This officer and gentleman cleared every hurdle but one

Carl McBain will turn 90 in March. A picture of health, the former UCLA hurdler was captain of a Bruins track and field team that included Jackie Robinson, Tom Bradley and Kenny Washington. He was a naval officer in World War II.

Later a successful entrepreneur, he made millions selling microscopes to the CIA as well as in the private sector. He lives in a sprawling, well-appointed home in a gated community in the Valley -- out back are a fully stocked koi pond, a bonsai garden and, in what looks like a barn, a racquetball court -- and he has gifted a generous sum to his alma mater, endowing scholarships in five sports.

He only recently gave up racquetball and is tickled whenever new acquaintances ask if Bette, the woman he married 69 years ago, is his second wife.

“I love that,” he says.

Because she’s not.

It turns out, though, that even a man of McBain’s impressive longevity, considerable means and varied accomplishments sometimes asks, what if?

As a UCLA senior in 1940, in what was supposed to be an Olympic year, the Los Angeles High graduate posted the fastest time in the world in winning the national AAU 400-meter intermediate hurdles championship. His winning time of 51.6 seconds matched the U.S. record, a mark that would last for nine more years.

But the Olympics, scheduled for Helsinki, were canceled because of the war and McBain, like athletes all over the world, was denied his shining moment.

“That was the big shock of my life,” he says. “I had just made All-American, tied that record, fastest in the world, and yet, to be shut out of the Olympic Games, that hurt. I’ve been sorry about that my whole life.”

Roy Cochran of Indiana, runner-up to McBain at the 1940 AAU meet, continued training and won gold in the 400 hurdles at the London Olympics in 1948, matching the Olympic record but falling short of the U.S. record.

McBain, meanwhile, never raced again after his record run.

After the war, he returned to UCLA as an assistant administrator for the Atomic Energy Commission. Later, he founded McBain Instruments, whose products are still in use, and got started amassing his fortune.

But his undergraduate days were never far from his mind. President of the Blue C men’s letterman club and chairman of the men’s athletic board as a student, he organized reunions of his teammates long after graduation.

He carries fond memories of his most famous ex-mates.

Of Robinson, a long jumper and four-sport UCLA letterman before breaking major league baseball’s color barrier in 1947, McBain says, “Baseball was his worst sport, probably. As a track man, he was outstanding. And why he was so good in all those sports, I’ll tell you. His first two or three steps were so much faster than anybody else’s. For instance, in sprinting, the gun would go off and he was ahead of everybody. Like, every time. At 50 yards, he could beat anybody. At 100 yards, I could catch him. But those first two or three steps. . . .

“In basketball, is that important? Football? Baseball?”

Of Bradley, who would serve 20 years as mayor of Los Angeles and was only the second African American mayor of a major U.S. city, McBain says, “You could see why he’d do well in politics. You liked him right away, he was so easygoing.”

A longtime UCLA football and basketball season-ticket holder, McBain has supported his alma mater for years, but he decided about 15 years ago that he wanted to be more involved. He and his wife have endowed scholarships in track, football, women’s basketball, women’s golf and women’s gymnastics.

“If you’re a really good supporter, you support your team win, lose or draw,” he says. “That’s the way I feel about it. That’s called loyalty.”

He wonders why other former Bruins aren’t more generous.

“These ex-basketball players that are millionaires, how many of them have helped UCLA athletics?” McBain says. “Not many. Not enough.”

Donors are the lifeblood of big-time college athletics, but UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero says McBain’s contributions go beyond dollars and cents.

“Carl represents an era of athletics that many talk about but few recognize,” Guerrero says. “He was a world-class athlete, and to have an opportunity to still engage with an individual of his stature after all these years is special.”

At UCLA athletic functions, Guerrero says, McBain is introduced to current student-athletes as “a former athlete and a great Bruin.”

But not, alas, as an Olympian.

“That was a shame,” McBain says. “I was at my best and couldn’t do anything about it. The Olympic Games is what it’s all about, isn’t it? It’s only once every four years. It worked out that I was a senior and at my best in 1940 -- and that was the year for the Olympics. That’s why it hurt so much.”

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jerome.crowe@latimes.com