Being tabbed the “World’s Greatest Athlete” is something Dan O’Brien doesn’t think about.
It is a title given to the decathlete who wins the Olympic gold medal. Former Idaho standout Dan O’Brien claimed the title of “World’s Greatest Athlete’’ by winning the 1996 gold medal in Atlanta. O’Brien’s performance at the 1996 Olympics ranks 18th on the Big Sky Conference’s list “50 Greatest Men’s Moments.’’
As a little boy growing up in Klamath Falls, Ore., O’Brien played Little League baseball. In the sixth grade his dad took him to a high school football game. During half time kids competed in a 1-mile fun run. O’Brien’s dad signed him up, and Dan took off running. He won, and was rewarded with a big ribbon.
“I thought it was pretty trilling that the first race I ran in I won,” O’Brien said.
It proved to be the start of one of the most successful sports careers by a former Big Sky athlete.
He ran cross country in junior high, and started to long jump. When he got into high school, his coaches liked his kick, and opted to put him in sprints. After that he never ran another long distance race.
During his sophomore year of high school, O’Brien’s parents told him that if he got worse than a “C” in a class he couldn’t compete in sports that quarter. A “D” grade is social studies cost him his track and field season.
“I remember walking home from school every day and looking out at the track and seeing those hundred kids out there running track practice,” said O’Brien. “I felt pretty bad about it, but after the quarter was up I got my grade up.”
His high school coach told him about a summer decathlon.
“At that point I was just interested in running anything,’’ he said.
O’Brien and his high school coach, with his dad’s permission, started to train. After O’Brien competed in his first decathlon he said, “It was agonizing. I swore I would never do another one.”
But the next year he did another one. As a senior, he qualified for the Junior Olympics.
“It was one of those things,” said O’Brien. “It was really challenging for me. And it didn’t hurt, because when I was a senior and I was filling out all of my college questionnaires, I got to put down that I did 10 events in the decathlon. I think I even threw in triple jump so when coaches looked at the questionnaire, they saw all of those events.”
When it came time to choose a college he had one thing in mind: A full scholarship.
“I always dreamed about running for the University of Oregon, like any little kid in the state of Oregon,’’ he said. “You see the Ducks and what a great track and field program they have. But I needed a full scholarship. My family financial situation was such that I needed to get a full scholarship to really go to a bigger school I wanted to.”
Oregon State offered O’Brien a half a scholarship to play football, and the track and field was interested. He took a recruiting trip to Oregon.
“They gave me an excuse that they didn’t give freshman full scholarships,” O’Brien said.
O’Brien took the first full scholarship that he was offered. That just happened to be from Idaho coach Mike Keller.
“Coach Keller was very instrumental in getting me there,” said O’Brien. “I honestly have never seen anyone recruited quite as aggressively as he recruited me. He wasn’t leaving my house until I signed the Letter of Intent. But I was happy about it. I felt coming from a small school that I was at was one of the biggest scholarships that anyone from my school had ever signed. It was cool.”
O’Brien set the Big Sky decathlon record in 1989 with 7,988 points. During the 1989 indoor season, O’Brien competed at the NCAA Championships and finished sixth in the 55-meter hurdles with a time of 7.86 seconds.
After college O’Brien had bigger dreams. That was winning the Olympic Gold. How O’Brien became a professional athlete was really a collaboration of a team he built. He had a coach, but needed some help in the field events so he asked the coach at Washington State, Rick Sloan. He also got an attorney and massage therapist, and kept building his team.
“Putting this team together our goal was to win an Olympic gold medal, and really become the next Bruce Jenner,’’ O’Brien said, referring to the man who won the 1976 decathlon in 1976 in Montreal. “That was my ultimate goal. When I thought about it, I not only wanted to become the next Bruce Jenner, I wanted to become the next Jackie Joyner-Kersee.”
O’Brien had a really good 1991 season. In 1992, he had a great indoor season. He broke the world record in the heptathlon, and was clearing seven feet in the high jump. But, he developed a stress fracture on the outside of his lower right leg. He thought it was because of running all those sharp corners during the indoor season.
