Why the Greatest American Athletes Don’t Run Track Professionally
The year was 1985. I was a freshman in college. Michael Jordan was in his second year with the Chicago Bulls. This was long before his run of championships, long before people were calling him the greatest basketball player who ever lived. At this point in his career, he was famous for his phenomenal athleticism – his acrobatic moves, his gravity defying mid-air adjustments on his way to the basket, his fierce dunks. Everybody, back then, wanted to be “like Mike.”
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I remember one day before track practice, a group of us were sitting around stretching and talking about Jordan’s exploits in the previous nights’ game. Our coach walked to where we were, overheard us, and said, “Michael Jordan, are you guys talking about Michael Jordan?” We replied that we were. “Man!” our coach continued, “Can you imagine what that guy could do in the triple jump?”
We laughed, partially with him, partially at him. It seemed like an irrelevant point. If you can play basketball like Michael Jordan, why would you even think about wasting time doing the triple jump? Or anything in track, for that matter? Personally, along with my hurdling teammates, I was wondering what kind of time Jordan could run in the 400 meter hurdles.
Even way back then, we understood that any athletes talented enough to play a professional sport like basketball or football would choose that sport over track, no matter how good they could be at track. Back then we had our own examples. In the hurdles alone, Renaldo Nehemiah had abandoned football for track after being the first 110 hurdler in history to break 13.00 in 1981. And Willie Gault, who had a personal best of 13.26 (which was blazing fast in that era) and had won a bronze medal in the 1983 World Championships, spurned further track glory for a professional football career, and had played a key role in the Chicago Bears’ dominant Super Bowl run.
This topic of potentially great track stars not running track came to mind recently, during the Rio Olympics. In some posts I saw on social media, people were arguing as to whether or not Usain Bolt was taking performance-enhancing drugs. Some argued that he was, of course, but others argued that he was not. One of the arguments in his defense was that he was simply an exceptional athlete. If all the exceptional athletes in the United States ran track, one person argued, the world record in the 100, and in other events, would probably be faster than it is now. In Jamaica, another explained, there aren’t a bevy of professional sports to choose instead of track, so the chances that the best athletes will run track professionally are much greater. A Usain Bolt in America would be a shooting guard or a wide receiver, not a sprinter.
I really got to thinking on this topic when I was recently watching an NFL game when Dallas Cowboys running back hurdled a defender for the Chicago Bears. Turns out Elliott was a state champion in the 110 and 300 hurdles in high school. Even more interesting is the fact that the defender he hurdled, Chris Prosinksi, was also a hurdler in college. Elliott, a rookie, is tearing up the NFL this year. Of course it helps to have such a strong offensive line blocking for him, but you can’t help but wonder what Elliott might be doing as a hurdler right now when you see him running up and down that field with such speed and aggression.
In another game a couple weeks ago, I was watching the Atlanta Falcons play against the Carolina Panthers. In that game, Falcons wide receiver Julio Jones earned 300 yards in receiving, which is video-game kind of stuff. Every time you looked around in that game, Jones was striding down the sidelines for a touchdown, or speeding past a defensive back for a catch. The panthers made a huge comeback late in the game to get the falcons’ lead down to eight points, and would have a chance to tie the game if they could get a defensive stop and get their offense back on the field. But no. On the very next play, Jones caught a pass and ran for like 68 yards for a touchdown, sealing the falcons’ victory.
On that play, the track coach in me couldn’t help but admire Jones’ running form. Most football players tend to run in a zig-zaggy style down the field, but Jones had perfect sprinting posture, high knee lift, high heel recovery, dorsi-flexed ankles, and a tight, efficient arm carriage. I was thinking to myself, Man! If this dude ran the 400 hurdles! With that stride!…
I’m not sure if Jones has a history of running track in his past, but he’s the kind of athlete we’re talking about when saying that the best athletes in the United States don’t run track. This guy is a monster athlete.
Meanwhile, every time I see Ted Ginn Jr. – the former Miami Dolphin who now plays for the panthers – I feel a twinge of resentment. He has had a very long, successful NFL career, but what a lot of people don’t remember is that he was the #1 ranked 110 hurdler in the nation coming out of high school, with a personal best of 13.40 over the 39’s. Just think if someone of his athletic ability had stuck with the hurdles. Just think where American hurdling might be right now if athletes like Ginn and Elliot and Robert Griffin III – all of whom had outstanding high school careers in the hurdles – had continued with the hurdles professionally.
In regards to RGIII, I remember joking during his rookie year with the Washington Redskins that he’d’ve been better off if he’d stuck with track. At the time, that seemed like a laughable statement because he was having a great season and it was looking like he was on his way to having a hall of fame type of career. But ask the same question now, and it makes a lot of sense. He has suffered multiple major injuries on the football field, has not come close again to reaching the standards he had set for himself in his rookie season, and after being traded to the Cleveland Browns this year and once again having the opportunity to start, he suffered another major injury and is out for the year. Had he stuck with track, he might be battling for Olympic and World Championship medals on an annual basis.
Oregon Duck Devon Allen seems to on the same path as RGIII – clinging to the football dream, getting injured a lot, and thereby compromising the track dream. Right now, Allen says he wants to do both, but we all know there’s no way to do both. His football injuries are affecting his training for both sports. Hopefully he’ll drop football so he can focus on becoming the Olympic champion he has the potential to be, but we all know that even the average football players make more money than all but the very, very best track athletes. So there’s no reason to think that, when push comes to shove, the hurdles won’t lose Allen to the gridiron permanently.
Of all the athletes I’ve seen over the years who has made me dream of what might have been had he run the hurdles, I think the number one athlete on that list would be Allen Iverson. I grew up a Philadelphia 76er fan all my life, and when Iverson came onto the scene in the mid 90’s into the 2000’s he swept through the NBA like an electrical storm. This guy was the #1 recruited athlete coming out of high school in both football and basketball. On the court in the NBA he was so fast that teammates couldn’t even keep up with him on fast breaks. I remember hearing that in the pre-season training camp fitness tests, he ran a mile in 4:45, or something ridiculous like that. Could you imagine this dude in the 110’s or the 400h? Someone that aggressive, that athletic, and that fast? My goodness.
Without a doubt, track in the United States suffers from being a sport that doesn’t attract the nation’s best athletes. Could you imagine Lebron James as a decathlete? Kevin Durant as a high jumper? Russell Westbrook as a 110 hurdler?
When you hear stories like Elliot’s, or Ginn’s, it’s almost like their prep track careers served simply as off-season training for their real long-term goal of playing in the NFL. Even with RGIII, the only people even mentioning that he should’ve chosen track over football are hurdle heads like myself.
A lot of people in the track world ask what we can do to make track more attractive, so that we don’t lose so many athletes to the more popular sports. I honestly don’t think there’s anything that can be done. I’m not saying that to be pessimistic; that’s just my honest opinion. It’s not just a money issue, although, yes, that’s the biggest issue. Many track athletes are working full-time jobs and training full-time, while many stars in other sports make money off their team contract as well as from their sponsors and commercial endorsements.
But besides the money, there’s also a cultural issue. We Americans love our football, we love our basketball, and to a lesser degree these days, we love our baseball and soccer. We’re a team-sport country. We like to rally around the home team, the favorite team. Track can’t create the rivalries that team sports can. Track can’t create the lifelong affiliation with the home team that team sports can. While the team element is big in high school and collegiate track, at its highest level, track is not a team sport. In some countries, like Jamaica, I would say, that isn’t an issue. But in the US, it definitely is.
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