"I'm a little too old for that," she said. "Maybe their grandmothers would know."
But among those who discover that Wyomia Tyus won gold medals in the 100-meter dash at the 1964 and'68 Olympics � the first male or female sprinter to repeat as champion � the first question is invariably the same.
"Why you working? Why you out here?" they ask her. "Shouldn't you be rich?"
The notion is amusing to Tyus, who competed during track and field's amateur era and reaped few financial rewards from her watershed achievements. But Tyus � who won in Tokyo as a 19-year-old, then repeated in Mexico City against the backdrop of massive cultural upheaval � wouldn't consider trading places with the modern athlete.
"It was the best time in my life," she said. "I still have friendships with the people I met then and ran against. I got to be part of history."
On Saturday, Feb.3, Tyus will be part of the annual Willie Davenport Olympic Track and Field Clinic at James Logan High in Union City. She is returning to the event for the third time, to be joined by perhaps two dozen other Olympians.
For Tyus, there was nothing like this event when she was growing up in Griffin, Ga.
"No one came around to say, 'Hey, you can do this. Women can do this. It's OK to be good,'" she said. "Now we have a vehicle. If I can help in any way, I like to do that."
Tyus became involved in sports because she had three older brothers, all of whom she eventually was able to outrun. Edward Stanley Temple, legendary coach of the Tennessee State Tigerbelles, saw Tyus run for the first time when she was just 15, and later offered her a scholarship.
The Tigerbelles had produced 1960 Olympic champion Wilma Rudolph, and their starheading into the'64 Games was Tyus' teammate, Edith McGuire. The two had raced each other several dozen times, Tyus estimates, and McGuire won every time.
Anonymity may have been her greatest ally in Tokyo. "I went in with no one thinking I could do it," she said.
Even when Tyus swept through her prelim races without a loss, tying Rudolph's world record in a second-round heat, her coach wasn't convinced. Before the final, Tyus recalled Temple telling her, "You are really doing well, I'm proud of you. You keep this running way, you may win a medal."
Tyus won the gold, added a second in the 400 relay, then returned four years later in Mexico City. She ran a world-record time of 11.08 seconds to win again, then dedicated her gold medal to fellow American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who had been stripped of their awards following their famous clenched-fist, civil rights protest on the medal stand.
Tyus counsels youngsters to find joy in running and not to consider themselves successful only if they cross the finish line first.
The current state of track and field � and sports in general � is the product of an atmosphere where winning is too seriously emphasized, Tyus suggested.
"When we start putting that much value on being No.1, things do get corrupt," she said, alluding to the epidemic of performance-enhancing drugs. "I was the best, and I never took anything in my life."
