October 15, 2022 • 52 mins
Chris Spetzler, Executive Director of the Decision Education Foundation along with Olympic and legendary track star Justin Gatlin, who opens up and shares the importance of good and bad decision making and how it has affected Justin's career in track and field and what those decisions have led to in Justin's life, with podcast producer Dave Ungrady.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
It's been quite a journey for Gatlin. No athlete in
track and field has returned to achieve such greatness after
serving a drug suspension.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I didn't want to be a cautionary tip, so I
fought hard not to be a cautionary kip.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Over the years, he's faced many difficult decisions, choosing a coach,
figuring out what to do with your time after you
were suspended, why to return the competition.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
It's always a challenge to come back from a bad
decision with a bad.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Outcomeany when I went through my depression, I felt like
I was useless. I felt like I didn't have a space,
and not necessarily became suicidal, but more I started leading
towards being reckless, you know. And I remember basically running
(01:03):
over almost like a rock or a herd, and I
could barely see straight. And this cop comes over to
me and says, hey, did you not see that rock
in the road. I was like nice. Oh, He's like, okay, cool,
make sure you get home safe. And that nice scared
the living crap out of me, because I realized that
not only could I make headlines again, it could be
(01:23):
ex Gold medalist dies or ex gold medalists kill somebody else.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
And what I am really impressed by this story, Justin,
is the way that you put it behind you. We
talk about some cost and you can't change the past.
You got to work on the future. And it sounds
like running was truly your fire in life and you
(01:49):
did everything to reclaim your success.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
The world will never understand how much pressure you have
to deal with, but only the world will see your actions,
how you react to situations, you know, and if you're
careless for that moment, they're going to think that you've
been careless all your life.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
In this segment of len Bias, A Mixed to Legacy,
Episode three of epilogue.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
The Importance of making the Right to suit.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
This is Dave Nngrady, executive producer of this podcast series.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
With this episode, we complete.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Our podcast series on the legacy of len Bias. We
feature an iconic figure in track and field, an Olympic
and World champion sprinter in his early twenties who later
served a four year drug suspension, only to return to
the sport in dramatic and triumphant ways. We're talking about
(02:55):
Justin Gatlin. Few people can claim they've beaten Usain Bolt
in a one hundred meter race. Justin Gatlin is one
of them, but that's not the most interesting part of
his story. At the age of twenty three, Gatlin seemed
destined to become an iconic sprinter. He was an Olympic
(03:17):
champion and world record holder in the one hundred meters
and a world champion in the one hundred meters and
two hundred meters, But the golden future faded after Gatlan
turned twenty four. In two thousand and six, he tested
positive for a banned substance and then served the four
year suspension from competition. But Gatlan showed impressive resilience and
(03:43):
returned to competition in twenty ten. By the end of
the twenty tens, he had reclaimed his position as one
of the top sprinters in the world. In twenty twelve,
Gatland won Olympic bronze in the one hundred meters. In
twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, and twenty fifteen, he was the
(04:04):
overall one hundred meter champion in the Diamond League Meat Series,
the top track and field pro circuit. He won silver
medals in the one hundred meters at the twenty thirteen
and twenty fifteen World Championships, Bolt beat him in both races.
In twenty seventeen, Gatlin finally beat Bolt in the one
(04:26):
hundred meters at the World Championships. Gatlan won his last
world medal in twenty nineteen, at the age of thirty seven.
It was a silver in the one hundred meters. It's
been quite a journey for Gatlan. No athlete in track
and field has returned to achieve such greatness after serving
(04:47):
a drug suspension. Over the years, Gatlin has faced many
difficult decisions to appeal his suspension, how to find work
when suspended, to try and play in the NFL, which
coaches to hire during his comeback, and when to retire.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
And Gatlin is.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
With us to talk about his unique career and the
decisions he made a big part of what we're trying
to do is use Len's story and legacy to promote
effective decision making. He made a better decision and it
created all these issues. So what do you recall remember,
(05:27):
if anything, about Len's story when you were growing up?
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Had you heard about him.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
As I became older and became a teenager and a
young adult, where obviously he was a cautionary tale for
me when I was growing up about making right choices
and right decisions, especially in the moments. Notice when you
are that athlete who can ascend to the next level
and you're hanging around with people who don't have that
(05:52):
same opportunity, so you have to make wise decisions. For me,
he was urban legend and still has been. You know,
like I said, I didn't know what his jersey number was.
I can tell you what college you went to, but
I can tell you the night of his story and
how it changed his life, how it changed everyone around him.
It opened my eyes up to see other athletes around
(06:14):
me making poor decisions or allowing their decisions be made
by someone else. So it shows you that, to be honest,
that limb bias kind of tail happens through sports repeatedly
even to this day.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Justin you faced some critical decisions in your life.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
We like to.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Call our decisions or three types life shaping, which are
long term decisions, significant decisions which are more short term
like four or five or six month impact, and in
the moment decisions, which are spontaneous decisions. Of all the
professional decisions you faced choosing a coach, figuring out what
(06:57):
to do with your time after you were suspended, Why
to return the competition and what was the most significant
for you of all those or was there something else?
Speaker 2 (07:07):
I felt like for me coming back in the sport,
it had to be the environment, choosing the right coach,
choosing the right training partners to be able to sharpen
my skills with I felt. I don't want to say
I stumbled along the way, but coming back was a
hard climb for me because you know, when I came
into the sport, it was almost hand and glove made
for me. You know, NCAA champion, get whisked away to
(07:30):
one of the best coaches, get whisked away to one
of the best sponsors. So my comeback was actually a climb,
like I had to find the right coaching system, had
to find the right coach who had the same you know,
ideology that I had about being one of the best
in the world.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Take us through that decision. What was the process? Who
did you talk to? How did you figure out the
best way to make that decision?
Speaker 2 (07:55):
So for me, family is everything and circle too. I
try to keep my circle tight and just natchurally that way,
and throughout my ups and downs, my agent's been with me.
You know through me being Olympic champion to even through
the hard times of four years of being away from
my sport. He could have just left me and be like, hey,
(08:16):
you're not making any money, you know, we can go
our ways. But he was a godsend to me, and
once I came back to the sport, he helped me
find a coach that would be good for me in
that moment. So I start off with a coach in
Atlanta and it just didn't pan out. The rhythm of
it wasn't right, you know, it just wasn't the right
(08:37):
fit for me because it wasn't getting me where I
need to be competition wise. So then I moved to
Orlando where I found a coach and this coach took
me on even with my name being money at that
point in time, and Brooks Johnson took me on. And
I was with Brooks for about a year and a
half and unfortunately we didn't have sparring partners there for
me like to really train with. So I moved across
(08:59):
town to another coach where he had top elite athletes
that I could be able to sharpen my skills with.
And I stayed in Claremont with Dennis Mitchell for about
since twenty twelve up to the time I retired, which
was twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
But there was also Trevor Graham, who was your first coach, and.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
When we talked about decision making.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
I'd like to get into this your head a little
bit on this, Trevor Graham. If I recall when you
picked him, he was connected to.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
Marion Jones who was having drug issues.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Correct, So when we were talking about your decision making,
I would imagine you had to anticipate picking these coaches
might maybe best for you, but people are going to
start thinking about why is he going to these coaches?
How did that affect your decision making?
Speaker 2 (09:45):
If at all, it was the fact that I was
a twenty year old naive kid who didn't know nothing
about the track and field professional realm. I didn't even
know what a coach. A professional track and field coach
looked like. I'm a six ton NCAA champion. I didn't
know what it took to turn pro. All I know
is I need to run my ass off, and if
(10:05):
I run my ass off, then I'm gonna get noticed.
When my phone rang, that was gonna be Trevor Graham
and what his back is backing was no. Then then
I got a phone call from Nike, so it was like, Okay,
my dreams are coming true. And obviously, from the outside
looking in as a young athlete, I don't know the
intricate workings of a professional realm. I didn't know anything
(10:25):
about the drug scandal that was about to happen because
it didn't happen right when I turned pro, you know.
So I'm working with the guy who is who was
working with one of my idols at that point in time,
which was Marion Jones, and when he won the Golden
Sydney and I just turned pro in two thousand and two,
so the world was a buzz. I was happy. I
was elated. I was I couldn't have been in a
(10:46):
better place. I was about to train with one of
the people I looked up to, and I was about
to be signed by the same company. I thought, Yeah,
the writing for me was on the wall that I
was going to be the next great sprinter in America,
and I was ready to take on that challenge and responsibility.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
This is Dave Ngrady, executive producer of this podcast series.
I'm talking with Olympic and world sprint champion Justin Gatlin
and Chris Spetzler, executive director of the Decision Education Foundation,
about critical decisions made by Gatlin in his career. Let's
now bring in again, Chris Spetzler, the executive director of
(11:27):
the Decision Education Foundation, a content partner in this podcast series.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Can you offer any any insight? And I know you
and I have.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Talked a lot about framing a decision where you've got
to you've got to find the stakeholders who are going
to help you make that decision. Does that work in
here or or is there something else we're missing?
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Let me let me back up a little bit and
take a couple of different things. One of the first
things that I heard Justin talk about was his values
and how important his family is to him, And in
the latter part of the story, it sounds like that
has played a huge role in his resilience and his
(12:04):
commitment and his follow through even when he had to
figure out through a couple different experiences with a couple
different coaches, what was really going to work for him.
And that's important to me in that story because it's
something that stands in contrast to the first situation. The
(12:28):
first decision was one that felt like a no brainer
and didn't have the benefit of the later experiences, and
was just that this is the way it's supposed to be.
It's almost faded, and there wasn't a lot of search
for alternatives because it just didn't seem like it was needed.
