Fred DeBernardi lived in El Paso in 1975 and I had stayed at his place the night before the International Track Association meet of May 10, 1975, the meet that would put me in the history books.
He was a thrower, too, about my size, 6-5, blonde hair, blue eyes, another surfer-type. He resembled a big, well-muscled sprinter and had been the NCAA champion in shotput and discus, one of only five people to ever do that. He played football at the University of Texas-El Paso and was drafted as a pro in 1972. He ended up with the Kansas City Chiefs for a year. After that, he joined the ITA.
We became throwing and training partners. He was fast and we would run against each other. We ran sprints because it helped your footwork and leg strength for throwing. We were friends and competitors and became good sprinters. He was good and once forced me to run a 4.3 second 40-yard dash to beat him. That’s quick for big humans. I called him De-Bo, as in turbo.
We were fast, unless we were smoking pot. Well, it was the 70s and we would sometimes light up doobies before training sessions. Everybody was lighting up back then. Even the future President Clinton, who didn’t inhale. I’m sure President Bush the Second lit up, too, and inhaled, though he wouldn’t admit to it.
DeBernardi and I would toke up and it would slow things down to about 33 -1/3 rpm. The really good stuff would slow you down to about 16-1/6, super slow mo. Your voice would change. You’d sound like you were speaking Gaelic with a lisp. You would get tunnel vision. You’d look at the sky a lot and see how blue it was. Birds looked like they were flying three miles an hour.
Your anxieties, fears and inhibitions would fall away, or at least seem very, very small. You wouldn’t worry about how far you could throw or about fouling. It was a helpful thing to do, actually, because you would be able to detect tiny flaws in your technique. You would become detached from the outcome of the throw and then you wouldn’t hold back and the shot just seemed to float up and out, like Sputnik.
Then once you worked through the high, the world came into focus and back to normal speed with an extra sharp, cool alertness and you remembered the little flaws you had to work on. We never smoked pot before meets, however. Absolutely verboten. You didn’t want to slow down on meet day.
It was an afternoon meet and I was scheduled to throw about 2 p.m., so I had a lot of time to think about it and work up my mojo. I went back to Fred’s apartment, made the bed, packed, and tried to control the adrenalin pulsing through me. We went out to a buffet place to eat real food, along with Paul Gibson, the hurdler. Gibson was one of those guys who ironed his jeans to sharp creases, a very neat kind of guy. I thought jeans were the antithesis of ironing. So did most people. Gibson apparently didn’t get the memo.
We filled up at the buffet and headed to the stadium. My thoughts were rushing. I remembered reading about other great athletes who always claimed to know that they were going to set a record or win the meet. That’s how I felt. I was going to go over the top in a contest with the mighty.
Then I saw the stadium and said, “This is it?” It looked like an end-of-the-road place, sort of desolate and scruffy. There was no grass, just dirt and weeds, which were well-manicured, however. It didn’t seem quite like the appropriate stage for a professional sporting event that would be broadcast to a national audience. On the other hand, the Bowie High School Stadium was deluxe compared to some of the other places we had ITA meets.
We parked, walked into the stadium and onto the field. There was no locker room to change, which was typical. We basically lived in our sweats. Things were ready to go and we were among the first up. There were nearly 10,000 people there, so it was noisy and there was a sense of expectation in the air.
I looked over at the broadcasters’ table. They had on their trademark ABC mustard-colored sport coats. That’s being kind. Those coats were more the color of baby poo. I had one of those sport coats from my time as an ABC commentator at the 1976 Olympics and Olympic Trials and finally gave it to the Hall of Fame at Middle Tennessee State University. That was after I wore it for Halloween. Didn’t need a mask with it.
There was one ABC crew with a shoulder-carried camera. Just one. There were no flags, no marching bands, no banners, no fanfare whatsoever. The next year they had cheerleaders recruited from a local strip club to spice things up, but this meet was like a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich without the bacon, lettuce and tomato. No mayo, either.
I didn’t need any fanfare. I was ready to set the world record that day and was hell-bent for throwing. I was ready for the “Performance of the Decade” as it was later dubbed by a sportswriters group.