LOCAL HERO

Michael Johnson is one of the all-time greatest Olympians – and one of the region’s most recognizable ambassadors abroad

By STEVE PATE

Thursday, July 29, 2010 - 11:27am

It’s only fitting that the greatest runner of all time will serve as a goodwill ambassador for Super Bowl XLV.

Not because Michael Johnson is from Dallas. But rather because he, like the North Texas Host Committee, chose to defy conventional wisdom and dared to go – very quickly, mind you -- where no one had ever gone before.

For the Host Committee, that means staging a year-long series of extravaganzas rather than a few events over a few days leading up to the game in Feb. 2011; and, it means involving an entire region, not just one city, in the overall production.

For Michael Johnson, it meant running away from the world’s fastest athletes in both the 200 and 400 meters. World class sprinters have often run the 100 and 200 meters at the same meet. But a 200-400 double? No way. The experts said a runner was more likely to burn himself out in both events and walk off without any medal.

The skills, the stamina, the preliminary heats leading up to the final races, all were just too demanding and improbable.

We caught up with Michael Johnson at the Dallas Crescent’s Capital Grille on Thursday afternoon, April 16, and he relived the days he defied both gravity and logic to win 200 and 400-meter gold at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

“Everyone else was saying, ‘You can’t run the 200 meters and the 400 meters,” Johnson recalled. “I made history because the cookie-cutter approach was, if you’re a 400-meter runner you run the 400 meters. The only people running the 200 meters were 100-meter guys.

“In that same way, there have been cookie-cutter approaches to hosting Super Bowls. The thinking is: ‘What did the last Super Bowl Host Committee do?’ Well, these [North Texas] guys are not going to do that. The approach here is we’re going to do something that’s never been done before.”

Johnson won four Olympic golds, and a remarkable nine world championship medals. No silvers, no bronze. All gold.

“It takes natural ability, which I was blessed with,” Johnson said. “It takes a lot of hard work.” He smiled and added, “It takes a lot of luck, and good fortune, which I had. Then you take that opportunity that is there and you take advantage of that opportunity.”

Sort of like a Super Bowl. Grab the one that’s in front of you and hold it tight.

Johnson competed in three Olympics – Barcelona (1992), Atlanta (’96) and Sydney (2000). As a representative for such sponsors as Coca-Cola and Nike, he has also attended eight Super Bowls – three in Miami, two in Phoenix, and one in Atlanta, Jacksonville and San Diego.

At each of those Super Bowls, Johnson says he could not help but think how great the North Texas area would be at staging the event.

“It seems it would have to happen eventually that North Texas would help host a Super Bowl,” he said. “The region is very vibrant. Obviously, with the Cowboys based here, being anointed America’s Team, a Super Bowl had to come here.

“North Texas has a very festive mentality. People like to dress up here. People like to go out to eat here, People like to get out.”

Johnson draws parallels between a North Texas Super Bowl and the Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, at the turn of the century.

“There had never been an Olympics in Sydney before,” he said, “and the people of Sydney are really nice and festive and really made that event. I have traveled around the world for 21 years now, and people say, ‘Where are you from?’ And I say, ‘I’m from Dallas.’ And the first thing they say is, ‘Oh, the people there are so nice.’

“If you look back on the Sydney Olympics and some of the things that were written about it, you will see that a lot of the comments from the spectators, the athletes, the media, the people who went there, it was one of the greatest Olympics ever – not necessarily so much because of the performances on the field, but because of the festive atmosphere. I see a lot of the same makings here because the people of North Texas are really nice people.”

He devotes a great deal of his time these days to the Michael Johnson Performance Center in nearby McKinney. Last year, the center prepared Arkansas running backs Felix Jones, eventually drafted by the Cowboys, and Darren McFadden (Oakland’s first-round pick) for the all-important NFL Combine.

Five top pro prospects trained in January and February at the Johnson center, including Texas Tech’s standout receiver Michael Crabtree and Georgia running back Knowshon Moreno. The Johnson center also trains youth athletes, the Dallas Stars and some of the Cowboys in the off-season.

“We don’t just train track & field athletes,” Johnson said. “Most of our athletes are football and soccer players. Despite my reputation, we’re not a speed factory. We train power and agility and strength, all of it.”

The product of Dallas Skyline grew up in a household that loved the Cowboys. Michael’s dad, Paul, was a big fan of the early Cowboys that included Bullet Bob Hayes, known as the world’s fastest man. Little did Dad know what he had on his own hands.

“When I grew up,” Johnson said, “Roger [Staubach] was the quarterback; they had Drew Pearson and Tony Dorsett, the Rayfield Wrights and so on.

“I got the chance to meet Bob Hayes many years afterward. He was a wonderful man, and being a track athlete, the fastest man in the world, he was just an incredible individual.”

And now the baton has been passed to Michael Johnson, goodwill ambassador. Helping North Texas sprint toward a Super Bowl, lugging all that gold and all those memories with him.