(12:50):
It was the way to go and on automatic. You know,
you have to recognize that you're making a decision for
it to be a conscious decision.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
And was that a conscious decision in your mind at
that point, for justin the early one with the coach.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Well, I'm sure that it was a conscious decision that
he knew he was signing up for that coach and
that sponsor. On the other hand, it sounds like there
wasn't a lot of thought about what other alternatives and
does this align with my values? It was just this
is the way it's supposed to be, and I'm going
for it.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
So most of the decisions that I made going forward
were not by me. It was also by my parents
and my circle. They thoroughly vetted Trevor, they thoroughly vetted
even Nike. We didn't know much about the track and
field work, more professional aspect, so we can only ask
questions that we felt were on a moral level, and
(13:48):
we got so much reinsurance. No, man, your sons is
in good hands. He's going to be great. You know,
he has great talent. We're going to make sure that
we nurture that talent. So when all these stories started
coming out and this scandal start happening, we were reassured
that none of this was going to blow back and
we weren't going to be put in an awkward situation
(14:09):
in this story. So we've sat at a round table
and we discussed and we moved forward. We knew that
none of us were testing pilative at that point in time.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
So clearly you were consulting with the stakeholders, the other
people who had input could provide authoritative input into your decision.
And to clarify for our listeners, both Jones well Jones
was ultimately she ultimately admitted using, if I'm correct, using
a banned substances, although she denied it for years. And
Trevor Graham was kicked basically kicked out of the sport
(14:40):
for yeah uh, for his involvement with athletes and performance
enhancing drugs.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
Now, let's let's just get talking.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
About Dennis s Mitchel quickly, because I remember when you
picked him, Dennis Mitchell had a history of performance enhancing
drugs connections, baby can, but you still decided to go
with him.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
Can you explain that decision process?
Speaker 2 (15:04):
After my suspension, coming back and expressing myself to coach
Brokes about what was needed, and he agreed with me
that I needed training partners. So that's where Thennis name
came into the picture. He had an incident that came
up with a drug suspension almost more than twenty years
ago when he was running, you know, so it was
(15:25):
him as a runner, not as a coach. And then
I literally had a man dea man conversation with him.
I took him out to eat, We had some chicken
wings and we had some beer. We had a real
man talk and said, hey, this is what I need,
this is what I don't need in my life. And
he explained, this is what I needed my life as
a runner and an athlete, and this is what I
don't need in my life. And we shook hands right there.
(15:47):
We agreed to be able to work with each other
with no kind of incident, no kind of disruption, and
I think we kind of had a kindred spirit because
we were like, we don't want to feel that pain anymore.
We just want to go out and run and compete.
I want to be the best coach I can be.
I want to be the best athlete ACT can be.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Chris, as you've heard Justin, explain a conversation you had
with Dennis Mitchell, his most recent coach, and how how
he went about making that decision that one on one.
How does that fit into the proper way to make
a decision in that situation.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
It's always a challenge to come back from a bad
decision with a bad outcome. And what I am really
impressed by in this story, Justin, is the way that
you put it behind you. We talk about sun cost
and you can't change the past. You got to work
(16:40):
on the future. And it sounds like running was truly
your fire in life and you did everything to reclaim
your success. And that's just really inspiring.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Okay, Justin, let's go back even a little more. When
you realize that you work to be able to compete
for four years. And I remember when I was working
at WCSN, it came down and did a story for
you for them. You were about a year in and
you were a personal trainer. That's how you were getting
some of your income. You were living in an apartment
(17:15):
in Georgia in Atlanta.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
If I recall, and I I remember it not being
a very.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Maybe rewarding time for you, or it was a challenging time.
What was your decision making process about.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
The next step.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
I think the first year in was so surreal to me.
It felt like I was away from my sport just
extended period. For that first year at least, I watched
the Olympics. I watched every meet that I could. I
watched people I were competed against. But it did make
(17:51):
me sad to watch it. It made me inspired to
work harder to come back. I looked at I guess
you call it the long the long picture of things
or the long goal of things, you know, And for
me it was I had nothing to lose. At first,
when I was in my situation, I was looking at
(18:14):
a lifetime ban. Okay, then it got reduced to eight right,
and then I fought that down to four right. But
coming back now, in that first year of my suspension,
it was like they I can't really explain it. It
just felt like so weird. I felt like out of
(18:34):
place in life and society because all I knew was
track and field. You know, all I knew was that
was my success. That's how I made my money, that's
how I earned my earned the living, That's where my
fire came from. So when that wasn't there for me,
I tried to figure out other things that I could do.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
So what were your values at that time?
Speaker 1 (18:55):
But Chris has mentioned reference values determined a lot about
your decision making was iant What was most important to
you at that time? Was it finding a job, We're
you gonna make money or was it finding something that
you're gonna have fun with a.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Little bit of gutting it out and finding what I
loved because you remember I ran track from from the
moment at high school like fifteen, sixteen years old, right,
and then became state champion, then became six time NCAA champion,
then became Olympic champion, then became world champion, then became
(19:28):
war record holder. So everything that in my young adult
life was centered around track. And so when you took
me out of it, I felt like I was nothing.
So I had to rediscover who justed was in those
years that I was away from track.
Speaker 4 (19:43):
So you were considering football, you had to try it.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
I did. I had a couple a couple of trials
with a couple of teams.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
Yeah right, how'd that go?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
It was a different experience. I enjoyed it because it
made me. It forced me to learn what it is
to be in a different realm, a different world. I
wasn't just floating around, So I literally had to be
disciplined for football, to lift, to learn the routes to
become a football player, mold myself to become a football player.
I think that I would be able to make at
(20:11):
least to a practice squad, you know what I mean,
and see where it goes from there. But track would
leave me alone, even being well suspended, like in the
middle of my suspension, Track will not leave me alone.
Like I laid in bed at a rookie at a
mini camp and bucket at the Buccaneers, and I remember
(20:35):
looking at the ceiling at one o'clock in the morning,
just thinking like, why am I trying so hard to
fit into a sport that's already going to alienate me?
Because I'm a track athlete, I shouldn't be on the
football field. Probably can't catch, so I'm already gonna be judged,
so I feel like if I'm going to be judged,
be judging around where I know that I can excel,
which is track and field. So I felt like I
(20:56):
had to make my way back into a sport that
I once.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Was a camp about what the de sense to become
a personal trainer. Why that became so important.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
I have a big heart for young athletes, and I
think some of the best times in my life, other
than having my children, some of the best time of
my life, like working wise, was being a runner, discovering
where it's going to take me, to the opportunity to
show everyone my talent, the praise, the glory that come
(21:24):
up with it. So when I see young athletes, I
see a little bit of me and all that like
working hard, trying to find themselves, especially in track, because
I told you before, there's not a lot of people
telling these young athletes how to turn pro, so they're
just kind of guessing as they go. So I wanted
(21:44):
to help a lot of these kids were coming to
me ages from like sixteen seventeen all way down to
like six years old, so I had I'll train these
young athletes just to be better, have better form, even
if they were working on in a different sport.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Chris, as you're hearing Justin talk now and he's making
all these decisions, are you seeing any evolution in his
decision making process or any insight?
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Well?
Speaker 3 (22:07):
I share that huge value that I get out of
working with young people, and I have only recognized that
over time, and it's the source of real passion and fire.
And what I hear in this story is, you know,
if everything had gone perfectly for you justin, I'm not
(22:30):
sure that you would have grown as much as an individual,
as painful as it's been. And it sounds like you're
creating a tremendous amount of value and getting a lot
of real value out of working with these young people,
just because you had an experience that wasn't an easy
(22:51):
one and were able to come back from it.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Yeah. I tell myself all the time. I actually think
of saying, what if I wasn't suspended, what I be
the person I am today? I think my time away
from the sport kind of opened my heart up to
see from a different angle. You know, I remember training
with this athlete when I lived in Atlanta and he
was training for the long jump, and he was living
(23:14):
out of his car. He didn't A lot of people
didn't know this. I pulled up the practice one day
early and I saw, you know, and you could tell
when somebody's kind of moving or they're living out of
their car. I kept it to myself. But one thing
I did watch. I watched his progression. I watched how
he grew had grew confidence, and I also made sure
I reassured him every day, you know, And he went
on to make the Olympic team. That was his goal
(23:37):
in his dream. He went from living in his car
to make the Olympic team. And even though he fouled
out at the Olympics, he had the biggest smile on
his face because he finally made it. And if I
would have been to Justine and never been away from
track and fields, I would have never witnessed something like that.
I think I would have been jaded to the fact
that success should it became easy for everybody.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
Chris and Justin tells that story.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
We talked about good decision, bad outcome, bad decision, good outcome,
and I was gonna ask Justin if you ever recalled
any bad decision he felt he made that a good
outcome and vice versa.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
But that seems that that decision.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
That he made to become a trainer, maybe he didn't
foresee this happening, but it had several different forms of
good outcomes.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
Can you put that in perspective?
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Let me back up a second.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Okay, so justin I I think I've already made it clear.
I'm pretty blown away and inspired by your story. And
it's been some tough stuff. I imagine when all of
this went down, there was a tremendous amount of regreat.
(24:47):
So one of the things we talk about decision traps,
which is about cognitive biases, and one of the things
that human beings do is picture the world that they
want and minimum the world that they don't want and
don't expect, and so that kind of pushes decisions in
(25:07):
a direction. You know, potentially we call it over confidence.
It sounds to me like you also relied on a
group of people that supported you in your training and
your decision making, and that there was a natural progression
that was a part of that. Maybe it was also
not a fully conscious kind of decision situation. You know,
(25:30):
this is we're just moving forward and we're doing the
things we're doing. I'm blown away that we're sitting here
talking about this because I didn't certainly didn't know of
your story, and your honesty with all of this is
just amazing to me. And then that story of like, Okay,
so now I'm on this the other side of this,
(25:51):
this really sucks. What do I do now? And rather
than staying that, you dug yourself out of it and
you found the people to support you in getting out
of it, and you came back and you did the
things that they've went through, and that's I mean, that's
(26:15):
really quite astounding, and it must have been a deep
down that you'd never expected.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
You never know how tough you are to you put
in a situation where you have to be tough and
how tough you need to be to be able to
survive and thrive and hold onto your goals and ambitions.
