His left foot was fractured, but he ran anyway. He had to run. It was the last race in the last Olympics in which he would ever compete. Dave Johnson ran.
The stress fracture had happened a few months before the Barcelona, Spain Olympics in 1992. The hope was that if he stayed off it and didn’t practice it would get better and he would be able to compete. But the stress fracture became unbearable after the first day of the two-day Decathlon in Spain.
Dave had to complete the last of ten events, the 1500 meters, to medal. He put on a shoe two sizes larger, laced it up tight, and went to the starting line to run four laps. Dave told me that in the Decathlon, the competition comes down to the last lap on the last turn on the back side of the track in the last event. To further complicate matters, all your strength is gone after two days of all-out exertion.
Dave ran, forcing himself to put one step in front of the other, until he finished the race and won the bronze medal. He was the first American to medal in the Decathlon since Bruce Jenner had won a gold metal ten years earlier.
"If you doubt you can accomplish something, then you can't accomplish it. You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through." Rosalyn Smith Carter.
I had the privilege of knowing Dave Johnson during this period in his life. At that time, I lived in Southern California and worked at the church where Dave and his wife, Sherry, attended. The church's youth director was one of his training partners and my roommate dated another of Dave’s training partners. Terry, who was the track coach at Azusa Pacific University, where Dave attended and trained, also attended the church and was one of the elders.
Not long after I started working at the church I attended an after-church luncheon at Terry’s home. It was a beautiful Southern California day, so most of us were outside. I was sitting at a table with Terry, with my back to the some of the other tables. Terry began talking to someone at another table about a recent appearance on a talk show and some comments made by a sports announcer. That caught my attention.
After lunch, everyone just sat around and talked. I ended up sitting next to a very nice lady, just spending time getting to know her. During the course of our conversation, I noticed that she was wearing a lovely ring and she told me she had gotten it in Korea in 1988. (The Olympics had been held in Seoul, Korea in 1988). Perhaps I had been slow on the uptake, but now things began to add up. I took a closer look at this group of people and realized they were all in extremely great shape. Not just good – great! I asked my table companion, “Who are these people?”
As we talked, she began to point out different people; he is the world record holder in this event, he competed in the ’84 Olympics in Los Angeles, and he competed in ’88 in Seoul, and so on. To my surprise, I eventually learned that my friendly tablemate was none other than Sherry Johnson, the wife of Dave Johnson.
While this group of people was mostly world class athletics, they are also people just like you and me, with bills, fears, joys, friends, sorrows, etc. Dave would frequently say that anyone can train their body, but it’s the mental game where you win or lose. He had the chance to live out those words in 1992.
The lead-up to the ‘92 Barcelona Olympics was saturated with commercials from Reebok asking, “Who’s the World’s Greatest Athlete, Dan or Dave?” The Dan was Dan O’Brien, who went on to win a gold metal in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
But 1992 was a different story. After all the hype stirred up by the ad campaign, Dan didn’t even make the Olympic team. During the Olympic trials he willingly passed on the lower heights in the pole vault and then failed to clear the bar in the next round after his three tries. The result was that he did not receive any points for the event and failed to qualify for the Olympics. As a consequence, Reebok refocused the ads to rally support around Dave.
Steve Young says, “The principle is competing against yourself.” In spite of the hype, Dave was competing against himself as he began his last race with the goal to the finish. That race required him to place one painful step in front of the other to finish and medal in the Olympics. Where does that type of strength come from?
1 Corinthians 9:24-27 comes to my mind as a fitting passage:
Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it.
And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown.
Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air.
But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.
In Paul's day, a laurel wreath of victory was awarded to the victors in a race. In the ancient Olympic Games the “crown” was made of branches of the wild olive tree, but these were corruptible crowns. Paul continues on in the passage illustrating his own behavior, using the example of a boxer. He does not punch at the air as a boxer hitting at the shadows, but with direction and determination he keeps his eye on the true prize.
Verse 27 “is like the horses in a chariot race, which must be kept well in hand by whip and rein if the prize is to be secured" (Robertson and Plummer). Paul’s body would not be his master. He worked towards self-discipline to “bring it into bondage.” Paul was determined to withstand the test and not be disqualified.
Are you winning your race?
