When Carl Lewis returns to Los Angeles at LA28, 44 years after winning four gold medals, he will realise a dream he never thought would materialise.
Reflecting on his most successful Olympics as an athlete, it isn’t just the glory of those Los Angeles 1984 Games that the now-65-year-old remembers, but also the people who helped take him there.
“It’s a second dream come true because I never thought I’d be back,” Lewis said in an interview with Olympics.com. “I never thought I’d be coaching, and so I’ll have kids here in the Olympic Games just like my coach did, and I’ll have a chance to be proud of them just like my coach was.”
Lewis made his first Olympic team as a freshman at the University of Houston under the eye of Tom Tellez, who remained his coach for the rest of his career.
However, with the USA boycotting the Moscow 1980 Games, Lewis would need to wait until Los Angeles 1984 to make his Olympic bow, winning gold in the 100m, 200m, 4x100m relay and long jump at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum – the same venue where athletics will take centre stage at LA28.
Tellez was a central figure in Lewis’s success, and four decades later Lewis took up the role of Head Coach of the University of Houston track & field team, hoping to inspire a new generation of would-be Olympians.
Now, as he looks forward to attending LA28 as a coach, Lewis will experience the Games from a different viewpoint, but one that will still evoke memories of the people who were alongside him when he became Olympic champion.
“Both my parents have passed on now, so I remember exactly where they were sitting,” he said. “So it’ll be an amazing thing [watching his athletes compete at the Games]. And if they make the final of the 100 or get a medal, it’ll be incredible for me.”
Guiding the next generation to LA28
With those memories of his parents so prevalent in his mind today, it is perhaps unsurprising that Lewis is described by the athletes he trains as much more than a traditional taskmaster.
South Africa’s Paris 2024 4x100m relay silver medallist Shaun Maswanganyi said: “He’s more than just a coach to me. He’s more than a mentor. He’s a father figure in many aspects.”
LeShon Collins, another of his former athletes, echoed those comments, saying to ESPN: “He’s a great coach. He’s like a mentor. Shoot, I even call him a second father to me.”
Lewis, who also trains Great Britain’s Olympic relay bronze medallist Louie Hinchcliffe, isn’t shy to offer advice to those outside his training group, with his words seemingly closer to parental direction than purely athletic guidance.
“I would go to college, because that gives you a structure,” he said when asked by Olympics.com what advice he would give to the 18-year-old Gout Gout about the next steps in his career. “You’re going to have a roommate. Do you like to be clean? Do you like to cook? These are all things that you need to learn socially.
“Go into college in America. You get an opportunity financially, because right now the value of a degree in the United States is worth more than 95 per cent of what all track athletes will ever make.”
read more: https://www.olympics.com/en/news/how-los-angeles-1984-hero-carl-lewis-guiding-new-generation