I feel like everything was taken from me, my identity.
Even when I watched shows like or Track Meets, they
(26:46):
wouldn't even speak of my name. So it's like everything
I worked hard for was just kind of like blown
away in the wind. Eventually I would just be an
outcast and someone who was in the sport years ago.
So I didn't want it to be that way because
I felt like I had so much more to give,
not only to the sport, but to the next generation
(27:08):
when it came to my upside, my downs. You know,
I never never want to see anybody go through the
situation that I went through. I wouldn't wish it on
anybody because it was such a smack of my face
of reality that I went through so many different variations
of anger, depression, chicking my shoulder that I once I
(27:29):
came back into the sport, I had to like mold
all this energy that I had balled up inside me
for so long and somehow projected into training and somehow
projected into competition. You know. So those four years were
pivotal not only for my career but for my life.
(27:54):
You know, it grew me, It grew me so much.
So I I hear two things and and the the
frame I'd like you to be in is like advising
the young athletes or any young person.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
And the first one is, you know, if you could
go back to before all of this went down, what
would you suggest somebody facing that situation do differently? And
then the second one is, you know, when you're in
your deepest, darkest recovery.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
How do you.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Not let get go of hope and come back because
those are two very different things, but you've got special
insight into them.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I guess I would tell young athletes today that are
that are making the same moves and walking the same
path that I walked, is believe in yourself. Know who
you are, not only move like an athlete. Start to
understand business. Start to understand people who are going to
make decisions for your life. You know, like that's going
(29:04):
to change your life, it may not change their life
that much. And that's what I went through, And I
felt like walking into a door and saying, oh, this
is what it is. Okay, I'll let you handle what
you handle. I'm just gonna worry about focus on running,
and that's it. And I think for me, that was
that should have been a red flag in my in
(29:27):
my twenty twenty hindsight, where I should have took those
situations where I might have scratched my head and said,
ham let's figure something out here, let's do a better
job of doing a little more research. So for the
young athletes, I say, as much as you want to
be a professional athlete, be a business person too. Your
(29:49):
brand now, especially the young athletes. You're a brand, remember
who you are because at the end of the day,
you make the decisions for yourself. And I didn't have
the opportunity, and I wish that I could move back
and change that.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
We talked about decision power, and it sounds like you
trusted others with your decision power, and if you could
do it again, you wish you.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Had held on to that decision power. Absolutely absolutely, And
I think that that's how success is built. And if
it's something that you love, you should pay attention to
the details, and those young athletes should do so well.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Just so then there's the other side of it, right
and and some of this stuff is really tough. I mean,
we know that there are kids out there that give
up hope and leave this world and that kind of stuff.
You were in the depths and you found the strength
to come back. So you know, when someone experiences that
(30:46):
kind of a you know, trauma to their life, what
did you learn and what can you share in terms
of pulling yourself back together.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
I had so many different feelings through my process of
my ups and downs, and it reminds me of the
point where I came to depression, because depression is such
a big thing right now for a lot of people,
they're realizing depression doesn't just mean that you're sad and
crying all the time. When I went through my depression,
(31:22):
I felt like I was useless. I felt like I
didn't have a place, and not necessarily became suicidal, but
more I started leaning towards being reckless, you know, like
going out and party on the weekday, getting so drunk
that my eyes are blurry. Who's going to drive me home?
I'm going to drive me home kind of thing, you know.
(31:44):
And I remember basically running over almost like a rock
or a curb, and I could barely see straight. And
this cop comes over to me and says, hey, did
you not see that rock in the road. I was like, no,
I see it. Oh He's like, okay, cool, you get
home safe now. I knew he knew he could see
that I drink it, you know what I mean. It
(32:04):
was hard for me to hide it. That's how drunk
I was. And that night scared the living crap out
of me because I realized that not only could I
make headlines again, it could be ex gold medalist dies
or ex gold medalists kill somebody else, and I started
thinking in the big frame of things. So that depression,
(32:28):
I looked back at it and said, Okay, all the
people who were in my circle who wanted me to
do well, lift me up. If I checked out now
in any kind of form, in any kind of way,
then I would be doing them with the service because
they vouched for me, they fought for me, they love me,
and doing anything less would have been an injustice to them.
(32:49):
And I think I didn't care about anybodlse in the world,
but the people who cared for me, and that's why
we wanted to make a change. So for those young athletes,
do always think about yourself. Think about the people who
been helping you get to where you are. Your mom,
your dad, your guardians, it might be even coaches or
principles or whoever else out there, but the ones that
have your best interests at heart. Think about them in
(33:11):
the hard times that you're having.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
I see such a correlation to what lend Bias could
have been thinking as well if he had a different
frame of mind. Oh, how how is what I'm doing
here going to affect someone else?
Speaker 4 (33:25):
It's gonna have It's gonna affect other people. He never
did that.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
When he decided to consume so much cocaine so early
in the morning and party like that, he was thinking
right in front of him, how am I going to
please myself? He would clearly lost perspective of where he was.
So I see a really strong direct correlation between that
situation that he didn't survive in your situation, which you
(33:49):
did survive, exactly, you're coming out on the on the
on the good side of this in a way.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
When I was in those situations, I really had that
time to think it has some clarity. Situations like limbias
really came to mind because it was like, the world
will never understand how much pain you're in, the world
will never understand how much pressure you have to deal with.
But only the world will see your actions, how you
(34:15):
react to situations, you know, and if you're careless for
that moment, they're going to think that you've been careless
all your life, you know. So for me, it was
taking on that responsibility and obligation of realizing I have
to walk a certain line to be the athlete I
want to be, but also I couldn't be a careless
(34:35):
person and still give so much inspiration to young athletes
that are coming behind me. I didn't want to be
a cautionary tale, so I thought hard not to be
a cautionary tale. I have I have one thing that
I'd like to ask.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
For David Field and indulge me. So We're spending all
of this time on kind of this down stuff, and
I'm working on integrating the decision stuff into a health course,
and I don't really want to talk so much about
mental health as sort of the positive psychology stuff that
has to do with mental edge. And you've been talking
(35:12):
about how you pulled it back together. Could you just
spend a little bit of time talking about, like, when
you're really on your game, how that feels, and how
you get there and how you stay there, Because you know,
we spend all this time on the other stuff. You
(35:33):
have been and are champion and so you know at
that elite level what it takes to be on your game.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Totally different side of the coin. I love this side
of the coin because coming back through all that and
started being back on my game, it felt good because
I wasn't clouded by fan cheers. I wasn't distracted by
bandwagon fans or people want a moment in the spotlight,
(36:04):
I was mugged. When I came back, I had to
like create a persona that kind of protected me, the
soft justice, the justice that wants to be friends with
everybody and have fun. I had to create this hard
out of shell that said, you know what you're hearing.
Hand of business. I had to be strong enough to
take on anything as I stepped into that stadium, let
(36:25):
it be distractions or booze or anything. I knew what
my objective was because I had so much clarity now,
I knew what rock bottom looked like. So the toughness
was staying the course, staying dialed in, making not only
my sport a sport or a job, but making it
my lifestyle. That's what it was for me. I was doing.
(36:45):
I was doing five hundred to six hundred sit ups
every night. I was doing one hundred to two hundred
push ups every night. Before. I was walking around like
a cage animal in my hotel room, counting the time
for it. I had to lead to go downstairs and
catch the bus because I knew that I knew what
it felt like to fail. I knew what it felt
like to fail in life. At that point in time.
(37:06):
I knew what it felt like to live in an
apartment in Atlanta that was infested by bugs and roaches.
I knew what it failed to fall, and I didn't
want to fall anymore. I said, I was tired of it.
I was sick of falling. So I said, you know what,
I'm gonna do the out I'm just gonna go out
here and not care about anything and just run. If
I got a lane, great, I have opportunity, and I'm
(37:27):
gonna run my butt off to be able to make
this next team and run my butt off to be recognized.
I'm run my butt off to get a meet that
were blackballing me and blackness to me and beaten by
me doing that, and stay in the course and never
really talking to the media as in the sense of life,
woe was me. I just want to show my talent.
That's it.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
This is Dave Ngrady, executive producer of this podcast series.
I'm talking with Olympic and World sprint champion Justin Gatlin
and Chris Spetzler, executive director of the Decision Education Foundation,
about critical decisions made by Gatlin in his career. I
do recall when you came back there were a lot
(38:09):
of meat directors who wouldn't even consider you.
Speaker 4 (38:12):
And this is part of what I wrote in the
New York Times story. A lot of meat directors didn't.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Want to talk to you, didn't want to consider you
for the races because they were concerned about your history.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
You know. I just always looked at myself as the
good guy, you know, and I just wanted the opportunity
to come back, and with those meat promoters not allowing me,
I remember my agent saying, Hey, it's not about where
you run, it's how you run. So if you get
the opportunity to jump on the track and run anywhere,
make sure that you look at it as the Olympic
(38:43):
finals or you running for the last race of your life.
And that's the ideology that I took into every race
coming back into the sport was I was running for
my life because at that point in time, it was
a lot of meat that I couldn't get into and
I went I had to go to meets where it
wouldn't even cover my airfare, so I was still losing out.
I was just running. So it was a struggle. It
(39:05):
was a struggle for me, but I stayed the course
and a lot of my people in a circle with
my family, my friends, like they believed in me that
I could come back, and that was one of my
sources of power.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Did you feel like your confidence level was any different
when you got on the track. Did you feel more motivated?
