In May of 1999 I hit the Olympic A standard in the 10,000 meter. This earned me a trip to the World Championships in Seville, Spain that summer. Fortunately, my time carried over to the following year, so I had the A standard going in to the 2000 Olympic Trials. Unfortunately, I didn’t make the team that year. I remember watching Meb, Culpepper and Abdi pull away from me with 5K to go. I tried to stay with them as long as I could, but I just couldn’t keep up. There probably isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t think about that moment and how bad I wanted to be an Olympian.
It was the summer of 1984 when my Olympic dream began. I just turned 13.
With the Games already in full force in Los Angeles, my father made the impulse decision to load the family in the beat up station wagon and drive the 700 plus miles from Ashland, Oregon down to southern California in order to soak up the Olympic experience. We certainly didn’t have event tickets, nor could we possibly afford them. My dad figured we could just find a spot on the street, along the end of the marathon course, and watch the women’s marathon enter the stadium.
Once we arrived in LA, I remember getting up extra early and driving towards the stadium on a hot summer day to catch a glimpse of the race. We found a parking spot which seemed like ten miles a way and trudged towards where the marathon course met the stadium entrance. As we got closer and closer we could hear the stadium speakers blaring that Joan Benoit (now Benoit Samuelson) was opening up a huge lead over the field. Our excitement grew and we walked faster hoping to get a good spot on the street. By the time we reached the course, the streets were so crowded that there was no chance that my dad and his three boys could ever find an open spot to watch the runners go by. The speakers from the stadium continued to scream that Benoit was still leading with just a few miles to go. We could now here the crowd inside the stadium chanting “U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A…”
At that moment my dad told my oldest brother, Bob, to stay with me and Tim. He said that he would be right back and for us not to move. I saw my dad disappear into the huge crowd. Ten minutes later my dad emerged with a huge smile on his face. He had three tickets in his hand. He gave them to us and told us to run as fast as we could to the stadium. We looked at him and asked him why he wasn’t coming. He just kept on smiling and told us to run, FAST! As the three of us raced towards the stadium with tickets in hand, I turned around and saw my dad standing there laughing. I later learned that my dad found a scalper and bought three tickets that were being sold for an outrageous price. He had just enough money for three tickets. It was probably all the money he had for our entire trip to California.
The three of us boys entered the stadium. The ushers pointed us towards the Olympic Flame and told us our seats were at the very top row, right under the Flame. We climbed the hundreds of steps and found our seats moments before Benoit entered the stadium. It was the most thrilling experience I have ever had. Over 100,000 people screaming “U-S-A, U-S-A” were in complete hysterics as Benoit came charging in with her silver uniform and white cap in hand. At that very moment I wanted to become an Olympian and I spent the next 20 years doing everything I could to become one. It was not to be.
However, this blog isn’t about an Olympic dream unfulfilled. I would, in fact, argue the opposite. After all, I learned how to chase something with reckless abandon. I learned how to believe in myself and not some statistic. I learned how to risk it all. I learned that I am capable of wrestling the wolves until I am spent. Perhaps this is what the Olympic dream is really about. Thanks, Dad.
PJ
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