No More Hurdles : Having Accomplished Almost Everything in His Career, Greg Foster Says This Is His Final Season

In the 16 years since he left his home in suburban Chicago and moved here as a UCLA freshman, Greg Foster has lived his life in the public eye perhaps more than any other track and field athlete of his era, maturing from a sometimes cocky, sometimes insecure young man into a fulfilled adult, wisened by his encounters with tragedy and triumph.

We watched as he grew through his intense rivalry in the late 1970s and early ‘80s with Renaldo Nehemiah, the disappointment of his second-place finish in the 1984 Summer Olympics when he was supposed to have been alone at the top of his field, his brave, though doomed, effort to earn a berth on the 1988 Olympic team despite a broken arm, and the auto accident in 1985 that took the lives of his mother and other family members.

Through it all, he became one of history’s most accomplished high hurdlers, winning world championships outdoors in 1983, ’87 and ‘91, and indoors in ’91 and setting two indoor world records, one of which, in the 60 meters, still stands. Perhaps even more career-defining, he has been ranked among the world’s top 10 in 15 of the last 16 years.

But at 34, Foster has announced that he will compete no more after this year, retiring to become a full-time bookkeeper for his wife Marie’s hair-styling salon. The couple live in Chino Hills with their 20-month-old son, Bryce. Foster also has an 11-year-old son, Brandon.

Foster’s 55-meter race Saturday night at the Sports Arena will be his last in the Sunkist Invitational, which he has won eight times. The rest of his indoor and outdoor meets in 1993 will be part of what his coach, Bobby Kersee, calls a farewell tour. Foster said in an interview this week that he prefers to call it his “thank-you tour.”

Question: Within the last two years, you have won the indoor and outdoor world championships, and you were fourth in last year’s U.S. Olympic trials. Why are you quitting now?

Answer: It’s the right time. Not being the Olympic champion, it’s not like I’m going to ’96 to defend that. But I do have the indoor and outdoor world championships, and I want to defend them. I’d rather go out on top. I’m going out under my terms.

Q: Then is that your goal for your last year in the sport, to defend your indoor and outdoor titles?

A: That’s it, first of all. But Bobby has even mentioned the world record a couple of times. He thinks I look that good. He doesn’t mention it to me a lot. But he told my sister how impressed he is with the way my workouts have been going. I figure if he’s telling everybody else, I must be doing something right.

Q: It sounds as if you might still have some impressive performances to come. But, so far, what has been the highlight of your career?

A: Just being consistent. There’s no one meet, no world record. Just being consistent. I’m in an event where it’s never an easy race. Even after the days when Renaldo and I were running well against each other, it still wasn’t easy when he quit. But being able to watch a lot of hurdlers come and go and still finish 99% of my races in the top two or three, I’m really proud of that.

Q: Most people probably would have guessed that winning three outdoor world championships would be your highlight.

A: Well, once you win it, it’s easier to train to get up to defend it. The others came a little bit easier than the first. Of course, everyone is gunning for you after that. But you’re ready for those challenges.

Q: Do you think people will remember you more for your world championships or because you never won the Olympic gold medal?

A: Probably more because I didn’t win the Olympic gold. The general public, yeah, because that’s what they see more of. Not everyone watches the World Championships in any sport, really, whether it’s skiing or ice skating or whatever. Unless it’s the Olympic Games, they really don’t watch.

But being in a sport that isn’t one of the top three or four in the United States, I don’t think people would remember me much even if I had won a gold medal. There’s so many great athletes in so many different sports.

Q: But what about you? Do you feel a void because you didn’t win an Olympic gold medal?

A: If I had never been on the team or been in an Olympic Games, yeah. Of course, everybody wants to win. But when I talk to people, they say, “That must have been a great joy to be in the Olympic village,” and it was. The whole experience is just something you have to live to realize how great it is. I was fortunate to do that and also get a silver medal out of it. I didn’t come away empty-handed. I just didn’t come away with first place.

Q: But, from a hurdler’s viewpoint, was your second place in 1984 a disappointment?

A: It was definitely a disappointment. One thing Bobby has talked about this year is that we’re not concerned about winning all of them. We want to win the big ones. In ‘84, I had not lost at all. Maybe not in a year and a half or two years. When you lose the one you should win, you think, “Maybe I should have lost a few in between, break up the monotony or whatever.” I just made a mental error that day. I thought it was a false start and kind of hesitated.

Q: Four years later, you didn’t make the U.S. team. But you almost did, even though you ran in the Olympic trials with a broken arm. Did you feel that was a triumph of the spirit?

A: Not really. When people think about track and field injuries, they think about legs or feet. They don’t think so much about arms. In hurdles, you have to think about arms because of the balance. But I was able to still run.

