Still quick on his feet

Charlie Greene, the Olympic gold-medal-winning sprinter who grew up in Seattle, had a direct message for students on a visit last week:

"The world is not fair. Listen to me. The world is not fair. So get used to it. What you have to do is make your own opportunities by being alert and being smart while being a good human being."

Greene, 56, a retired Army major who is ombudsman at the University of Nebraska, delivered the pitch in appearances at Franklin High School and his alma mater, O'Dea.

Another of his messages: "If you can't read well or don't know how to operate a computer, you aren't going to make it on the outside."

Greene was the leadoff runner on the victorious U.S. 400-meter relay team in the 1968 Olympics that set a since-broken world record of 38.2 seconds. He also won a bronze medal in the 100 and might have done better if he hadn't suffered a slight muscle pull during the race.

Greene had been left home from the 1964 Olympic team one year after graduating from O'Dea because of a slow-to-heal hamstring injury.

"I was angry for three years because I got left home," he said. He took his anger out on the track, going undefeated from September 1964 to May 1967. In the span, he won six NCAA titles for Nebraska and was ranked the No. 1 sprinter in the world in 1966.

"I could bring it," the fastest man in Seattle history told the students at O'Dea. "I could bring it all the time."

He set the world record of 9.21 seconds in the 100-yard dash in 1967. The record still stands but the event has been replaced by the 100-meter dash. Nonetheless, occasionally a world-class sprinter tries to break Greene's record. So far, all have failed.

To express his individuality during his prime, Greene purchased a pair of prescription sunglasses and wore them while competing.

"I called them my re-entry shield because we were in the space race with the Soviets at the time," Greene explained. "I said they were my re-entry shield when I come back into the atmosphere after I smoke you."

The glasses caught on and remain popular today. However, Greene noted, "The people wearing them now don't win like I won."

Greene, the Washington high-school sprint champion, made his first national splash a few weeks after graduating from O'Dea in 1963 when was the sprint phenom at the Golden West meet in California.

The Ballard Moose Lodge paid for his trip and he remains grateful. He was a lightly regarded entry from Seattle who joked to fellow competitors before winning the 100-yard dash, "I learned how to run between rain drops in Seattle without getting wet."

Greene is an unabashed Nebraska booster. He boasted that the grade-point average of Nebraska athletes (2.86) is higher than that of non-athletes at the school. He also presented O'Dea football coach Monte Kohler with several videos of Nebraska bowl victories.

Greene became a Cornhusker at the urging of one of his O'Dea coaches, Bill Gilmore, who had strong ties to the school. Greene, who was inducted into the U.S. Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1992, was named one of the 10 greatest athletes in Cornhusker history last year by the campus newspaper.

Greene's mother, Bertha Johnson, and his wife of 30 years, Linda, appeared with him at O'Dea. The couple has two adult daughters.

The former world-class athlete is a showman and pretended to "sprinkle a little speed" on members of the audience. Some of them are fast, but there will never be another Charlie Greene at O'Dea.