Speaker 2 (39:24):
I felt like coming back, I felt like I still
was trying to find what my purpose was. You know,
in the beginning of my career, I did have purpose.
I was supposed to be the next great one. But
coming back in the sport, you got to remember there
was a lot of fast guys. Almost all those guys
were running nine seven by the time I came back
into the sport. And you know, I left the sport
running nine seven. I was almost half a decade before.
(39:47):
So I had to figure out how I can be
able to put myself back into a situation where I
could flourish. It was uncomfortable for me because I had
to change a lot of physical things about me as well.
If you watch a lot of my races from the beginning,
I was I didn't get out the blocks very well,
(40:08):
or at least I got out with the field, you know,
and I could run away from everybody. Now I was
in a realm where everyone was pretty much on paper,
faster than me. So I had to get out in
front of the field and hold that race pattern and
be able to finish the race. So I had to
change not only mentally, I had to change physically. I
had to become a whole new athlete. I had to
(40:30):
throw away all the things that made me who I was,
who made me a Olympic gold medalist. I had to
be able to evolve before.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
I say something, let me just I mean, that was
in essence, it was kind of the money shot what
you just said there. What I heard Justin say was
that when he came back, he had to change the
(40:57):
way that he approached the sport because what worked for
him before wouldn't work for him going forward. And so
he had to relearn everything that he knew. And that
was at a physical level, and that was at a
mental level. And it's really just an astonishing sort of
transformation that it sounds like he went through.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
Now, can we tie it into some ways of that
decision the tools we use in the decision process, Well,
it sounds.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
To me like the commitment and the follow through that
was associated with kind of the break through decision of
I'm coming back and I'm going to do whatever it takes.
Was something that had to be every day, and that
it was really fueled by this recognition that it was
(41:51):
his purpose for himself, and that there were a lot
of people that were a part of that purpose, that
were very much a part of his success and wanted
to see him successful, and that he loved them. And
that's part of what helped him to do it because
it was a challenging time.
Speaker 4 (42:12):
So that ties into values as well.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
The people that were important to him helped motivate him
to do certain things. I'd like to sort of wrap
it up with two things here, justin I'd like you
to talk about the decision in de finally retiring, how
that happens. That's a big decision for athletes, and also
you beating your same bolt put that in perspective and
accomplishments in your career only because of where he was
(42:34):
at the time. So first, your decision to retire, How
did you go about that decision?
Speaker 4 (42:39):
What were some of the important factors.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
I was scared to retire for a couple of years
and knew retirement was coming at least from twenty eighteen.
I knew that in the next couple of years, and
I had to think about retiring. I remember reading an
article I think Brett Favre said that, and you know,
Brett Farr had a hard time hiring too, so he said,
(43:03):
it feels like a piece of you dies. And when
he said that, that felt like a horror movie. To
me from an athlete's perspective, it felt like, oh, my
part of it is going to die. And then I
realized that there's going to be a moment in time
where I wake up and I'm never gonna have to
stretch again for practice, another get up for practice again.
They would have to go run again, never have to
do an a skip or wear spikes ever again in
(43:24):
my life? What am I going to do for rest
of my life? And then the pandemic happened and it
made things even more depressing. And then it gave me
opportunity in twenty twenty one to really look back and
see all the accolades that I achieved. I never took
(43:46):
the time to kind of witness my own greatness because
I always kind of set it aside and tried to
work on the next thing. So now I had the
opportunity to look back and say man, I did that.
When they speak of reference of like time or medals
or championships, I said, I did that. I did that.
I did that.
Speaker 4 (44:04):
I did that.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
I did that. Okay, awesome, What else can I do
in this sport except just be? So I felt like
it was a moment of time where I'd need to
make another adult decision in my life and say, okay,
but I'd rather just be and start, you know, not
have that passion I used to have and start getting
seconds and thirds and the spots and fifths in my
(44:25):
races just because it's all I knew, or could I
step out there on faith and find another adventure another
challenge for myself because I realized that my talent isn't
being fast. My talent is being resilient. My talent is
pushing myself to be a better person. And then I
(44:47):
got excited. Then I was like, I can do something else.
I can start a whole other career. So that kind
of pushed me towards retirement in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
If I can jump in there, that that's a huge
frame shift. And there was a lot of fear and
a lot of courage in recognizing that something that has
always you know, defined you justin running is your passions
(45:17):
as the thing that is all consuming wasn't going to
be something that was always there in that way, and
you needed to find a way to transform it to
something new. And it sounds like working with young athletes
has has become one of those things that you've you've
learned and found.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
So I felt like I'm obligated to tell these young
athletes coming up what it was for me, if they're
willing to, if they want to know what, they're willing
to listen because it can make their career much better,
it can make the sport much better. And that's really
what it comes down to.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Can you go back to briefly who the stakeholders were
or people you talk to when you decided to restart retire?
Speaker 2 (46:02):
My coach Dennis Mitchell why because he'd been down that road.
So I feel like if out of anybody who understood
what I was going through, I felt like my coach
would understand what what I'm what I would look to
do next in my life. And we talked for years.
We talked for almost three and a half years about retiring,
(46:23):
what it would look like for me where I need
to grow to making sure that you're ready for a
big move like that. But obviously emotions, I wasn't ready
for that part.
Speaker 4 (46:35):
In what ways, what do you mean, hm.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
I pushed so much down inside of me emotionally, my happiness,
my sadness, anger joy, because if you look at the
second half of my career, I always displayed little to
no joy or sadness. I was kind of just there.
(47:07):
I was that person. I was even right. So I
remember the moment I finished running at Olympic Trials and
I laid there after a whole night, hamstring sore, and
just like, all those emotions came out. Finally, all those
emotions came out, just all at once, just crying in tears,
(47:29):
and I was able to release myself and be who
I needed to be. But and a lot of people say,
always be you, That's which is true, But sometimes you
need to be something a little different to get the
job done. And I needed to be that person.
Speaker 4 (47:44):
Let's talk about when you beat both? Did you think
it could have happened sooner than that?
Speaker 2 (47:50):
I raised against him since two thousand and five. I
raised them always in my comeback from twelve on, and
I beat him in a one off race in Rome
in thirteen and ever since thirteen, we never raced against
each other in a one off race. It always was
a championship in the final, so I only would see
him one race each year, and then it was the
(48:12):
old versus the Noon. Then it was bad guy versus
good guy. Then it was Vinn versus Hero. So I
thought when it was time for me to win, and
when I saved time for me to win because I
worked hard for it and I knew this moment was
(48:32):
going to come. I didn't feel a little emotional connection
when I raced against anybody else because in twenty In
two thousand and eight, I was still suspended, and I
remember watching the Olympics in a bar. I sat with
some other athletes and their mind was just blown when
they came across the line, like they were just like
in shock, like they just saw an alien or something.
(48:53):
And the first thing came across my mind is I
want to race that I want to race that guy
because I feel like that person would push me to
a level that I've never been before. And that was
one of the reasons why I really wanted to come
back to the sport, because I wanted to be shoulder
shoulder with him at starting life and when it before
it happened, I remember, I was like, I was gonna
be like, yeah I did. I was gonna be so
(49:16):
arrogant and so cocky, you know what I mean, like usay,
b two, you out of here kind of thing. None
of that happened. Why no, it didn't happen, because if
you watched the video, I come across the line, I celebrate,
I hushed the crowd that were boring me for three rounds,
and then I proceed to pay homage by bowing to you,
(49:40):
saying and why I do that? So to this day,
so many people ask me that question because I've never
met a person in my life who forced me to
change who I was to be a better person. And
he did that.
Speaker 4 (49:52):
That's saying something.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
I had to literally change my whole program to beat him.
I could be ninety nine percent of the people in
the world by running a certain style of technique. I
had to change who I was as a person an
athlete to beat him.
Speaker 4 (50:09):
How is a person? Did you have to change as
a person?
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Because I always feel like I came into that environment
meeting like the Olympics or the World Championships thinking that
I had to be aggressive and angry and mean this monster,
and then I realized I had to be none of that.
I just had to be me. I had to be
the fighter. That's it. I realized at the end, being
myself was good enough. I was able to win no
(50:33):
matter what the time was. I was able to gut
it out and win like a champion.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
Chris, as you hear all this, anything you wanted to
add about how he took some of those situations and
made decisions for motivational purposes, for you know, adjusting thing
just in the what he does things.
Speaker 3 (50:52):
Yeah, well, something that occurred to me, Dave that I'm
not sure if you made this connection, but I think
it came out that we got started with this around
len Bias and the bad decision that he made, and
len Bias didn't get to recover from his bad decision,
and who knows, maybe he would have had a similar
(51:14):
transformation and insight if he had had kind of a
fall and then been able to pick himself up, but
he didn't get that opportunity. And it sounds like Justin
experienced that depth and even had some responses and some
struggles and realized that it was ultimately not where he
(51:38):
wanted to stop, but he wanted to come back. And
you know that frame shift and that commitment to rise
above it is really astounding and inspiring.
Speaker 5 (51:56):
This podcast series is based on the book Born Ready
The Mixed Legacy of Lembi, published by Go Grady Media.
The series is produced by Go graded Media in partnership
with Octagon Entertainment. This segment was produced by Dave Grady
and Don Marcus. It was written by daveon Grady and
edited by Don Marcus. The narrator was Dave Ungrady, with
additional narration by Jamal Williams. Technical production was provided by
(52:18):
Octagon Entertainment. Production assistance was produced by Kevin mcnelty, Tino Quagliata,
Lauren Ross, Georgia Brown, Casey Fair, Jamal Williams, Kelsey Mannox,
and enzol Al Varrenga. Matt Dohers is providing the social
media assistance special Thanks to the University of Maryland and
American University for providing inservice. The Decision Education Foundation is
(52:41):
a content and promotional partner of this podcast series. For
more information, go to Gogradymedia dot com. This has been
a production of Go Grady Media and the Eighth Side Network.
