CHASING A RECORD
WILLIE GAULT IN TOWN
American Patrick Blake Leeper hopes to break Oscar Pistorius’s 400-metre record at a McMaster University meet Tuesday. Steve Milton catches up with his coach, Willie Gault, to talk about Leeper as well as Gault’s own speedy pursuits.
Given the pinnacles he’s reached in his athletic career, it really takes something to impress Willie Gault.
And Patrick Blake Leeper impresses him.
Gault is in town coaching Leeper, who will try to break Oscar Pistorius’s world 400 metre record for T43 (double amputees below the knee) at the McMaster Twilight Meet Tuesday night — Leeper will run the 200 metres at 6:30
p.m. and the 400 at 8:30 — in his first competitive race in over a year.
“You have hard workouts a few days in a row it can be hard to get up to train, but when you see a guy like who has no legs and is out there running and has a smile on his face about it, you can’t be anything but elated about it,” Gault said at the McMaster track Monday.
“It changes your mind about how you think and how you do things.”
Gault not only coaches Leeper in Los Angeles, he’s still being coached himself.
In phenomenal shape and a few pounds below his football playing weight, just two months ago, Gault smashed world records in both the 100 and 200 metres for athletes 55 and older.
“I do it because I love it,” he says. “It’s a way for me to stay in shape and stay young. It’s great for my body and my heart.”
Gault’s always had a great body and heart. He won the Jim Thorpe Award as the world’s best athlete in 1991 when he was playing wide receiver for the Oakland Raiders, and was also bobsledding for the U.S. national team. That squad, with hurdling legend Edwin Moses pushing set an Olympic mark for fastest start at Calgary in 1988, and finished fourth overall.
That near-podium was Gault’s only Olympic experience because the U.S. boycotted the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow when he likely would have won a medal in the 100-metre hurdles and certainly would have won gold in the 4 x 100 metres relay. His foursome, with Carl Lewis at anchor, set the world record in 1983.
He didn’t do bobsled or run track in either 1984 Games, because pro athletes could not compete in the Olympics in another sport. He had just finished his rookie season as a wide receiver for the Chicago Bears and two years later would win the Super Bowl with those legendary Bears.
“I actually sued the International Olympic Committee over it and, basically, they changed the rules after that,” he told The Spectator.
Super Bowl champion, 11-year-NFLer, Olympic bobsledder, world bronze medallist in the 110metre hurdles and world record holder in the relay. So would he rather have the ring or have had an Olympic gold medal?
“Tough question. One is the world, one is the biggest sport in America. I respect them both equally. Not sure which I’d take if I had to choose. I have a Super Bowl, but a gold medal is hard to beat.”
Gault, who played at Tennessee, remembers Hamilton Tiger-Cat coach Kent Austin at Ole Miss. And he is well-aware of the CFL, because his first cousin is Warren Moon. Another first cousin is actor Chris Tucker.
He is forthright about the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission fraud charges, which were thrown out of court last year, although he was fined on lesser matters. The case involved stock in Heart Tronics Inc., of which he was the CEO.
“I got caught up in a world that is very tough, even though I majored in business in college, and trusted people,” he said. “All I was trying to do was help save lives. I pride myself on being truthful and honest. That’s why I fought this thing, why I didn’t take a (plea-bargain) deal. I didn’t take any money, I actually lost money … to the tune of half a million dollars. (The SEC) saw me as a celebrity they could get publicity from.”
In addition to sports and business, he’s had an acting career and now is a producer, and an investment adviser for athletes and other celebrities.
And he’s still what he’s always been. Damn fast.
“There are probably a dozen or so guys who are faster than me in the NFL right now, which is not too bad, considering they’ve got me by 25 years or so,” he laughs.
“It’s a thrill knowing you can accelerate past someone. Or walking through the airport and think ‘I’m the fastest guy in this airport.’ From a mental standpoint that’s pretty cool.”
From any standpoint it’s cool.