May 22, 2004: Maurice Greene's Hotfoot

May 22, 2004: Maurice Greene does something unforgettable on the track -- and while he did win the race he was in, that wasn't it.

A native of Kansas City, Kansas, "Mo" Greene went to the 1997 World Championships in Athletics in Athens, Greece, and won the Gold Medal in the 100 meters. In 1998, he went to the Goodwill Games at the Mitchel Athletic Complex, adjacent to the Nassau Coliseum on New York's Long Island, and won the Gold in both the 100 and as part of the American 4-by-100-meter relay team. In 1999, he went to the World Championships in Seville, Spain, and won both of those events, and the 200 meters. His 100 time was 9.79 seconds, a new world record.

All this was a warmup for the 2000 Olympics, in Sydney, Australia. He competed in the 100 and the 4x100, winning both. The winner of the Olympic 100 Final is unofficially regarded as "the World's Fastest Man." And Greene didn't stop there: He won the 100 at the 2001 World Championships in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. At 27, he seemed to be in the middle of one of the greatest careers in the history of competitive sprinting. 

But injuries derailed his career. He did not compete in the 2001 Goodwill Games in Brisbane, Australia, which turned out to be the last time those Games were held. He did not run well in the 2003 World Championships in Paris, France.

So he was determined to be ready for the 2004 Olympics in Athens. His warmup results were mixed. In April, at the Mt. SAC Relays outside Los Angeles in Walnut, California, he ran into a headwind, and still won the race in 10.02 seconds. A week later, in France, he had to drop out a race, which was won by Tim Montgomery, who had broken his world record, and was then stripped of it for using performance-enhancing drugs. On May 8, in Osaka, Japan, Greene's time was 10.04, which he considered to be disappointing.

So on May 22, he needed to run well at the Adidas Track Classic at the Home Depot Center (now Dignity Health Sports Park) in the Los Angeles suburb of Carson, California. What's more, track & field, especially sprinting, needed a good story. It had been 16 years since Ben Johnson used steroids to win the Olympic Gold Medal and set a dubious, then stricken, world record. In a way, the sport hadn't recovered. Montgomery, and his then-romantic partner, Marion Jones, had both recently had their achievements tainted by the discovery of their PED use. So had Jones' ex-husband, shot-putter C.J. Hunter.

"At that time," Greene said, "there was a lot of bad talking going on about the sport. So, I just wanted to do something good, get some positive talking about the sport." He and a friend, hurdler Larry Wade, began talking about a post-win celebration, the way football players plan for celebrations of touchdowns and soccer players to so for goals.

Wade suggested walking over to Greene and putting a cape on him, like Superman or, more specifically, the Godfather of Soul, James Brown. Greene figured most white viewers wouldn't get the joke. They walked past a hardware store, where Greene saw a fire extinguisher, and got an idea.

Greene broke out of the starting blocks faster than the other runners, and easily won the race, with a time of 9.87. Not a record, but his best performance in 3 years. He broke the tape, ran a little more, and then stopped, and started hopping around, and ripped his trackshoes off, as if his feet hurt.

And then Wade ran over, and blasted the shoes with a fire extinguisher, suggesting that Greene was so fast (How fast was he?), his shoes had caught fire. The audience laughed and cheered.

The stunt was brilliant. But what happened next was bizarre. Two police officers walked over to Wade, and told him that what he did was illegal -- not walking onto the track, but using a fire extinguisher when there was no fire.

"Listen," one of them said, "I'm sorry to tell you, but you can't open a fire extinguisher, unless you're a firefighter or a police officer."

Wade was prepared: "But what if I am a police officer?" The officer said he wasn't one. Wade proved him, at least officially, wrong: Willie Gault, a friend, a former sprinter, and a Super Bowl-winning receiver for the Chicago Bears, had worked it out with the Los Angeles Police Department, and Wade showed the officers a police officer reserve badge. There was nothing the Carson officers could do, except let Wade go.

On that day, with some appropriateness, the Number 1 song in America was "Burn" by the singer Usher.

Greene did compete in Athens, but couldn't follow up his smoking hot performance: He only won a Bronze Medal in the 100 (though he was just .02 seconds behind the winner, fellow American Justin Gatlin), and a Silver Medal in the 4x100.

He is now a track coach at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Wade, and his wife Yvonne Wade, are both track coaches at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas (UNLV).

With the exception of the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, where there were a few of them, iconic moments in track & field are few and far between. And, except maybe for the 100-meter heroics of Usain Bolt, there really hasn't been one since Maurice Greene gave himself a hotfoot.

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May 22, 2004 was a Saturday. This games were played in Major League Baseball that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Texas Rangers, 4-3 at The Ballpark (now Choctaw Stadium) in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas. Bernie Williams and Tony Clark hit home runs in support of José Contreras, but Tom Gordon imploded, with "help" from 2 errors in the 8th inning, and he gave up a walkoff homer to Rod Barajas.

* The New York Mets beat the Colorado Rockies, 5-4 at Shea Stadium.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 9-6 at the new Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 5-2 at Fenway Park in Boston.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the Montreal Expos, 7-2 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. A.J. Pierzynski went 3-for-5 with a home run and 6 RBIs for the Giants, including a grand slam in the top of the 11th inning.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves, 7-4 at Turner Field (now Center Parc Stadium) in Atlanta. 

* The Tampa Bay Devil Rays beat the Cleveland Indians, 6-3 at Tropicana Field, in St. Petersburg, Florida.

* The Florida Marlins beat the Arizona Diamondbacks, 11-2 at Pro Player Stadium (now Hard Rock Stadium) in Miami Gardens, Florida.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 3-1 at PNC Park in Pittsburgh.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Houston Astros, 8-7 at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 7-1 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Chicago White Sox, 9-1 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

* The Anaheim Angels beat the Baltimore Orioles, 3-2 at Angel Stadium of Anaheim.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the Kansas City Royals, 5-4 at the Oakland Coliseum (then named the McAfee Coliseum). Bobby Crosby singled home the winning run in the bottom of the 11th.

* And the Detroit Tigers beat the Seattle Mariners, 8-4 at Safeco Field (now T-Mobile Park) in Seattle.

Football was out of season. The NBA Playoffs were in the Conference Finals. In Game 1 in the East, the Indiana Pacers beat the Detroit Pistons, 78-74 at the Conseco Fieldhouse (now the Gainbridge Fieldhouse) in Indianapolis, but the Pistons would win the series. The Los Angeles Lakers had already won Game 1 in the West over the Minnesota Timberwolves the night before. The Pistons would shock the Lakers in the NBA Finals.

The Stanley Cup Playoffs had reached Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals, in which the Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 2-1 at the St. Pete Times Forum (now the Benchmark International Arena) in Tampa. The Lightning went on to play the Calgary Flames, who had already wrapped up the Western Conference title, and beat them in the Stanley Cup Finals.

Also, the FA Cup Final was played at Millennium Stadium (now Principality Stadium) in Cardiff, Wales. Manchester United beat South London team Millwall, 3-0.

And in American soccer, the New York/New Jersey MetroStars, the team that would become the New York Red Bulls, played the New England Revolution to a 1-1 draw at Gillette Stadium in the Boston suburb of Foxborough, Massachusetts.