The John Carlos Story by Dave Zirin & Dave Zirin

Author:Dave Zirin & Dave Zirin [Carlos, John & Zirin, Dave]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781608461332
Publisher: Haymarket Books
Published: 2011-11-29T19:02:58+00:00

Tommy and Lee

By this time, I had also cemented my relationships with the gifted young men who would be seen as the leaders of the OPHR, Lee Evans and Tommie Smith. I had met them before, but that was always in the heat of competition. I had gone west to San Jose State when we went to the nationals in 1965. To be honest with you, coming out of New York, I felt like they were country boys. I used to always bust their chops, saying to them, “Man, it’s like you guys are still putting caps on your sneakers and wearing suspenders.” But even then, as much as I called them “country,” it was obvious that they had the highest abilities in the sport. I had nothing but respect and admiration for them and the talents that they brought to the track for each and every race.

Tommie in particular was someone I paid close attention to because we both ran the 200 meters and Tommie was the acknowledged number one runner of that race in the world. He was also the type of guy who would not race against the best competition, like myself, unless it was absolutely necessary. I understood why he had this approach to racing, but it still got under my skin. I respected Tommie and his abilities, but I also felt like our skills were commensurate. We should have been like Ali and Frazier in the lead-up to the 1968 Olympics, racing against each other every few months. But he avoided me like I had smallpox and we only ran head to head maybe five times over the course of my entire career.

I think the first time I ran against Tommie was in 1967 at the Los Angeles Coliseum. I was running in a relay with the great Jimmy Hines and some other guys from Houston. We called ourselves the Houston Striders and we formed a team to come out west to California, to run at the Coliseum. Tommie Smith was running the anchor leg in the mile relay, and so was I and I ran him down and we got kind of tangled up a little bit coming off that last turn. He kind of bumped me and got away from me, and I kind of ran back on him again, and he won the race, and I remember I was a little disturbed because I felt like we took second and it was okay, but then I found out later they weren’t giving out second place prizes, which made it all the worse.

I think he was a little scared of me. I had already run 9.2 in the 100-yard dash and 20.2 in the 200. He and everyone had gotten word of this wild Mexican runner named Juan Carlos. There isn’t a drop of Mexican blood in my body, but to this day, people call me Juan Carlos mistakenly. In California, with its large Mexican population, I had my own fan base waiting for me.

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