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• Mr. Greene on USA Track & Field
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Tavis: Maurice Greene struck Olympic gold at the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney, Australia, winning two gold medals and rightly earning the title 'world's fastest man.' He'll be in Athens next month defending his sprinting titles, having just qualified for his premiere event, the 100-meter dash in a cool 9.91 seconds. Not bad for a guy who turns 30 later this week. Mo, how you living?

Maurice Greene: I'm good.

Tavis: Nice to see you, man.

Greene: Thank you.

Tavis: You didn't want to hear that, did you?

Greene: Not really.

Tavis: That you're turning 30 in a couple of days.

Greene: No. I try not to think about it.

Tavis: You still got some-- Your guns are still working.

Greene: Oh, yeah. They work real good.

Tavis: As a matter of fact, that sub par, that sub-10 seconds is like the 47th time you've done that in your career. You've done that a few times. Don't try to act all modest and shy now. With your tattoo on your arm 'Greatest of All Time.' Yeah. Pull it on up. Pull it up. Yeah. 'Greatest of All Time.' Don't try to act shy now.

Greene: No. You know, that's my job. It's what I do, so...

Tavis: But that means something, though, to be able to do that 47 times in under 10 seconds.

Greene: Yeah, well, I'm not done.

Tavis: You gonna do it a few more times? Even after turning 30?

Greene: A couple more times. Yeah, couple more times.

Tavis: How many more times will you run between now and Athens? I mean, what do you do in between now and then?

Greene: Basically just training right now, but I'll be running in Paris and then I have a meet in London. And then after London I'll be running in Switzerland, in Zurich. So, those are just races to prepare myself, to work on a couple of things, so hopefully I can perfect it in Athens.

Tavis: How do you figure out how many times you want to compete, what's a good meet for you, when you're pushing it too much, when you run the risk of, God forbid, getting hurt before Athens? How do you figure out what you want to do or what you don't want to do?

Greene: Well, you run the risk of getting hurt every time, yeah, anytime you step on the track or anything. You can get hurt in training or in a meet, so it doesn't matter. Me and my coach, we talk a lot, and we come up with a plan, and we figure out what I can handle and what might be a little bit too much for me, so...I think we worked out a good plan, and I'm just looking forward to the next competition.

Tavis: OK. One more question about the turning 30 thing and I promise not to come back to it. How do you think that's going to impact your career? I mean, obviously, with age comes other challenges. 30 is still young. You're still smoking, but what happens on the other side of 30, do you think?

Greene: I don't know. I don't know. You know, a lot of sprinters ran their best times when they were 30, 31, so maybe I'm just getting there.

Tavis: Just getting started?

Greene: Maybe so.

Tavis: All right. I wish, I really, really, really wish, Mo, that I could have a conversation with you without having to raise the 'S' word, but you know I got to go there.

Greene: Yeah, of course.

Tavis: How badly has the whole story--I'm not even trying to cast aspersions on any particular person--the story's unfolding even as we speak--but how badly has your sport, track and field, been damaged by the steroid story, and is the damage irreparable?

Greene: There's always damage when you bring up drugs in our sport, because a lot of people think that a lot of us are on drugs.

Tavis: And, apparently, some of y'all were.

Greene: Yeah.

Tavis: Don't act like we just thought that. I mean, the evidence is coming in. Some of y'all were.

Greene: Yeah, but we take drug tests all the time. And soon, you know, they might find something that they don't believe can be tested, but eventually you will get caught, and that's why we have one of the cleanest sports today. We have one of the cleanest sports out there, because our drug policy and the amount of drug tests that we take. We will recover from it, but we just have to get this situation over and done with and just move on from it.

Tavis: How much does it affect you? How bothered are you by it? How upset do you get about the fact that people who have in fact used steroids have put this cloud over your sport? And, you know, there's always the chance that no matter how well you do--if you do really well, they're gonna say, 'Yeah, Maurice on that juice.' I mean, they put a cloud over the whole sport. Does that bother you? Are you mad at these folk for...?

Greene: Well, of course I am, because they're tainting something that I love so much, and with anything with anyone, if you love something so much, you don't want it to be tainted or harmed in any way. So, I feel that, you know, you need to get out of the sport. You need to go on and do something else.

