Moses, Edwin 1955–

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Edwin Moses 1955–

World class track-and-field athlete

Edwin Moses’s athletic achievement is extraordinary by any standards. For nearly a decade between 1977 and 1987 he completely dominated the 400-meter intermediate hurdles—a grueling event that requires its participants to leap ten hurdles in a quarter mile race. Moses owned one of modern sport’s most celebrated “streaks” in this event, at one point compiling 107 consecutive victories. Most athletes retire from the hurdles after two or three years of world-class competition. Moses ran races until well into his thirties, and having won gold medals at the 1976 and 1984 Olympic Games even tried to make a comeback in 1992. As Frank Deford noted in Sports illustrated, Moses in his heyday during the 1980s “was not only a hero to the world, but also, within his own subculture, an adviser, a spokesman, a counselor, a mediator, a diplomat…. No athlete in any sport is so respected by his peers as Moses is in track and field.”

An introspective and solitary man, Moses was often misunderstood by the legions of reporters and fans who followed his career. He preferred to train alone—often without the benefit of a coach—and used lessons from his college degree in physics to perfect his running and leaping techniques. His winning formula of a standard thirteen strides between each hurdle has become the stuff of legend among track-and-field athletes, and as of 1994, his time of 47.02 in the 400-meter hurdles is the world record for the event. All of this achievement exacted an enormous price in terms of physical wear-and-tear. Moses, who was at one time among the best-paid track competitors in the world, told Sports Illustrated: “People see the star life. They say, ‘You’re lucky. All you have to do is run.’ I laugh and say let’s compare. If you were a lawyer, you’d have to be on the Supreme Court to be equal in performance. Competition is fierce everywhere.”

Moses was born on August 31, 1955, in Dayton, Ohio. Growing up in Dayton, Moses never dreamed of becoming an Olympic track star. His parents, Irving and Gladys Moses, were both educators—his father an elementary school principal, his mother a curriculum supervisor for the city’s public schools. Needless to say, Moses grew up in an environment where academics were stressed. Sports were secondary, a treat to be savored if good grades were maintained.

As a high school student, Moses chose to be transported by bus to Fairview High School, where he was one of some 20 blacks in an enrollment of 800. He was an excellent scholar who took summer school courses in science and math for extra credit. “I was always the guy kids came to for help,” he recalled in Sports Illustrated. Moses’s small size—only five-foot-eight and 135 pounds as a senior—mitigated against his playing football and basketball. Instead he tried out for the track team. He was serious enough about his chosen sport to want to win, but he still considered track-and-field a hobby, like playing the saxophone.

At a Glance…

Born August 31, 1955, in Dayton, OH; son of Irving (an educator) and Gladys (an educator) Moses; married Myrella Bordt (an artist), 1982. Education: Morehouse University, B.S., 1976; has also earned a BA in business and an M.B A

Track-and-field athlete, 1976-92, speciality the 400-meter intermediate hurdles; U.S. Olympic Track Team, member, 1976, 1984; won gold medals on both occasions; world championship winner, 1977, 1987; holder of world record in 400 meter hurdles, 1983—. Bobsledder, 1989-91.

Selected awards: Sullivan Award for best amateur athlete in the United States, 1983; named “Sportsman of the Year” by Sports Illustrated 1984.

Memberships: United States Olympic Committee’s substance abuse committee, 1989—.

Addresses: Office —c/o United States Olympic Committee, 1750 E. Boulder St, Colorado Springs, CO 80909.

A Talent for Academics, Not Athletics

Moses won an academic scholarship to Morehouse University in Atlanta, Georgia. There he majored in physics and continued to indulge in his hobby of running in hurdling races. Ironically, while Morehouse had a track team, it did not have a track. Moses worked out with a part-time coach, the Rev. Lloyd Jackson, and a friend, Steven Price. “Athletes aren’t privileged at Morehouse,” Moses told Sports Illustrated. As late as 1975 he was still setting modest goals for himself in sports—far more important was the 3.5 average he was maintaining in his classes. By Christmas of that year, however, he began to formulate new plans, including a possible trip to the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, Quebec.

Something else happened to Moses at Morehouse. His legs grew longer while his weight remained trim; suddenly he was six-foot-two and 165 pounds. At his new height he seemed to skim the intermediate hurdles effortlessly, and his long legs allowed him to take fewer strides between each hurdle. When he began to build his endurance, the stage was set for Olympic qualification. Moses served notice, so to speak, at the 1976 Rorida Relays in Gainesville. He did not win any of the hurdles races he entered there, but his performance captured the attention of the U. S. Olympic track-and-field coach, Leroy Walker. “Anybody who knew anything about hurdling could see that if they were pointing this guy to something other than the 400 intermediates, they had the wrong race,” Walker told Sports Illustrated. “His size and speed; his base, the ability to carry the stride; his ‘skim,’ what we call the measurement of the stride over the hurdle—he had it all…. It was obvious nobody would handle him in Montreal. I went to Europe and told them: ‘You’re all running for second.’”