Doctors said chances were 50-50 whether I would be able to use the arm again if I fell on it. But that was something I had to be willing to accept if I chose to run, and I was. I at least had to try. As far as it being a triumph, no. I was just kind of handicapped.

Q: In the summer of 1985, you lost four relatives, including your mother, in an auto accident. Your personality, at least as it related to track, seemed to change after that. What did you learn from that tragedy?

A: When something like that happens to you, you think a lot more about everything. I realized that track and field is just a sport. And losing a race is just losing a race. I go on with my life. Before, it was almost like I had to win, and I was very upset if I didn’t. It kind of bothers Bobby now that I don’t get upset if I don’t win. He makes sure I know that I lost.

Q: Other hurdlers, when asked about Greg Foster, pay you what must be the supreme compliment. They say, “He’s a competitor; he’s always there at the finish.” What hurdlers would you . . .

A: Renaldo.

Q: . . . say that about?

A: Renaldo.

Q: You didn’t have to think long about that. In those days when you and Renaldo were No. 1 and No. 2, it was a rivalry in every sense of the word. He usually got the best of it. In retrospect, was that duel as much fun for you as it was for track fans?

A: At the time, when I was losing, of course, I wasn’t happy. But I’ve always been the type that, well, if I lose, that means I’ll have to come back and do better. I can sit and play solitaire for two hours and never win a game, and I say, “OK, this is the last one.” But it’s never the last one until I win. So Renaldo was a challenge for me, and that was fun.

Q: So even if Renaldo hadn’t retired when he did, you eventually would have passed him?

A: I would hope so, yeah. When he left, it was a relief. But it also was a letdown. Getting up for Renaldo was the easiest thing I could ever do. If Bobby said, “Be here at 6 o’clock in the morning,” I would be here at 6 o’clock in the morning. I knew that I had to get ready because Renaldo was always ready. He could be coming off an injury on Monday and we’re racing on Thursday and he’s ready. Even to this day, I get more excited knowing he is competing than anyone else.

Q: Do you think it will surprise people to learn how much respect you have for Nehemiah?

A: Oh yeah. It started in ‘91, where we actually were doing a lot more together. Now, we sit down at the table to breakfast together and say, “What time are you going to lunch?” I’ve changed a lot. Before, on the day of a meet, I probably wouldn’t speak to my own brother. But Renaldo and I even go to dinner together two or three hours before a meet. We can talk to each other because we’re not constantly talking about track and field. We talk about his daughter and my sons or whatever. We’re older. Things change.

Q: Your sport has been hurt by top athletes in a lot of events who won’t compete against each other unless absolutely necessary because they’re either not paid enough or they’re trying to protect their rankings. But you and the other high hurdlers have always taken each other on. Why?

A: Track and field has been great to me. I can honestly say that. But I don’t think there’s enough people like me who love the sport and who are willing to do what needs to be done. If that means competing week in and week out against Tony Dees and Renaldo Nehemiah and Roger Kingdom, then that’s what has to be done.

Q: Except for Mark McKoy’s suspension for admitting he used steroids, there have been no prominent drug busts in your event. How has it escaped?

A: I read the other day where Ben Johnson said all top athletes use drugs. I don’t think that’s true. In our event, nobody even knows whether or not it helps. It didn’t help Mark. He won the Olympic gold medal (in 1992) after coming back from the suspension.

Ours is not a total, all-out speed event. Because it’s a technical event, people don’t think about using drugs. The subject is not something I like to get caught up in. Of course, you think about those who might be using them. But I’ve never thought about anyone in the hurdles. Never.

Q: Did you ever think you’d be able to make as much money in the sport as you and others have?

A: No, never. It was a way to get a college education, which I was more than happy with. But once the money got involved, it made it a little bit easier to stay in the sport. Then the money got a little bit better and made it even easier to stay. And a lot harder to leave.

Q: But even though track and field athletes can make a comfortable living, there are fewer young people going into the sport. Are you concerned for its future?

A: It concerns me a great deal. Interest has gone down. The teams aren’t as big as they used to be. I can remember my first day I went out for track and field in high school. We had 135 kids out there. Now, you might have 30.

Kids, their role models now, what they’re looking at, are the gangs. These kids nowadays can make $100 a day watching out for the police while a drug deal is going down. Why go out and run over hurdles and break your knees and everything else?

Q: You’ve talked in the past about going to work for USA Track & Field in an advisory capacity. What else do you plan to do in retirement?

A: We’re starting a foundation in Chicago in memory of my mother. There were 1,000 students in my high school. Now, when I go back and visit, I see that 50% of the lockers are chained up. Attendance is so low they don’t even use half the lockers.

We used to hear about killings and shootings and drugs in Chicago, not in the suburbs where we lived. Now, it’s in the suburbs. A lot of friends of mine are going back to the community and trying to do certain things about it. This gives me an opportunity to give back.