Sprinters Miss At Olympics

A good holiday is one spent among people whose notions of time are vaguer than yours. Rey Robinson's worst holiday was spent with a person whose notion of time was a great deal vaguer than his.

Robinson was a casualty of the most infamous time-management blunder in Olympic history—a colossal screw-up that stands as a cautionary tale to athletes in the Beijing games, which kick off today.

At one time, he was the world's fastest man. Today he is mostly remembered for failing to appear for his 100-meter heat because his coach had given him the wrong starting time. "The irony is, I've been punctual my whole life," he says.

The infamous time lapse occurred on August 31, 1972, at the Munich games. Robinson, a 20-year-old sprinter from Florida A&M, and teammate Eddie Hart were considered co-favorites to win a gold medal in the 100-meters. The three qualifying races to the final were supposed to be formalities: Earlier that year both Robinson and Hart had tied the world record of 9.95 seconds.

After breezing through a morning qualifier—Hart won his heat with a time equaling the world mark—they returned to the Olympic Village. U.S. sprint coach Stan Wright told them the quarterfinals would not start before 6 p.m.

That afternoon Robinson was getting a rubdown when Wright told him, Hart, and teammate Robert Taylor that they had to leave for the stadium immediately. "Coach Wright said he had a weird feeling something had gone wrong," Robinson recalls.

Waiting for a bus, Robinson ducked into an ABC production truck. On a monitor was a broadcast of the 100 heats. "I assumed it was a rerun from that morning," he says. It wasn't. It was live.

Robinson's heat was about to begin. A graphic listing the entrants had an "N/A" beside his name.

Not available.

"Ever get the feeling that you're riding a Ferris wheel and your stomach comes up through your chest?" he asks. "That's the feeling I had then. And it just stuck there."

In the frantic moments that followed, the team was loaded into a van and hurried through two checkpoints guarded by German police with automatic rifles. This was the Olympics when 11 Israeli athletes were murdered by Arab terrorists.

By the time the van reached Olympic Stadium, it was too late for Robinson, in heat one, and Hart, in heat two. Both had been disqualified. Their anguished appeals fell on deaf ears.

As it turned out, Wright was using an out-of-date schedule that said the quarters were to begin at 7 p.m. The heats actually started at 4:15 p.m. "It was horrible," Robinson recalls. "Like causing a car accident when you have no insurance and everyone on the freeway has stopped to look at you."

Taylor, in the third heat, ripped off his sweats, did two deep knee bends and raced to his block. He reached the starting line just before the gun went off, finishing second to earn a spot in the next day's semis. He wound up winning the silver medal behind Valery Borzov of the Soviet Union, who finished in 10.14.

Ten days later, Hart ran the anchor leg on the gold-medal winning 4 x 100 relay team. Robinson came home empty-handed and blamed Wright on national TV: "The man is a coach. He can say he's sorry, but what about three years? What about torn ligaments, pulled muscles, a broken leg? He can go on being coach. What can I go on being?"

Evidently, not a sprinter. Robinson dropped out of track, out of school, and moved in on the training camps of several pro football teams. "I wanted to be a wide receiver," he says. Unfortunately, no one wanted him.

He gypsied around until 1975, when he surfaced grilling barbecue at Mr. Soul's Pit of Ribs in Rochester, New York. "I had problems getting my credibility back," he says. "Everyone thought I'd fallen asleep in Munich or was fooling around. That mistake gnawed at me for many, many years."

Robinson was watching the 1976 Millrose Games on TV when his mother said: "You ought to try track again." So, at 24, he moved to Florida and trained for the Montreal Olympics. When he tied for fourth at the trials, he bolted for the European tour.

At 28, he tried out for the 1980 team and failed to place. "I went back to my room and threw my track shoes in the trash," he says. "I've been a coach ever since."

In time, Robinson forgave Coach Wright, who was elected to the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1993. Though he did not attend Wright's funeral, in 1998, he did send his condolences.

A year later Robinson became the men's track coach at Florida A&M. Since then he has led the Rattlers to four outdoor and two indoor Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference titles, and five NCAA Division 1 appearances. His most successful protégé, Kevin Hicks, was an NCAA and U.S. indoor champion in the 800-meters.

"I instill in my athletes the importance of being on time," Robinson says. "When they're not, I just tell them my little story."

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