Houston Legends:
Carl Lewis made his mark as the greatest U.S. track Olympian.
Carl Lewis is very much at home in Houston, the city he first visited in the late 1970s as an East Coast kid with big dreams that became reality and where he now is an assistant coach at the University of Houston, working to mold the next generation of U.S. track and field stars.
But Lewis’ true home, wherever he finds himself on any given day, is in the spotlight.
That was never more evident than earlier this year in Los Angeles, where Lewis dropped into a U.S. Olympic Committee event as, essentially, a bit player in a brief appearance promoting L.A.’s bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympics.
But because he’s Carl Lewis, and because he never shrinks from speaking his mind, he essentially hijacked the day’s events with his description of the challenges facing track and field worldwide. What Lewis had to say on that given day was more newsworthy than anything provided by any of the athletes competing for a spot in the 2016 Games.
Once again, King Carl was center stage. It has happened countless times, and it will happen again as long as fans and historians recall the greatness of Carl Lewis, track and field’s greatest athlete of the 20th century, nine-time Olympic gold medalist, philanthropist, politician, pop culture phenomenon (and critic), teacher, father, student, star.
“If you prepare yourself for everything, you never know where you may find yourself,” he said. “It all comes together.”
Born in Alabama as the son of schoolteachers and raised in New Jersey, Lewis, 55, (as of July 1) already was one of the best high school athletes in the nation when he enrolled at the University of Houston in 1979 to work with veteran Cougars track and field coach Tom Tellez.
By 1981 he was the No. 1-ranked sprinter and long jumper in the world, and he set his sights on matching the sport’s signature moment — Jesse Owens’ four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics — as he and Tellez prepared for the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.
It was a central story at the first Olympic Games in the U.S. since Los Angeles hosted in 1932, and Lewis lived up to the hype, winning all four gold medals but falling short of the promotional windfall that he hoped would accompany his performance.
Still, along with manager Joe Douglas and fellow members of the Santa Monica Track Club, Lewis presided over a fundamental change in the manner in which track and field athletes were paid as world track and the Olympics advanced past the old amateur sports model. “Carl was a trailblazer,” said Dwight Stones, the former Olympic high jumper who now coaches and works for NBC Sports. “He pioneered professional track and field. … People are in a big hurry to point out mistakes. But we would not have pro track without Carl’s model.” He also went on to perform at three more Olympics, winning the long jump each time, taking a relay gold medal in 1992 and, after the disqualification of Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson for doping violations, the 100 meters in 1988. By the time he retired after the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, he had set the world record at 100 meters three times, and he was unbeaten in the long jump in 65 consecutive meets over 10 years. He was named in 1999 by the International Association of Athletics Federations, the world governing body of track and field, as its athlete of the century.
Away from the track, Lewis has veered between sharp-voiced critic and occasional gadfly. In keeping with the odd mix that defines celebrity, he has appeared on Italy’s version of “Dancing With the Stars,” and some younger audiences likely know him less for his track exploits than for the YouTube version of an unfortunate attempt to sing the National Anthem in 1993 that has been viewed more than a million times.
On a more substantive front, Lewis is a longtime supporter of organ and tissue donation programs and an ambassador for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. He also ran in 2011 for the state Senate in New Jersey before a court ruled he was ineligible because of residency requirements.
That roadblock in his home state, however, led him back to Houston, where he returned two years ago, at the request of his former UH and Olympic teammate, to be an assistant track coach at his alma mater.
“He’s come back to his roots,” said Lewis’ sister Carol, also a former UH and Olympic athlete.
He lives near the UH campus with his mother, Evelyn, who moved from New Jersey to be with him, and he weighs in at 184 pounds, one pound less than he weighed at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. His son, Bakim, 21, last year graduated from basic combat training and now serves in the Army.
In his role at UH, Lewis hopes to produce sprinters and jumpers who can contend for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. He uses many of the exercises and drills that he learned from Tellez, and he expects the same discipline that he displayed as a teenager.
His expectations are high, but so are his aspirations for his students.
“I tell recruits that I won nine gold medals. I was Olympian of the century. I don’t take a dime to coach for this university,” he said. “I don’t need anything from you but your success, and I want that for UH, I want that for you and I want it for your family.”
As he moves toward his 60s, however, Lewis despairs that track and field can regain its prominence in the pecking order that it enjoyed in world sports during his career. He blames IAAF leaders for not marketing the sport properly, and he continues his long-term criticism of athletes whom he believes are on the wrong side of the anti-doping movement.
Another focus over the next year, along with his UH duties, will be promoting the Los Angeles bid to host the 2024 Games.
“When I lived (in Los Angeles), every single day someone would say something about the L.A. Games,” he said. “You might be at the grocery store and you bump into (volleyball star) Karch Kiraly, and you stop at a traffic light and there is (diver) Greg Louganis. The Olympics is part of the fabric here.”
Although he was one of the first wanna-be athlete moguls, Lewis’ personality and the shifting stature of track and field in relationship to team sports in the U.S. prevented him from reaching the same financial status as a LeBron James, Peyton Manning or Michael Jordan.
Still, he said, he did OK for himself. “I’m not worth $500 million,” he said. “But it’s as good as it can get. Financially, I’m secure. I’ve been as successful as any Olympic athlete, bigger than any track athlete. It’s been a great post-career.”