It's been quite a journey for Gatlin. No athlete in
track and field has returned to achieve such greatness after
serving a drug suspension.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I didn't want to be a cautionary tip, so I
fought hard not to be a cautionary kip.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Over the years, he's faced many difficult decisions, choosing a coach,
figuring out what to do with your time after you
were suspended, why to return the competition.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
It's always a challenge to come back from a bad
decision with a bad.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Outcomeany when I went through my depression, I felt like
I was useless. I felt like I didn't have a space,
and not necessarily became suicidal, but more I started leading
towards being reckless, you know. And I remember basically running
(01:03):
over almost like a rock or a herd, and I
could barely see straight. And this cop comes over to
me and says, hey, did you not see that rock
in the road. I was like nice. Oh, He's like, okay, cool,
make sure you get home safe. And that nice scared
the living crap out of me, because I realized that
not only could I make headlines again, it could be
(01:23):
ex Gold medalist dies or ex gold medalists kill somebody else.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
And what I am really impressed by this story, Justin,
is the way that you put it behind you. We
talk about some cost and you can't change the past.
You got to work on the future. And it sounds
like running was truly your fire in life and you
(01:49):
did everything to reclaim your success.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
The world will never understand how much pressure you have
to deal with, but only the world will see your actions,
how you react to situations, you know, and if you're
careless for that moment, they're going to think that you've
been careless all your life.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
In this segment of len Bias, A Mixed to Legacy,
Episode three of epilogue.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
The Importance of making the Right to suit.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
This is Dave Nngrady, executive producer of this podcast series.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
With this episode, we complete.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Our podcast series on the legacy of len Bias. We
feature an iconic figure in track and field, an Olympic
and World champion sprinter in his early twenties who later
served a four year drug suspension, only to return to
the sport in dramatic and triumphant ways. We're talking about
(02:55):
Justin Gatlin. Few people can claim they've beaten Usain Bolt
in a one hundred meter race. Justin Gatlin is one
of them, but that's not the most interesting part of
his story. At the age of twenty three, Gatlin seemed
destined to become an iconic sprinter. He was an Olympic
(03:17):
champion and world record holder in the one hundred meters
and a world champion in the one hundred meters and
two hundred meters, But the golden future faded after Gatlan
turned twenty four. In two thousand and six, he tested
positive for a banned substance and then served the four
year suspension from competition. But Gatlan showed impressive resilience and
(03:43):
returned to competition in twenty ten. By the end of
the twenty tens, he had reclaimed his position as one
of the top sprinters in the world. In twenty twelve,
Gatland won Olympic bronze in the one hundred meters. In
twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, and twenty fifteen, he was the
(04:04):
overall one hundred meter champion in the Diamond League Meat Series,
the top track and field pro circuit. He won silver
medals in the one hundred meters at the twenty thirteen
and twenty fifteen World Championships, Bolt beat him in both races.
In twenty seventeen, Gatlin finally beat Bolt in the one
(04:26):
hundred meters at the World Championships. Gatlan won his last
world medal in twenty nineteen, at the age of thirty seven.
It was a silver in the one hundred meters. It's
been quite a journey for Gatlan. No athlete in track
and field has returned to achieve such greatness after serving
(04:47):
a drug suspension. Over the years, Gatlin has faced many
difficult decisions to appeal his suspension, how to find work
when suspended, to try and play in the NFL, which
coaches to hire during his comeback, and when to retire.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
And Gatlin is.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
With us to talk about his unique career and the
decisions he made a big part of what we're trying
to do is use Len's story and legacy to promote
effective decision making. He made a better decision and it
created all these issues. So what do you recall remember,
(05:27):
if anything, about Len's story when you were growing up?
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Had you heard about him.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
As I became older and became a teenager and a
young adult, where obviously he was a cautionary tale for
me when I was growing up about making right choices
and right decisions, especially in the moments. Notice when you
are that athlete who can ascend to the next level
and you're hanging around with people who don't have that
(05:52):
same opportunity, so you have to make wise decisions. For me,
he was urban legend and still has been. You know,
like I said, I didn't know what his jersey number was.
I can tell you what college you went to, but
I can tell you the night of his story and
how it changed his life, how it changed everyone around him.
It opened my eyes up to see other athletes around
(06:14):
me making poor decisions or allowing their decisions be made
by someone else. So it shows you that, to be honest,
that limb bias kind of tail happens through sports repeatedly
even to this day.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Justin you faced some critical decisions in your life.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
We like to.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Call our decisions or three types life shaping, which are
long term decisions, significant decisions which are more short term
like four or five or six month impact, and in
the moment decisions, which are spontaneous decisions. Of all the
professional decisions you faced choosing a coach, figuring out what
(06:57):
to do with your time after you were suspended, Why
to return the competition and what was the most significant
for you of all those or was there something else?
Speaker 2 (07:07):
I felt like for me coming back in the sport,
it had to be the environment, choosing the right coach,
choosing the right training partners to be able to sharpen
my skills with I felt. I don't want to say
I stumbled along the way, but coming back was a
hard climb for me because you know, when I came
into the sport, it was almost hand and glove made
for me. You know, NCAA champion, get whisked away to
(07:30):
one of the best coaches, get whisked away to one
of the best sponsors. So my comeback was actually a climb,
like I had to find the right coaching system, had
to find the right coach who had the same you know,
ideology that I had about being one of the best
in the world.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Take us through that decision. What was the process? Who
did you talk to? How did you figure out the
best way to make that decision?
Speaker 2 (07:55):
So for me, family is everything and circle too. I
try to keep my circle tight and just natchurally that way,
and throughout my ups and downs, my agent's been with me.
You know through me being Olympic champion to even through
the hard times of four years of being away from
my sport. He could have just left me and be like, hey,
(08:16):
you're not making any money, you know, we can go
our ways. But he was a godsend to me, and
once I came back to the sport, he helped me
find a coach that would be good for me in
that moment. So I start off with a coach in
Atlanta and it just didn't pan out. The rhythm of
it wasn't right, you know, it just wasn't the right
(08:37):
fit for me because it wasn't getting me where I
need to be competition wise. So then I moved to
Orlando where I found a coach and this coach took
me on even with my name being money at that
point in time, and Brooks Johnson took me on. And
I was with Brooks for about a year and a
half and unfortunately we didn't have sparring partners there for
me like to really train with. So I moved across
(08:59):
town to another coach where he had top elite athletes
that I could be able to sharpen my skills with.
And I stayed in Claremont with Dennis Mitchell for about
since twenty twelve up to the time I retired, which
was twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
But there was also Trevor Graham, who was your first coach, and.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
When we talked about decision making.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
I'd like to get into this your head a little
bit on this, Trevor Graham. If I recall when you
picked him, he was connected to.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
Marion Jones who was having drug issues.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Correct, So when we were talking about your decision making,
I would imagine you had to anticipate picking these coaches
might maybe best for you, but people are going to
start thinking about why is he going to these coaches?
How did that affect your decision making?
Speaker 2 (09:45):
If at all, it was the fact that I was
a twenty year old naive kid who didn't know nothing
about the track and field professional realm. I didn't even
know what a coach. A professional track and field coach
looked like. I'm a six ton NCAA champion. I didn't
know what it took to turn pro. All I know
is I need to run my ass off, and if
(10:05):
I run my ass off, then I'm gonna get noticed.
When my phone rang, that was gonna be Trevor Graham
and what his back is backing was no. Then then
I got a phone call from Nike, so it was like, Okay,
my dreams are coming true. And obviously, from the outside
looking in as a young athlete, I don't know the
intricate workings of a professional realm. I didn't know anything
(10:25):
about the drug scandal that was about to happen because
it didn't happen right when I turned pro, you know.
So I'm working with the guy who is who was
working with one of my idols at that point in time,
which was Marion Jones, and when he won the Golden
Sydney and I just turned pro in two thousand and two,
so the world was a buzz. I was happy. I
was elated. I was I couldn't have been in a
(10:46):
better place. I was about to train with one of
the people I looked up to, and I was about
to be signed by the same company. I thought, Yeah,
the writing for me was on the wall that I
was going to be the next great sprinter in America,
and I was ready to take on that challenge and responsibility.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
This is Dave Ngrady, executive producer of this podcast series.
I'm talking with Olympic and world sprint champion Justin Gatlin
and Chris Spetzler, executive director of the Decision Education Foundation,
about critical decisions made by Gatlin in his career. Let's
now bring in again, Chris Spetzler, the executive director of
(11:27):
the Decision Education Foundation, a content partner in this podcast series.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Can you offer any any insight? And I know you
and I have.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Talked a lot about framing a decision where you've got
to you've got to find the stakeholders who are going
to help you make that decision. Does that work in
here or or is there something else we're missing?
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Let me let me back up a little bit and
take a couple of different things. One of the first
things that I heard Justin talk about was his values
and how important his family is to him, And in
the latter part of the story, it sounds like that
has played a huge role in his resilience and his
(12:04):
commitment and his follow through even when he had to
figure out through a couple different experiences with a couple
different coaches, what was really going to work for him.
And that's important to me in that story because it's
something that stands in contrast to the first situation. The
(12:28):
first decision was one that felt like a no brainer
and didn't have the benefit of the later experiences, and
was just that this is the way it's supposed to be.
It's almost faded, and there wasn't a lot of search
for alternatives because it just didn't seem like it was needed.