Moses worked with Walker through the spring of 1976 and indeed qualified for the U. S. Olympic team that summer. At the Olympic Games in Montreal he took the gold medal in the 400-meter intermediates with a new world record time of 47.63 seconds. Sports Illustrated correspondent Curry Kirkpatrick noted that the medal-winning performance was “the beginning of track and field’s most phenomenal streak.” It was also the beginning of a love-hate relationship between Moses and the media. Moses wore sunglasses all the time outdoors—they were prescription lenses that he needed in order to see the hurdles. Because he wore them, however, he was perceived as aloof or even hostile to reporters. “I know it was difficult to relate to me back then,” Moses told Sports Illustrated. “I was black, studying physics and engineering. I was from a small school nobody ever heard of. A guy who took up this race and four months later won the gold medal. And I had predicted it. All this was a fantasy. Then the sunglasses. And they wanted to make me more of a fantasy. But did anybody stop to ask if the sunglasses were prescription? My eyes have been sensitive to light since the fifth grade.”

The public remained cool to Moses as he embarked on a series of international track-and-field events. In September of 1977 he began an unbeaten streak that would last nine years, nine months, and nine days when he took the World Cup 400-meter hurdles in 47.58 seconds. For the next four years, the only person competing on Moses’s level seemed to be Moses himself. He broke his own world record again in 1980, with a 47.13 time in a race in Milan. Three years later he set another world record at Koblenz, in West Germany, when he ran the hurdles in 47.02 seconds.

Public Recognition, Public Pressure

Moses was one of many athletes who were bitterly disappointed when president Jimmy Carter announced an American boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games. Then at the very peak of his career, Moses seems certain to have won another gold medal in the hurdles during those games. As his unbeaten streak lengthened, and he became a bona fide celebrity in Europe and America, Moses turned his attentions to the business side of the sport. He effectively challenged the cartels of event promoters who had banded together to keep appearance fees artificially low. He also lobbied for the rights of amateur athletes to receive above-board remuneration for their services on a variety of fronts. As his fame grew, Moses supplemented his income with product endorsements and other activities that brought him an estimated $500,000 each year. For some years in the 1980s, he was the best-paid track star in the world.

With the help of his wife, Myrella, Moses also improved his public image. He was sought as a spokesman against the use of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs, and he was accorded the honor of reciting the Olympic oath at the beginning of the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles, California. It was remarkable that Moses qualified for the 1984 Olympic team in an event that requires youth and stamina, but it was even more amazing that he kept his streak going in the Olympics, winning his second gold medal. Honors bestowed upon him during the period included the 1983 Sullivan Award for best American amateur athlete, and a “sportsman of the year” citation in 1984 from Sports Illustrated. Of Moses’s 1984 Olympic performance, Frank Deford wrote: “Edwin Moses … managed not only to win, but also to win our affection…. He’s the ultimate specialist, taking one arcane event, the 400-meter hurdles, and refining it, redefining it, crystallizing it, to the point where the race is now one with the man.”

Winning brought its own set of problems, however. As his streak grew toward 100 consecutive wins, Moses told Sports Illustrated: “Being this good is a dilemma. It’s almost as if I’ve painted myself into a circle. So much winning…. The irony is that it seems as if the final chapter must be that I lose.” Indeed, by 1985 some younger hurdlers were suggesting that Moses chose his races carefully, in order to avoid competitors who might beat him. In a rare fit of pique, Moses answered these charges in Esquire by saying: “Look at the skeletons I’ve left behind. I’ve been through generations of hurdlers. I’ll be retiring a few more before I’m done.”

To make matters worse, Moses endured much adverse publicity when he was arrested on charges of soliciting a prostitute in Los Angeles in 1985. Subsequently acquitted in a jury trial—and vehemently denying the charges all along—Moses nonetheless lost some of his endorsement contracts the following year. As the flap over that incident subsided, it was clear that Moses would have to face the top American challengers in the hurdles in order to protect his professional reputation.

His day of reckoning came in June of 1987, at a race in Madrid. Moses—31 at the time—was beaten by 21-year-old Danny Harris, thus ending the infamous Edwin Moses streak at 107 wins in nine and three-quarters years. For his part, Moses professed no great disappointment over the loss. “I have been running under tremendous pressure recently,” he told Sports Illustrated. “Now I can get back to concentrating on running fast instead of worrying about winning all the time.” Moses did indeed rebound after that, winning his second world title in Rome in 1987. He took the world title race by just two hundredths of a second, over Danny Harris.

Twilight of a Legend

Inevitably, age took its toll on Edwin Moses. Probably his greatest disappointment came in 1988, when he qualified for the U.S. Olympic team that went to Seoul, South Korea, but failed to win any races. He was 33 at the time—a good decade older than most of the other hurdlers—and he had suffered back and knee injuries that required hours of painful physical therapy every day. In the wake of the 1988 Olympics, Moses’s career seemed to be moving in new directions. In 1989 he became a member of the United States Olympic Committee’s substance abuse committee. He also began training with a bobsled team in hopes of winning a berth at the 1992 Winter Olympics. Those hopes never materialized, nor was he able to mount a comeback as a hurdler for the 1992 Summer Games.

“I won’t be competing in any more Olympics,” Moses told Jet magazine in 1992. “In the mornings when I wake up, I’m not able to walk.” Moses has not retired to the proverbial rocking chair, though. He still competes occasionally in European races for older athletes, and he hopes to be of continued use to the U. S. or the International Olympic Committee. It is not likely that anyone will ever challenge his winning streak in the 400-meter hurdles. As Kenny Moore concluded in Sports Illustrated, Moses “has even outrun history. A loss or two couldn’t mar this, the most dominant career of any runner ever.”