“So outdoors I didn’t run much at all through the whole spring and went into the Olympic Trials,” said O’Brien. “I was just a little nervous about my conditioning. But I didn’t get to compete in the event as much as I wanted to. So when I got to the trials I had a little bit of doubt, but I was feeling pretty healthy at the time because I took so much time off.”
Those who didn’t know Dan O’Brien found out during the Super Bowl in January of 1992. Reebok launched its famous campaign featuring O’Brien, and fellow American decathlete Dave Johnson to generate interest in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.
“Those literally made me famous overnight when they showed those Dan and Dave commercials during the Super Bowl,” said O’Brien. “My popularity just went through the roof, especially in the Northwest where I grew up and went to college. There was a lot of pressure on me. I really just knew I needed to make the team and then I would give myself a couple more months of training and get ready and have a good performance at the Olympics.”
“But I can remember a moment I was a part of the program called the Visa Decathlon Team,” added O’Brien. “And we were having the clinic in New Orleans and everybody was given the opportunity to compete at the facility that the Olympic Trials were going to be held. I remember that day very clearly. Everybody was getting to pole vault and throw the javelin and stuff. The Visa people came over and said we have a school group here would you mind coming over and speaking to this school group with Bruce Jenner. So Bruce and I went over and we address the kids, and I didn’t get to pole vault that day. Thinking back on it years later it is like, wow that would have been a pretty important practice for me to have on that facility before the Olympic Trials.”
O’Brien failed to clear the minimum height in the pole vault at the trials, and failed to qualify for the 1992 Olympic team.
“It was just devastating for me go through that,” said O’Brien. “I think every decathlete no-heights at one point or another in the decathlon. It was pretty heartbreaking. Mine just happened to be at the Olympic Trials when a shot of the Olympic team was on the line.”
But with that failure, it set up a memorable comeback.
“The interesting thing was I had gone to the Goodwill Games in 1990,” said O’Brien. “I won the World Championships in 1991. In 1992 when I didn’t make the team I was still a young athlete. I was still fairly new to the sport and so it wasn’t like I was going to quit.
“And that was one thing a lot of people say, ‘wow did you just feel like you were going to give up at that point?” added O’Brien. “And well it was like no, my career was just getting started. But when I failed, I was really hungry and it was my goal. I just went home to Moscow, Idaho, and I just thought to myself, you know what; I got to be mistake free. I’ve got to figure out how to never let this happen again.”
The next four years made him hungrier, and when he got the opportunity to step to the line in 1996 his goal was to win the Olympic gold medal.
“I didn’t go there for second or third place,” said O’Brien. “My team and I had literally prepared every moment from that failure until the Atlanta Olympic Games.”
O’Brien recorded 8,824 points to beat Germany’s FrankBusemann, who finished with 8,706. As an Olympic gold medalist in the decathlon, O’Brien was officially considered the “World’s Greatest Athlete.”
“After the gold in ‘96 it is interesting because you think I am going to win the gold medal and everything is going to be different,” said O’Brien. “There are some things different in your life, but mostly you are just the same person. You wake up and think, I don’t feel any different. But it just opens up opportunities.”
“One of the great things about making the Olympic team is you can call yourself an Olympian,” said O’Brien. “The same thing about winning a gold medal, you can call yourself the Olympic gold medalist, and it is neat to have it in a decathlon because it is just a historic event here in the United States.”
O’Brien has continued his career as a coach, currently with Arizona State as a volunteer. He also does commentary for track and field.
“I think the thing I enjoy the most in doing on-field announcing,” said O’Brien. “So when you go to the big USA Indoor and Outdoor I get to announce for the crowd. So I stand at the finish line and interview the winners and talk to them in front of a live crowd.”
O’Brien also continues work with USA Track & Field with marketing and media. He also works closely with the US Olympic Committee through outreach programs, athlete mentoring and media training. He is also working in the fitness industry. O’Brien and his wife live in Scottsdale, Ariz., with their two dogs.
In 2012, he was elected into the United States Olympic Hall of Fame.
