No More Easy Skeets : Football Was Rough, the Comeback Tough, but Nehemiah Remains Confident

In what could be called Comeback II, Renaldo (Skeets) Nehemiah isn’t making any predictions as to what he’ll accomplish on the track.

Once regarded as the world’s greatest high hurdler and still the world record-holder in the 110-meter race at 12.93 seconds, Nehemiah seems content just to be competing again.

Yet, he exudes a quiet confidence as if he knows that he’ll be a factor on a world-class level even though there is evidence to suggest that four seasons of playing wide receiver for the San Francisco 49ers will deprive him of being a man for all seasons.

Nehemiah acknowledges that his body was punished while playing a reserve role for the 49ers. He cited knee surgery, shoulder and back injuries, a broken elbow and ligament damage in his ankles.

The latter injury, Nehemiah said, was most likely responsible for aborting his attempt at Comeback I last year. He had surgery last February to repair damage to his Achilles’ tendon in his left leg.

Nehemiah, who will make his season debut in the 60-meter hurdles Friday night in the Sunkist Invitational at the Sports Arena, said that he’s physically fit now.

“Barring any unforeseen problems, I should have a very positive campaign,” he said. “I want to get back to be the best I can be and competitive as I can be. Records aren’t important now. I’m going into this meet to restore the general faith that I can do it.”

Nehemiah is aware that skeptics say he’ll never regain his world-class form after a prolonged absence from track. Moreover, his event, the high hurdles, requires precision, technique and, of course, leg speed.

He has already won his biggest battle, just to be restored as a so-called amateur by the International Amateur Athletic Federation.

His original request was denied by IAAF President Primo Nebiolo in July 1985 after an IAAF panel had recommended that he be reinstated.

Nebiolo reversed his decision a year later. Nehemiah said that a threat of a lawsuit was the persuasive factor.

“Their (IAAF) counsel was advised to settle the matter, or they would lose financially in court,” Nehemiah said.

So Comeback I began with a victory in Viareggio, Italy, in August 1986 in the creditable time of 13.48 seconds.

But that was Nehemiah’s first and only outdoor race that year. He tore some tendons in his left leg and didn’t run again until the Sunkist meet the following January.

Nehemiah finished third behind Greg Foster and Tonie Campbell in a 60-meter race that was distinguished for a controversial start. Foster set a world record of 7.36 seconds that has only recently been accepted, even though it was apparent the hurdlers had a rolling start.

After winning a race in Portland, Ore., Nehemiah ran in the Millrose Games in New York for the last time during the indoor season.

“I hurt my ankle in the trials, and in the final, I couldn’t push off the blocks,” Nehemiah said. “‘But I was running before a hometown crowd, so I gritted my teeth and ran as hard as I could. I got second, but I almost couldn’t walk afterward. I almost severed the tendon, so I had surgery Feb. 11.”

Nehemiah originally figured that the rehabilitation period would be five to eight weeks. It turned out to be much longer.

It wasn’t until last June that he stepped gingerly on a track for the first time after swimming and running on soft grass.

“Basically, it was a panic situation,” Nehemiah said. “I had been out so long, and I didn’t want to miss another year. So I told meet promoters in Europe that, hopefully, I could work myself into shape. I told them that if you don’t mind how I finish, I don’t mind. I’ll just swallow my pride and go over and run. And next year will be my year.”

It certainly wasn’t in 1987. Nehemiah ran in seven meets in Europe and wasn’t competitive.

“My Achilles’ tendon didn’t hurt, but my calf had atrophied so much that I didn’t have any strength in it,” he said. “So I started wobbling and hitting hurdles and falling--something that hadn’t happened to me in several years.

“I could have protected my image and taken the year off. But I wanted to be part of it (competition), even though I knew I wasn’t fit enough to win.”

It was disconcerting to see the once-fluid, dominating Nehemiah struggling over the hurdles like some novice in an all-comers meet.

He wasn’t winning, but he was competing and that’s all that mattered to him. And he even acted as a peacemaker Sept. 15 in Lausanne, Switzerland. He separated Campbell and Foster when they had a heated, prolonged argument after a hurdles race.

U.S. hurdlers would have been welcomed on the television show “Family Feud”, such has been their pattern of antagonistic attitudes.

Why?

“It’s the only American competitive, glamour event,” Nehemiah said. “With the sprinters, it’s Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson of Canada. There is no American really challenging Carl.

“It’s a big deal to be in the limelight. Some people don’t know how to handle it. There’s a lot of envy there. Since I left (track), they (hurdlers) feel there’s an open market on the throne. There’s no mutual respect there.

“With me, I didn’t have any problems with anyone because I was out and out the best. It was hard to ridicule me because I was winning all the time. Foster is still trying to proclaim himself as the best. He obviously feels insecure, otherwise he wouldn’t have to confront people.”

Even though Foster didn’t win the gold medal in the 1984 Olympics, he won at the World Championships last September in Rome and reclaimed his No. 1 ranking in the world.

However, Nehemiah isn’t convinced that Foster is secure despite his accomplishments.

“I still don’t know if he’s totally secure in his performance ability when it comes time,” he said. “I do believe that he should be more secure than he is, but apparently by his DNF’s he isn’t.”

Nehemiah was referring to two races last year that Foster didn’t finish.

So there is the seed of another Foster-Nehemiah rivalry that will exist again if Nehemiah is physically able to challenge the world’s best hurdler.

“I undoubtedly think that Foster is the best, but it’s not a closed issue,” Nehemiah said. “Foster can be beaten. I don’t know about other people beating him, but he could beat himself.”

Nehemiah may be playing mind games with Foster as he did when their rivalry flared before Nehemiah quit track to play pro football.

It was a one-sided rivalry, though, in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s when Nehemiah beat Foster 28 times, lost only 5 races and had one dead heat.

By Nehemiah’s account, he has lost three races to Foster since his comeback, two indoors and one outdoors.

No one, however, has run any faster than 13.10 seconds during Nehemiah’s absence from track and field.

Foster’s best time is 13.03, which he got while chasing Nehemiah to his world record of 12.93 in 1981 in Zurich, Switzerland.

Nehemiah, who will be 29 in March, said that it takes the competition that he and Foster had previously to produce such a fast time. And he isn’t sure that he’ll ever be able to run that fast again.

Still, it’s gratifying to Nehemiah that his world record has endured for seven years.

“It means what I did was something special,” he said. “My greatest fear while I was in pro football was that my record would be broken and I wouldn’t be there to defend it.

“I’m impressed with it. It’s going to take a while for a very special person, or the right conditions for it to be broken. The record is something no one can take away from me.”

The record is significant inasmuch as Nehemiah was the first--and only--hurdler to go under 13 seconds for the 110-meter race. He was also the first and only high school hurdler to run a sub 13 seconds (12.9) for 120 yards over 39-inch hurdles.

Barriers--such as time, distances or heights--intrigue the public and bring lasting distinction to the first athlete who crashes through them. That’s comforting to Nehemiah.

“No one will break 12 seconds in the hurdles, not in our lifetime,” he said.

Nehemiah said the overwhelming reason he returned to track was longevity. He reasoned he had only four or five years left as an athlete. He figured his actual playing time with the 49ers amounted to only about a year and a half.

“I had all this talent, and I wasn’t using it,” he said. “Getting paid is one thing, but I’m used to expressing myself. Going along for the ride wasn’t in my plans.”

Now the question is, has Nehemiah been away too long from track? Will he able to express himself to an extent that he once did?

“Basically, I just want to get back my form and be competitive within myself, not so much with everyone else,” Nehemiah said. “If I can run the times I know I can run, then I know I’ll be right there.”