(12:50):
It was the way to go and on automatic. You know,
you have to recognize that you're making a decision for
it to be a conscious decision.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
And was that a conscious decision in your mind at
that point, for justin the early one with the coach.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Well, I'm sure that it was a conscious decision that
he knew he was signing up for that coach and
that sponsor. On the other hand, it sounds like there
wasn't a lot of thought about what other alternatives and
does this align with my values? It was just this
is the way it's supposed to be, and I'm going
for it.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
So most of the decisions that I made going forward
were not by me. It was also by my parents
and my circle. They thoroughly vetted Trevor, they thoroughly vetted
even Nike. We didn't know much about the track and
field work, more professional aspect, so we can only ask
questions that we felt were on a moral level, and
(13:48):
we got so much reinsurance. No, man, your sons is
in good hands. He's going to be great. You know,
he has great talent. We're going to make sure that
we nurture that talent. So when all these stories started
coming out and this scandal start happening, we were reassured
that none of this was going to blow back and
we weren't going to be put in an awkward situation
(14:09):
in this story. So we've sat at a round table
and we discussed and we moved forward. We knew that
none of us were testing pilative at that point in time.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
So clearly you were consulting with the stakeholders, the other
people who had input could provide authoritative input into your decision.
And to clarify for our listeners, both Jones well Jones
was ultimately she ultimately admitted using, if I'm correct, using
a banned substances, although she denied it for years. And
Trevor Graham was kicked basically kicked out of the sport
(14:40):
for yeah uh, for his involvement with athletes and performance
enhancing drugs.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
Now, let's let's just get talking.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
About Dennis s Mitchel quickly, because I remember when you
picked him, Dennis Mitchell had a history of performance enhancing
drugs connections, baby can, but you still decided to go
with him.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
Can you explain that decision process?
Speaker 2 (15:04):
After my suspension, coming back and expressing myself to coach
Brokes about what was needed, and he agreed with me
that I needed training partners. So that's where Thennis name
came into the picture. He had an incident that came
up with a drug suspension almost more than twenty years
ago when he was running, you know, so it was
(15:25):
him as a runner, not as a coach. And then
I literally had a man dea man conversation with him.
I took him out to eat, We had some chicken
wings and we had some beer. We had a real
man talk and said, hey, this is what I need,
this is what I don't need in my life. And
he explained, this is what I needed my life as
a runner and an athlete, and this is what I
don't need in my life. And we shook hands right there.
(15:47):
We agreed to be able to work with each other
with no kind of incident, no kind of disruption, and
I think we kind of had a kindred spirit because
we were like, we don't want to feel that pain anymore.
We just want to go out and run and compete.
I want to be the best coach I can be.
I want to be the best athlete ACT can be.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Chris, as you've heard Justin, explain a conversation you had
with Dennis Mitchell, his most recent coach, and how how
he went about making that decision that one on one.
How does that fit into the proper way to make
a decision in that situation.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
It's always a challenge to come back from a bad
decision with a bad outcome. And what I am really
impressed by in this story, Justin, is the way that
you put it behind you. We talk about sun cost
and you can't change the past. You got to work
(16:40):
on the future. And it sounds like running was truly
your fire in life and you did everything to reclaim
your success. And that's just really inspiring.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Okay, Justin, let's go back even a little more. When
you realize that you work to be able to compete
for four years. And I remember when I was working
at WCSN, it came down and did a story for
you for them. You were about a year in and
you were a personal trainer. That's how you were getting
some of your income. You were living in an apartment
(17:15):
in Georgia in Atlanta.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
If I recall, and I I remember it not being
a very.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Maybe rewarding time for you, or it was a challenging time.
What was your decision making process about.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
The next step.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
I think the first year in was so surreal to me.
It felt like I was away from my sport just
extended period. For that first year at least, I watched
the Olympics. I watched every meet that I could. I
watched people I were competed against. But it did make
(17:51):
me sad to watch it. It made me inspired to
work harder to come back. I looked at I guess
you call it the long the long picture of things
or the long goal of things, you know, And for
me it was I had nothing to lose. At first,
when I was in my situation, I was looking at
(18:14):
a lifetime ban. Okay, then it got reduced to eight right,
and then I fought that down to four right. But
coming back now, in that first year of my suspension,
it was like they I can't really explain it. It
just felt like so weird. I felt like out of
(18:34):
place in life and society because all I knew was
track and field. You know, all I knew was that
was my success. That's how I made my money, that's
how I earned my earned the living, That's where my
fire came from. So when that wasn't there for me,
I tried to figure out other things that I could do.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
So what were your values at that time?
Speaker 1 (18:55):
But Chris has mentioned reference values determined a lot about
your decision making was iant What was most important to
you at that time? Was it finding a job, We're
you gonna make money or was it finding something that
you're gonna have fun with a.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Little bit of gutting it out and finding what I
loved because you remember I ran track from from the
moment at high school like fifteen, sixteen years old, right,
and then became state champion, then became six time NCAA champion,
then became Olympic champion, then became world champion, then became
(19:28):
war record holder. So everything that in my young adult
life was centered around track. And so when you took
me out of it, I felt like I was nothing.
So I had to rediscover who justed was in those
years that I was away from track.
Speaker 4 (19:43):
So you were considering football, you had to try it.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
I did. I had a couple a couple of trials
with a couple of teams.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
Yeah right, how'd that go?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
It was a different experience. I enjoyed it because it
made me. It forced me to learn what it is
to be in a different realm, a different world. I
wasn't just floating around, So I literally had to be
disciplined for football, to lift, to learn the routes to
become a football player, mold myself to become a football player.
I think that I would be able to make at
(20:11):
least to a practice squad, you know what I mean,
and see where it goes from there. But track would
leave me alone, even being well suspended, like in the
middle of my suspension, Track will not leave me alone.
Like I laid in bed at a rookie at a
mini camp and bucket at the Buccaneers, and I remember
(20:35):
looking at the ceiling at one o'clock in the morning,
just thinking like, why am I trying so hard to
fit into a sport that's already going to alienate me?
Because I'm a track athlete, I shouldn't be on the
football field. Probably can't catch, so I'm already gonna be judged,
so I feel like if I'm going to be judged,
be judging around where I know that I can excel,
which is track and field. So I felt like I
(20:56):
had to make my way back into a sport that
I once.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Was a camp about what the de sense to become
a personal trainer. Why that became so important.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
I have a big heart for young athletes, and I
think some of the best times in my life, other
than having my children, some of the best time of
my life, like working wise, was being a runner, discovering
where it's going to take me, to the opportunity to
show everyone my talent, the praise, the glory that come
(21:24):
up with it. So when I see young athletes, I
see a little bit of me and all that like
working hard, trying to find themselves, especially in track, because
I told you before, there's not a lot of people
telling these young athletes how to turn pro, so they're
just kind of guessing as they go. So I wanted
(21:44):
to help a lot of these kids were coming to
me ages from like sixteen seventeen all way down to
like six years old, so I had I'll train these
young athletes just to be better, have better form, even
if they were working on in a different sport.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Chris, as you're hearing Justin talk now and he's making
all these decisions, are you seeing any evolution in his
decision making process or any insight?
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Well?
Speaker 3 (22:07):
I share that huge value that I get out of
working with young people, and I have only recognized that
over time, and it's the source of real passion and fire.
And what I hear in this story is, you know,
if everything had gone perfectly for you justin, I'm not
(22:30):
sure that you would have grown as much as an individual,
as painful as it's been. And it sounds like you're
creating a tremendous amount of value and getting a lot
of real value out of working with these young people,
just because you had an experience that wasn't an easy
(22:51):
one and were able to come back from it.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Yeah. I tell myself all the time. I actually think
of saying, what if I wasn't suspended, what I be
the person I am today? I think my time away
from the sport kind of opened my heart up to
see from a different angle. You know, I remember training
with this athlete when I lived in Atlanta and he
was training for the long jump, and he was living
(23:14):
out of his car. He didn't A lot of people
didn't know this. I pulled up the practice one day
early and I saw, you know, and you could tell
when somebody's kind of moving or they're living out of
their car. I kept it to myself. But one thing
I did watch. I watched his progression. I watched how
he grew had grew confidence, and I also made sure
I reassured him every day, you know, And he went
on to make the Olympic team. That was his goal
(23:37):
in his dream. He went from living in his car
to make the Olympic team. And even though he fouled
out at the Olympics, he had the biggest smile on
his face because he finally made it. And if I
would have been to Justine and never been away from
track and fields, I would have never witnessed something like that.
I think I would have been jaded to the fact
that success should it became easy for everybody.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
Chris and Justin tells that story.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
We talked about good decision, bad outcome, bad decision, good outcome,
and I was gonna ask Justin if you ever recalled
any bad decision he felt he made that a good
outcome and vice versa.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
But that seems that that decision.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
That he made to become a trainer, maybe he didn't
foresee this happening, but it had several different forms of
good outcomes.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
Can you put that in perspective?
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Let me back up a second.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Okay, so justin I I think I've already made it clear.
I'm pretty blown away and inspired by your story. And
it's been some tough stuff. I imagine when all of
this went down, there was a tremendous amount of regreat.
(24:47):
So one of the things we talk about decision traps,
which is about cognitive biases, and one of the things
that human beings do is picture the world that they
want and minimum the world that they don't want and
don't expect, and so that kind of pushes decisions in
(25:07):
a direction. You know, potentially we call it over confidence.
It sounds to me like you also relied on a
group of people that supported you in your training and
your decision making, and that there was a natural progression
that was a part of that. Maybe it was also
not a fully conscious kind of decision situation. You know,
(25:30):
this is we're just moving forward and we're doing the
things we're doing. I'm blown away that we're sitting here
talking about this because I didn't certainly didn't know of
your story, and your honesty with all of this is
just amazing to me. And then that story of like, Okay,
so now I'm on this the other side of this,
(25:51):
this really sucks. What do I do now? And rather
than staying that, you dug yourself out of it and
you found the people to support you in getting out
of it, and you came back and you did the
things that they've went through, and that's I mean, that's
(26:15):
really quite astounding, and it must have been a deep
down that you'd never expected.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
You never know how tough you are to you put
in a situation where you have to be tough and
how tough you need to be to be able to
survive and thrive and hold onto your goals and ambitions.
