GORHAM – Dennis Mitchell handed the baton to Carl Lewis on one of the greatest relay teams in track and field history. This past weekend, he handed off the knowledge he’s garnered a lifetime spent in track and field to coaches from around the state.
The Olympic gold and bronze medalist and world record holder was at the University of Southern Maine on Friday and Saturday, imparting his wisdom on sprints, hurdles and jumps as part of the 2005 Maine Track and Cross Country Coaches Association Clinic.
Mitchell specialized in sprints during a 16-year career competing at a world class level. He was an NCAA champion in the 200 meter. He won his first of three U.S. national championship in the 100 in 1992. Later that year, he won the bronze in the 100 at the Barcelona Olympics and was the third leg on the United States’ world record 4×100 relay team with Mike Marsh, Leroy Burrell and Lewis. He followed that up with a fourth-place finish in the 100 and won silver in the 4×100 at the Atlanta Olympics four years later. He made his final international appearance at the 2001 World Championships, walking away with one last gold medal in the 4×100.
Since then, Mitchell, 39, has been living in Florida, coaching track and doing clinics. It was at a clinic last year where he met USM women’s track coach George Towle, the organizer of the MTCCC clinic.
“His running speaks for itself, but he’s also a tremendous teacher,” Towle said.
The ultimate experience
Mitchell’s prowess as a track athlete and teacher should come as no surprise. His parents were both track coaches.
“Instead of paying for baby sitters for my twin sister and me, they took us to the track with them, so that’s how I got started early,” he said. “The track was my playground. The long jump pit was my sand pit.”
Mitchell ran his first track meet at age 4 and was heavily influenced in his up-bringing by his father, Edward, who was a Marine Corps drill instructor during the Vietnam War.
“He taught us life in a very harsh and stern way, but it taught me a lot of discipline and taught me to be a better athlete,” Mitchell said.
His family moved to New Jersey when he was young, and as fate would have it, Mitchell grew up just 20 minutes away from the elder Lewis.
Lewis’ parents actually coached Mitchell as he was growing up in Atco, N.J., and Carl became a mentor for Mitchell.
“Carl was kind of a confidant, kind of a leader, kind of a friend, kind of a rival. Just a little bit of everything,” he said. “When I was in high school, Carl used to talk to me a lot about what to expect going into college, and when I was in college he was talking about what to expect when I was a professional. Along the way, in high school and college, we didn’t have to compete against each other, but as a professional, our relationship kind of redefined itself because we became competitors with each other.”
Lewis dominated American track and field for two decades, and Mitchell, like all athletes of his era, ran in his shadow. But Mitchell believes they brought out the best in each other.
“In a lot of ways, it was good for our relationship,” he said, “because we got the chance to be on relays together, but in a bad way, it kind of separated us a little bit because as sprinters, we have a lot of tension between each other. That separation kind of never goes away. Even now that we’re retired, when we sit and talk to each other, we kind of look into each other’s eyes and try to intimidate each other. Our relationship is cool, but we’ll always be competitive.”
Mitchell ran the third leg on the 1992 relay team. He still has vivid memories of the hand-off to Lewis on the world-record relay and the joy he felt when Lewis reached the finish line.
“It was the ultimate experience, because as an athlete, we all dream of being at the Olympic games and we all dream about getting a gold medal and we all dream about breaking a record,” he said. “When Carl crossed that line and I saw that we had won and we had gotten the gold and we had broken the world record, the only thing I could do was drop to my knees and cry.”
Passing it along
Mitchell didn’t talk much about his Olympic experience during his first meeting with about 75 coaches Friday night, but he still had them rapt in attention.
Even though he never ran the hurdles, he approaches the discipline as analytically as Edwin Moses might and he’s not afraid to offer unorthodox tips on mechanics, such as what an athlete should do with their lead arm and trail leg when they clear the hurdle.
“He breaks it down so you can understand it. That’s a very complicated event,” Winthrop track coach Norm Thombs said after Mitchell’s presentation. “It helps you coaching so much because he explains it so you can coach it. He’s a good teacher, plus he has a lot of clout.”
Mitchell hopes to become more involved in coaching and would like to help out the USOC with developing American athletes. It’s not an easy job. He thinks coaches and athletes at all levels of the sport face more challenges than when he was growing up.
“They have a lot more dynamics to deal with these days,” he said. “Technology is a lot better. Shoes are a lot better. Tracks are better, and coaches are better. The athletes have a lot more to bring to the table.”
Mitchell brings a lifetime of experience to the table, and like the baton he handed off to history, he’s ready to hand down everything he’s learned from the time he was a toddler tagging along with his parents to the track
“They taught me to be an ordinary man trying to do extraordinary things,” Mitchell said. “If you walk that walk, then you can relate to anyone, and your thoughts can be conveyed to anyone.”
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