STILL CLEARING HURDLES

Edwin Moses looks back on a stellar career
while working to improve the future

by Hunt Archbold

Long before Tiger Woods dominated the links or Roger Federer owned the tennis court; years before Michael Jordan became the man on the hoops court and Michael Phelps made the pool his own, dominance in sports could be summed up in one simple image: Atlanta�s Edwin Moses on the 400-meter hurdles.

The Atlanta Sports Hall of Fame recently announced Moses� inclusion in the organization�s 2008 induction class. Moses will be inducted along with Falcon greats Steve Bartkowski and Claude Humphrey, stock car champion Bill Elliott, Braves president John Schuerholz and golfing pioneer Louise Suggs in a May 31 ceremony at the Emory Conference Center Hotel.

Moses received his B.S. from Morehouse College, where in the mid-�70s he developed the grueling and scientific training methods that would eventually propel him to the top of his field. For a decade, Moses whipped all comers in his specialty event, winning 122 consecutive races, including 107 straight finals. From August 1977 to June 1987, he simply did not lose. He claimed two Olympic gold medals in that stretch, and would�ve been highly favored for a third had the U.S. not boycotted the 1980 Games in Moscow.

Moses, who still calls Atlanta home, currently serves as chairman of the Laureus World Sports Academy. Not surprisingly, he still has passionate feelings about the Olympic boycott of 28 years ago, as well as a possible boycott of the forthcoming Beijing Olympic Games, which are set to begin in less than five months. Speaking out on controversial topics has been a consistent part of this track and field legend�s fabric since he first arrived in the city almost 35 years ago.

BECOMING A CHAMPION

Growing up in Dayton, Ohio, there wasn�t much indication Moses would develop into the champion he�d one day become. He was cut from the high school basketball team and kicked off the football team for fighting. He turned to track, but tells The Sunday Paper that �I wasn�t that good,�� and �almost made it to state.��

But things changed when he arrived at Morehouse in the fall of 1973 on an academic scholarship. Morehouse didn�t have a track facility, and Moses admits he more or less �stumbled�� into the hurdles. His college life soon consisted of studying physics and making himself the best hurdler he could be.

�I loved the sport and I trained very hard,�� he says. �I�d train at what was Adams Park on the golf course, Lakewood Stadium, Avondale [Stadium], Grady High School, Washington High School. We�d sneak into Georgia Tech from time to time.��

What Moses learned during this time of intense individual training was that he could take only 13 steps between hurdles instead of the customary 14. Only once before late March 1976 had he ever run a 400-hurdles race. But four months later in Montreal, he won the Olympic gold medal in what was his first international meet. The 20-year-old unknown scholar-athlete from Morehouse with a huge, economical 9-foot-9 stride had burst onto the international scene. A year later, Moses would begin a near decade-long unbeaten streak accumulating one of the most spectacular strings of consecutive victories ever amassed by an individual athlete.

SPEAKING OUT FOR CHANGE
 

While he dominated on the track, Moses was outspoken off of it. In 1980, the same year he was prevented from defending his Olympic medal when President Jimmy Carter forbade the U.S. from participating in the Moscow Olympics as a response to the Soviet Union�s invasion of Afghanistan, Moses began challenging the hypocrisy of the rules that prohibited amateurs from accepting money for competing and making endorsements. At his urging, an Athletes Trust Fund program was established to allow athletes to benefit from government or privately supplied stipends, direct payments and commercial endorsement money without jeopardizing their Olympic eligibility. At his urging, the International Olympic Committee ratified the concept the following year.

Beginning in 1983, Moses began preaching about devastating affects that rampant use of performance enhancing drugs by athletes was casting upon his sport. Left unchecked, he felt, steroid use would ruin international sports. Moses became a pioneer in the development, administration and implementation of the world�s most stringent random in-competition drug-testing system.

�We helped bring about some needed changes,�� Moses says. �But I still find it sad that today, kids growing up in sports see and hear the subliminal messages that you have to take drugs to be a winner.��

STILL MAKING A DIFFERENCE

Moses won the gold at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and came back four years later to take a bronze in Seoul, Korea. Not long after, he retired, enjoyed success in international bobsledding, received his Master�s from Pepperdine, was elected into the U.S. Track and Field Hall of Fame and served as president of the International Amateur Athletic Association. And he�s still speaking out about topics like the potential boycott of this summer�s Olympic Games.

 �[The 1980 boycott] was disappointing, but it�s even more disappointing to hear about a boycott now,�� says the physically fit Moses, who looks as if he could still take on all comers in the hurdles. �People will always focus on the Olympic Games to generate a boycott or some type of protest. The Olympics are a place to grandstand when all these other opportunities haven�t been taken advantage of. Even our country hasn�t done enough in the Sudan diplomatically. The Africans haven�t done enough; the Europeans [haven�t]. It�s important to talk about now, but not valid to boycott the Olympic Games.��

Having no control over such things, however, Moses instead focuses his attention on matters where he can help bring about change. He�s been with Laureus since 2000; the group includes several dozen Olympic and world champion athletes who work to assist disadvantaged youths around the world. The organization �uses sports as a tool for social change,� he says, with 56 ongoing projects in 28 countries around the world. Truly, he�s a champion and international diplomat that this city can be proud of.

�The odds were stacked against me when I think about where I was when I came to Atlanta,�� he says. �But I accomplished these things by doing it the right way, and I�m proud of that.��

Courtesy of the Atlanta Sports Hall of Fame/Valerie A. Smith/Wild Side Studios