I feel like everything was taken from me, my identity.
Even when I watched shows like or Track Meets, they
(26:46):
wouldn't even speak of my name. So it's like everything
I worked hard for was just kind of like blown
away in the wind. Eventually I would just be an
outcast and someone who was in the sport years ago.
So I didn't want it to be that way because
I felt like I had so much more to give,
not only to the sport, but to the next generation
(27:08):
when it came to my upside, my downs. You know,
I never never want to see anybody go through the
situation that I went through. I wouldn't wish it on
anybody because it was such a smack of my face
of reality that I went through so many different variations
of anger, depression, chicking my shoulder that I once I
(27:29):
came back into the sport, I had to like mold
all this energy that I had balled up inside me
for so long and somehow projected into training and somehow
projected into competition. You know. So those four years were
pivotal not only for my career but for my life.
(27:54):
You know, it grew me, It grew me so much.
So I I hear two things and and the the
frame I'd like you to be in is like advising
the young athletes or any young person.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
And the first one is, you know, if you could
go back to before all of this went down, what
would you suggest somebody facing that situation do differently? And
then the second one is, you know, when you're in
your deepest, darkest recovery.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
How do you.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Not let get go of hope and come back because
those are two very different things, but you've got special
insight into them.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
I guess I would tell young athletes today that are
that are making the same moves and walking the same
path that I walked, is believe in yourself. Know who
you are, not only move like an athlete. Start to
understand business. Start to understand people who are going to
make decisions for your life. You know, like that's going
(29:04):
to change your life, it may not change their life
that much. And that's what I went through, And I
felt like walking into a door and saying, oh, this
is what it is. Okay, I'll let you handle what
you handle. I'm just gonna worry about focus on running,
and that's it. And I think for me, that was
that should have been a red flag in my in
(29:27):
my twenty twenty hindsight, where I should have took those
situations where I might have scratched my head and said,
ham let's figure something out here, let's do a better
job of doing a little more research. So for the
young athletes, I say, as much as you want to
be a professional athlete, be a business person too. Your
(29:49):
brand now, especially the young athletes. You're a brand, remember
who you are because at the end of the day,
you make the decisions for yourself. And I didn't have
the opportunity, and I wish that I could move back
and change that.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
We talked about decision power, and it sounds like you
trusted others with your decision power, and if you could
do it again, you wish you.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Had held on to that decision power. Absolutely absolutely, And
I think that that's how success is built. And if
it's something that you love, you should pay attention to
the details, and those young athletes should do so well.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Just so then there's the other side of it, right
and and some of this stuff is really tough. I mean,
we know that there are kids out there that give
up hope and leave this world and that kind of stuff.
You were in the depths and you found the strength
to come back. So you know, when someone experiences that
(30:46):
kind of a you know, trauma to their life, what
did you learn and what can you share in terms
of pulling yourself back together.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
I had so many different feelings through my process of
my ups and downs, and it reminds me of the
point where I came to depression, because depression is such
a big thing right now for a lot of people,
they're realizing depression doesn't just mean that you're sad and
crying all the time. When I went through my depression,
(31:22):
I felt like I was useless. I felt like I
didn't have a place, and not necessarily became suicidal, but
more I started leaning towards being reckless, you know, like
going out and party on the weekday, getting so drunk
that my eyes are blurry. Who's going to drive me home?
I'm going to drive me home kind of thing, you know.
(31:44):
And I remember basically running over almost like a rock
or a curb, and I could barely see straight. And
this cop comes over to me and says, hey, did
you not see that rock in the road. I was like, no,
I see it. Oh He's like, okay, cool, you get
home safe now. I knew he knew he could see
that I drink it, you know what I mean. It
(32:04):
was hard for me to hide it. That's how drunk
I was. And that night scared the living crap out
of me because I realized that not only could I
make headlines again, it could be ex gold medalist dies
or ex gold medalists kill somebody else, and I started
thinking in the big frame of things. So that depression,
(32:28):
I looked back at it and said, Okay, all the
people who were in my circle who wanted me to
do well, lift me up. If I checked out now
in any kind of form, in any kind of way,
then I would be doing them with the service because
they vouched for me, they fought for me, they love me,
and doing anything less would have been an injustice to them.
(32:49):
And I think I didn't care about anybodlse in the world,
but the people who cared for me, and that's why
we wanted to make a change. So for those young athletes,
do always think about yourself. Think about the people who
been helping you get to where you are. Your mom,
your dad, your guardians, it might be even coaches or
principles or whoever else out there, but the ones that
have your best interests at heart. Think about them in
(33:11):
the hard times that you're having.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
I see such a correlation to what lend Bias could
have been thinking as well if he had a different
frame of mind. Oh, how how is what I'm doing
here going to affect someone else?
Speaker 4 (33:25):
It's gonna have It's gonna affect other people. He never
did that.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
When he decided to consume so much cocaine so early
in the morning and party like that, he was thinking
right in front of him, how am I going to
please myself? He would clearly lost perspective of where he was.
So I see a really strong direct correlation between that
situation that he didn't survive in your situation, which you
(33:49):
did survive, exactly, you're coming out on the on the
on the good side of this in a way.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
When I was in those situations, I really had that
time to think it has some clarity. Situations like limbias
really came to mind because it was like, the world
will never understand how much pain you're in, the world
will never understand how much pressure you have to deal with.
But only the world will see your actions, how you
(34:15):
react to situations, you know, and if you're careless for
that moment, they're going to think that you've been careless
all your life, you know. So for me, it was
taking on that responsibility and obligation of realizing I have
to walk a certain line to be the athlete I
want to be, but also I couldn't be a careless
(34:35):
person and still give so much inspiration to young athletes
that are coming behind me. I didn't want to be
a cautionary tale, so I thought hard not to be
a cautionary tale. I have I have one thing that
I'd like to ask.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
For David Field and indulge me. So We're spending all
of this time on kind of this down stuff, and
I'm working on integrating the decision stuff into a health course,
and I don't really want to talk so much about
mental health as sort of the positive psychology stuff that
has to do with mental edge. And you've been talking
(35:12):
about how you pulled it back together. Could you just
spend a little bit of time talking about, like, when
you're really on your game, how that feels, and how
you get there and how you stay there, Because you know,
we spend all this time on the other stuff. You
(35:33):
have been and are champion and so you know at
that elite level what it takes to be on your game.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Totally different side of the coin. I love this side
of the coin because coming back through all that and
started being back on my game, it felt good because
I wasn't clouded by fan cheers. I wasn't distracted by
bandwagon fans or people want a moment in the spotlight,
(36:04):
I was mugged. When I came back, I had to
like create a persona that kind of protected me, the
soft justice, the justice that wants to be friends with
everybody and have fun. I had to create this hard
out of shell that said, you know what you're hearing.
Hand of business. I had to be strong enough to
take on anything as I stepped into that stadium, let
(36:25):
it be distractions or booze or anything. I knew what
my objective was because I had so much clarity now,
I knew what rock bottom looked like. So the toughness
was staying the course, staying dialed in, making not only
my sport a sport or a job, but making it
my lifestyle. That's what it was for me. I was doing.
(36:45):
I was doing five hundred to six hundred sit ups
every night. I was doing one hundred to two hundred
push ups every night. Before. I was walking around like
a cage animal in my hotel room, counting the time
for it. I had to lead to go downstairs and
catch the bus because I knew that I knew what
it felt like to fail. I knew what it felt
like to fail in life. At that point in time.
(37:06):
I knew what it felt like to live in an
apartment in Atlanta that was infested by bugs and roaches.
I knew what it failed to fall, and I didn't
want to fall anymore. I said, I was tired of it.
I was sick of falling. So I said, you know what,
I'm gonna do the out I'm just gonna go out
here and not care about anything and just run. If
I got a lane, great, I have opportunity, and I'm
(37:27):
gonna run my butt off to be able to make
this next team and run my butt off to be recognized.
I'm run my butt off to get a meet that
were blackballing me and blackness to me and beaten by
me doing that, and stay in the course and never
really talking to the media as in the sense of life,
woe was me. I just want to show my talent.
That's it.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
This is Dave Ngrady, executive producer of this podcast series.
I'm talking with Olympic and World sprint champion Justin Gatlin
and Chris Spetzler, executive director of the Decision Education Foundation,
about critical decisions made by Gatlin in his career. I
do recall when you came back there were a lot
(38:09):
of meat directors who wouldn't even consider you.
Speaker 4 (38:12):
And this is part of what I wrote in the
New York Times story. A lot of meat directors didn't.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Want to talk to you, didn't want to consider you
for the races because they were concerned about your history.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
You know. I just always looked at myself as the
good guy, you know, and I just wanted the opportunity
to come back, and with those meat promoters not allowing me,
I remember my agent saying, Hey, it's not about where
you run, it's how you run. So if you get
the opportunity to jump on the track and run anywhere,
make sure that you look at it as the Olympic
(38:43):
finals or you running for the last race of your life.
And that's the ideology that I took into every race
coming back into the sport was I was running for
my life because at that point in time, it was
a lot of meat that I couldn't get into and
I went I had to go to meets where it
wouldn't even cover my airfare, so I was still losing out.
I was just running. So it was a struggle. It
(39:05):
was a struggle for me, but I stayed the course
and a lot of my people in a circle with
my family, my friends, like they believed in me that
I could come back, and that was one of my
sources of power.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Did you feel like your confidence level was any different
when you got on the track. Did you feel more motivated?
Speaker 2 (39:24):
I felt like coming back, I felt like I still
was trying to find what my purpose was. You know,
in the beginning of my career, I did have purpose.
