three are the swiftest in history, after me, and may be thinking, or at least hoping, that while I used to be…
Read MorePreps Speed in Beautiful Fresno
Don’t roar by Fresno on Highway 99, especially if you’ve just come up from Bakersfield. Head east on Highway 180 through a growing city then turn north on 186 until you exit and move into leafy suburban Clovis highlighted with custom homes and spotless stores and offices. Then follow temporary signs where to park for…
Read MoreHighlights from the 2008 Olympics
I see many noble commentators have downplayed if not altogether ignored Olympic sports in order to rebuke China for a range of civil rights concerns and thereby imply the nation today is as ill as in the era of Mao, who shred at least as much flesh as Hitler and Stalin. China has in fact…
Read MoreEddie Hart’s Quest to be the Fastest
Since his youth in the schoolyard, where he always outran other kids to the finish line, Eddie Hart dreamed of someday becoming the Fastest Man in the World. It is one of the most respected titles in sports – requiring a raw display of unequivocal athleticism – and rivals the significance (though not the celebrity)…
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