Never Before, Never Again: A Special 1976 Olympic Moment

The 2012 Summer Olympics will begin soon--and I say, who cares?  The Olympics of my youth are over.  Gone are the days when we all hated the Russians and the East Germans and the Chinese governments for taking promising athletes under their wings, and providing everything they needed to do to win.  We all knew that the Olympics were for amateur athletes, not ones paid a salary, given housing, food, state-of-the-art training, and God only knows what else (well, I do, steroids).  We hated their communism and their socialism and their tainting the Olympics with their professional athletes.

To paraphrase Bob Dylan, the times, they have a changed.  The Olympics have morphed into this slick spectacle of highly trained, professionally-paid athletes who want a a chance to win an Olympic medal to add to their trophy case.  The Americans we now send to the Olympics stand shoulder to shoulder with countries that we used to tsk tsk about their training habits and financial remuneration.

I used to be somewhat of an Olympics junkie.  Our local PBS station regularly ran Bud Greenspan's series, The Olympiad.  Not only did it cover the Olympics as a whole, but told stories of athletes from countries we viewers had barely heard of, fighting to finish races rather than medal in them.  His was the story of the underdog, the comeback kid, the "close but no cigar" races, the athletes who persevered through one Olympics after another.

The 1976 Montreal Olympics was fraught with drama even before the games began.  Construction for the stadium and other key venues fell so far behind schedule that the Canadian government had to intervene and take over construction efforts.  Completion came down to the wire, with fingers crossed that the paint would be dry before attendees were ushered into Olympic stadium for the opening day ceremonies.

And as it began in dramatic fashion, these Olympics were filled with memorable moments.  Who can forget that lithe teenager performing tricks no one had seen on the uneven parallel bars, a doe-eyed Nadia Comanchi--who scored a perfect ten so unexpected that even the scoreboard couldn't accurately display it (it was shown as a 1.00).  Or Bruce Jenner crossing the finish line to clinch the gold medal, wresting it away from the powerhouse Russians and breaking an Olympic record for number of points garnered in a decathlon?  Or rooting for that young boxer with the movie star face by the name of Sugar Ray Leonard?

As an homage to Bud Greenspan, my favorite story of Olympic courage and achievement lies in the 400 meter intermediate hurdles.  I actually have a personal connection to this race.  A guy by the name of Mike Shine lived in the next town over from mine, Youngsville.  Youngsville is where my Dad and his family grew up and where my grandmother still lived at the time.

In 1976, Mike Shine was a recent graduate of Penn State University and ran track there.  And while he preferred the high hurdles, he ran the intermediate hurdles and gained the third slot for the 400 meter intermediate hurdles during the Olympic qualifying trials. 

You might say that my Nana Ruby took a "shine" to young Mike and played an integral role is raising what was then the enormous sum of money to help support his trip to the Olympics.  We all were delighted that this hometown boy was going to the Olympics.  But we all knew that for Mike, the dream would be to finish the race; earning a spot on the podium would be tilting at windmills.

My parents, sister and I were traveling to Edinboro to start our summer vacation the day Mike raced.  I think my parents forgot that this was the day, but as soon as we reached our cottage, I leapt out of the car and starting unloading the 19" black and white we brought with us from the house.

As soon as I got it in the house I plugged it in and twirled the dial to ABC.  Unbelievably, it was a medals ceremony.  Yes, for the 400 meter intermediate hurdles.  Standing on the top podium was the expected winner, Ed Moses.  In third place was a Russian, Yevgeny Gavrilenko.  And second?  A slim guy with a mustache, the sleeves of his track suit shoved up his arms.

"Isn't that Mike Shine?"  I asked my Dad excitedly.  He said no, then looked at the grainy image more closely and said, "Oh, yeah, I'll be damned, it is him."


It was no surprise to anyone that Ed won.  Moses was a wunderkind athlete: a tall, wiry junior physics and engineering major at Morehouse University, there on a scholastic scholarship.  Ed took up the hurdles a handful of months prior to the 1976 Olympics, but took to it, as they say, as a duck takes to water.  Morehouse had no track of its own, he had no formal coach or training.  He took ballet to help his stretch and tone his muscles, unheard of at the time.

I had to wait until weeks later, when my parents and I went to a banquet feting Mike, to see the actual race, which they showed on a giant projection screen. The day of the race, Mike Shine was literally on the outside looking in.  In lane number one, Mike had the worst position, due to his qualifying time. He had an unorthodox 15 step method--too many steps the US Olympic track coach said to give him the time he needed for a medal.  He overcome these obstacles and  ran the race of his life, capturing the silver.

What followed after the race was magic:  the heavy sigh and relief on Moses' face, the absolute jubilation on Shine's face.  The guy was downright giddy.  The two hugged, and hand in hand began a victory lap around the track.  The walk became a run, and they re-ran the race, knocking over hurdles, waving American flags people in the crowd had given them.  

I got tears in my eyes that night in the banquet hall, watching that kid from the neighborhood.  And I thought, "This is what the Olympics needs, the world needs, to see a black man and a white man who couldn't be more different than each other, compete, win, and celebrate those differences."

There were many moments like this in the 1976 Montreal games, and I think it helped to heal the Olympics, to bring people of diverse backgrounds to compete in sport, and to honor the fallen Israeli athletes that came before them at the Munich games of 1972.

I've never forgotten that race, but it had been over three decades since I had seen it.  Someone forwarded a clip on youtube that shows the race, part of the victory lap, and the medal ceremonies.  You can watch it here.

But the Olympic gold, for me, quickly tarnished after that, with the Reagan boycott in 1980 and the Russians boycotting four years later.  Then somewhere down the line it became OK for athletes to be professional.  That was the age of innocence for me.   So I won't be watching the games this summer in London, but I'll be checking that youtube clip of Ed Moses and Mike Shine for years to come.