I was supposed to be the next great one. But
coming back in the sport, you got to remember there
was a lot of fast guys. Almost all those guys
were running nine seven by the time I came back
into the sport. And you know, I left the sport
running nine seven. I was almost half a decade before.
(39:47):
So I had to figure out how I can be
able to put myself back into a situation where I
could flourish. It was uncomfortable for me because I had
to change a lot of physical things about me as well.
If you watch a lot of my races from the beginning,
I was I didn't get out the blocks very well,
(40:08):
or at least I got out with the field, you know,
and I could run away from everybody. Now I was
in a realm where everyone was pretty much on paper,
faster than me. So I had to get out in
front of the field and hold that race pattern and
be able to finish the race. So I had to
change not only mentally, I had to change physically. I
had to become a whole new athlete. I had to
(40:30):
throw away all the things that made me who I was,
who made me a Olympic gold medalist. I had to
be able to evolve before.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
I say something, let me just I mean, that was
in essence, it was kind of the money shot what
you just said there. What I heard Justin say was
that when he came back, he had to change the
(40:57):
way that he approached the sport because what worked for
him before wouldn't work for him going forward. And so
he had to relearn everything that he knew. And that
was at a physical level, and that was at a
mental level. And it's really just an astonishing sort of
transformation that it sounds like he went through.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
Now, can we tie it into some ways of that
decision the tools we use in the decision process, Well,
it sounds.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
To me like the commitment and the follow through that
was associated with kind of the break through decision of
I'm coming back and I'm going to do whatever it takes.
Was something that had to be every day, and that
it was really fueled by this recognition that it was
(41:51):
his purpose for himself, and that there were a lot
of people that were a part of that purpose, that
were very much a part of his success and wanted
to see him successful, and that he loved them. And
that's part of what helped him to do it because
it was a challenging time.
Speaker 4 (42:12):
So that ties into values as well.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
The people that were important to him helped motivate him
to do certain things. I'd like to sort of wrap
it up with two things here, justin I'd like you
to talk about the decision in de finally retiring, how
that happens. That's a big decision for athletes, and also
you beating your same bolt put that in perspective and
accomplishments in your career only because of where he was
(42:34):
at the time. So first, your decision to retire, How
did you go about that decision?
Speaker 4 (42:39):
What were some of the important factors.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
I was scared to retire for a couple of years
and knew retirement was coming at least from twenty eighteen.
I knew that in the next couple of years, and
I had to think about retiring. I remember reading an
article I think Brett Favre said that, and you know,
Brett Farr had a hard time hiring too, so he said,
(43:03):
it feels like a piece of you dies. And when
he said that, that felt like a horror movie. To
me from an athlete's perspective, it felt like, oh, my
part of it is going to die. And then I
realized that there's going to be a moment in time
where I wake up and I'm never gonna have to
stretch again for practice, another get up for practice again.
They would have to go run again, never have to
do an a skip or wear spikes ever again in
(43:24):
my life? What am I going to do for rest
of my life? And then the pandemic happened and it
made things even more depressing. And then it gave me
opportunity in twenty twenty one to really look back and
see all the accolades that I achieved. I never took
(43:46):
the time to kind of witness my own greatness because
I always kind of set it aside and tried to
work on the next thing. So now I had the
opportunity to look back and say man, I did that.
When they speak of reference of like time or medals
or championships, I said, I did that. I did that.
I did that.
Speaker 4 (44:04):
I did that.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
I did that. Okay, awesome, What else can I do
in this sport except just be? So I felt like
it was a moment of time where I'd need to
make another adult decision in my life and say, okay,
but I'd rather just be and start, you know, not
have that passion I used to have and start getting
seconds and thirds and the spots and fifths in my
(44:25):
races just because it's all I knew, or could I
step out there on faith and find another adventure another
challenge for myself because I realized that my talent isn't
being fast. My talent is being resilient. My talent is
pushing myself to be a better person. And then I
(44:47):
got excited. Then I was like, I can do something else.
I can start a whole other career. So that kind
of pushed me towards retirement in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
If I can jump in there, that that's a huge
frame shift. And there was a lot of fear and
a lot of courage in recognizing that something that has
always you know, defined you justin running is your passions
(45:17):
as the thing that is all consuming wasn't going to
be something that was always there in that way, and
you needed to find a way to transform it to
something new. And it sounds like working with young athletes
has has become one of those things that you've you've
learned and found.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
So I felt like I'm obligated to tell these young
athletes coming up what it was for me, if they're
willing to, if they want to know what, they're willing
to listen because it can make their career much better,
it can make the sport much better. And that's really
what it comes down to.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Can you go back to briefly who the stakeholders were
or people you talk to when you decided to restart retire?
Speaker 2 (46:02):
My coach Dennis Mitchell why because he'd been down that road.
So I feel like if out of anybody who understood
what I was going through, I felt like my coach
would understand what what I'm what I would look to
do next in my life. And we talked for years.
We talked for almost three and a half years about retiring,
(46:23):
what it would look like for me where I need
to grow to making sure that you're ready for a
big move like that. But obviously emotions, I wasn't ready
for that part.
Speaker 4 (46:35):
In what ways, what do you mean, hm.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
I pushed so much down inside of me emotionally, my happiness,
my sadness, anger joy, because if you look at the
second half of my career, I always displayed little to
no joy or sadness. I was kind of just there.
(47:07):
I was that person. I was even right. So I
remember the moment I finished running at Olympic Trials and
I laid there after a whole night, hamstring sore, and
just like, all those emotions came out. Finally, all those
emotions came out, just all at once, just crying in tears,
(47:29):
and I was able to release myself and be who
I needed to be. But and a lot of people say,
always be you, That's which is true, But sometimes you
need to be something a little different to get the
job done. And I needed to be that person.
Speaker 4 (47:44):
Let's talk about when you beat both? Did you think
it could have happened sooner than that?
Speaker 2 (47:50):
I raised against him since two thousand and five. I
raised them always in my comeback from twelve on, and
I beat him in a one off race in Rome
in thirteen and ever since thirteen, we never raced against
each other in a one off race. It always was
a championship in the final, so I only would see
him one race each year, and then it was the
(48:12):
old versus the Noon. Then it was bad guy versus
good guy. Then it was Vinn versus Hero. So I
thought when it was time for me to win, and
when I saved time for me to win because I
worked hard for it and I knew this moment was
(48:32):
going to come. I didn't feel a little emotional connection
when I raced against anybody else because in twenty In
two thousand and eight, I was still suspended, and I
remember watching the Olympics in a bar. I sat with
some other athletes and their mind was just blown when
they came across the line, like they were just like
in shock, like they just saw an alien or something.
(48:53):
And the first thing came across my mind is I
want to race that I want to race that guy
because I feel like that person would push me to
a level that I've never been before. And that was
one of the reasons why I really wanted to come
back to the sport, because I wanted to be shoulder
shoulder with him at starting life and when it before
it happened, I remember, I was like, I was gonna
be like, yeah I did. I was gonna be so
(49:16):
arrogant and so cocky, you know what I mean, like usay,
b two, you out of here kind of thing. None
of that happened. Why no, it didn't happen, because if
you watched the video, I come across the line, I celebrate,
I hushed the crowd that were boring me for three rounds,
and then I proceed to pay homage by bowing to you,
(49:40):
saying and why I do that? So to this day,
so many people ask me that question because I've never
met a person in my life who forced me to
change who I was to be a better person. And
he did that.
Speaker 4 (49:52):
That's saying something.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
I had to literally change my whole program to beat him.
I could be ninety nine percent of the people in
the world by running a certain style of technique. I
had to change who I was as a person an
athlete to beat him.
Speaker 4 (50:09):
How is a person? Did you have to change as
a person?
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Because I always feel like I came into that environment
meeting like the Olympics or the World Championships thinking that
I had to be aggressive and angry and mean this monster,
and then I realized I had to be none of that.
I just had to be me. I had to be
the fighter. That's it. I realized at the end, being
myself was good enough. I was able to win no
(50:33):
matter what the time was. I was able to gut
it out and win like a champion.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
Chris, as you hear all this, anything you wanted to
add about how he took some of those situations and
made decisions for motivational purposes, for you know, adjusting thing
just in the what he does things.
Speaker 3 (50:52):
Yeah, well, something that occurred to me, Dave that I'm
not sure if you made this connection, but I think
it came out that we got started with this around
len Bias and the bad decision that he made, and
len Bias didn't get to recover from his bad decision,
and who knows, maybe he would have had a similar
(51:14):
transformation and insight if he had had kind of a
fall and then been able to pick himself up, but
he didn't get that opportunity. And it sounds like Justin
experienced that depth and even had some responses and some
struggles and realized that it was ultimately not where he
(51:38):
wanted to stop, but he wanted to come back. And
you know that frame shift and that commitment to rise
above it is really astounding and inspiring.
Speaker 5 (51:56):
This podcast series is based on the book Born Ready
The Mixed Legacy of Lembi, published by Go Grady Media.
The series is produced by Go graded Media in partnership
with Octagon Entertainment. This segment was produced by Dave Grady
and Don Marcus. It was written by daveon Grady and
edited by Don Marcus. The narrator was Dave Ungrady, with
additional narration by Jamal Williams. Technical production was provided by
(52:18):
Octagon Entertainment. Production assistance was produced by Kevin mcnelty, Tino Quagliata,
Lauren Ross, Georgia Brown, Casey Fair, Jamal Williams, Kelsey Mannox,
and enzol Al Varrenga. Matt Dohers is providing the social
media assistance special Thanks to the University of Maryland and
American University for providing inservice. The Decision Education Foundation is
(52:41):
a content and promotional partner of this podcast series. For
more information, go to Gogradymedia dot com. This has been
a production of Go Grady Media and the Eighth Side Network.
Popular Podcasts
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com