Tavis: Now I was laughing because this is just me, I ain't asking you to even comment on this unless you want to. But I was laughing because if Marion Jones is juicing or was juicing, if Tim Montgomery, her baby daddy, is juicing or was juicing, it didn't help. It didn't help in the trials ‘cause both of them pulled up short.

Greene: Yeah, well...

Tavis: You don't comment on that, do you? Ha ha! I ain't gonna ask you to mess with that. But I was fascinated by that, though, because my sense is, though, that at any point in time, juicing or not juicing, the pressure, especially in track and field, is so intense. On any given day, you can pull up a few seconds short. True?

Greene: Of course. I believe when you're in a final or whenever you line up in a race, anyone--any one of those 8 people are capable of winning. I've always said everyone that lines up has about the same amount of ability because we've gotten there. It's your mental aspect and the things that you do to get yourself prepared for the race that helps you go to the top and helps you win.

Tavis: You know, what cracks me up about track and field, and I've been dying to ask you this, is to that mental acuity, that mental toughness. How does one prepare consistently to run a race, to compete in an event where you literally, literally are separated by seconds? I mean, it's like--other than horse racing, you know what I'm saying, I don't know what comes close to track and field where the margin of error is that small and where the finish times are that close.

Greene: Yeah. You know, I mean, I think I was just born with it, with the mental aspect of it. I mean, I'm a competitor. I love competition, and I'll compete in anything. It doesn't even have to be on the track. I mean, we can be--

Tavis: We're on a pool table. You trying to win.

Greene: Yeah, that's right.

Tavis: Ha ha! You remind me of Michael Jordan with that. Anything you do with Jordan, he's trying to win it.

Greene: Hey, you know, I think that's a thing of a great athlete. I mean, they have a competitive nature in anything that they do. I mean, that's just me.

Tavis: If you had not been such a great track star, if you had not been the fastest man in the world at a particular point in your career, what might you have done? I mean, ‘cause I get the sense--every time I talk to you, every time I see you, I get the sense that you've been so focused and so tunnel-visioned on this one thing. I've always wondered what you might have done, what you might have been had it not been in the track and field arena.

Greene: Ha ha. I can't really say. I mean, when I was growing up--

Tavis: Now, knowing you as I do, whatever it was, you would've thought you were the best at it.

Greene: Yeah, of course.

Tavis: Ha ha! Just knowing you the way I do. Whatever--whatever it would have been, you would've tried to be the best at it.

Greene: Yeah, I was gonna make a name for myself in something, whatever it was. But I mean, when I was growing up, I mean, I loved football. I thought I was gonna be a football player.

Tavis: What position?

Greene: Tailback.

Tavis: Tailback.

Greene: But one thing that I really love doing, though, I love working with kids, because someone was working with me when I was younger growing up, keeping me away from all the things of the streets and everything else. So, I mean--and that's why I became what I am today, and I feel like--you know, I always feel like I have to give back to the kids, help them do something. If I can help one of them, I helped a thousand, so...

Tavis: So I want to tell you, don't be ‘skerd.' Don't be ‘skerd' on your way over to Athens, but having said that, I gotta ask you: Are you ‘skerd'? Are you scared at all--I'm gonna get serious for a second, because there's a lot of concern, obviously, a lot of money being spent, a lot of attention being given to the safety of the athletes. And since I'm pulling for the American team, I want to make sure that all of our brothers and sisters are straight. But how frightened are you about what you're about to get into?

Greene: You know, I've thought about it. When I originally thought about it, yeah, I was a little worried about it. But then I think if something can happen here in the United States where we're supposed to be safe, it can happen anywhere. And we live in a crazy state right now. I mean, the world is in a crazy situation. If it's going to happen, it can happen when I'm in Paris, it can happen when I'm in London. It can happen anywhere in the world. I can't be thinking about if they're gonna do something, if some terrorist act is gonna happen. I'm totally focused on going to pick up my little package, my gold medal. And if it happens, it happens. I can't worry about that. So the fear factor of me going over there now--I'm past that part.

Tavis: What do you think your chances are?

Greene: Of winning?

Tavis: Yeah. Ha ha ha ha ha ha! I gotta five you on that one, partner. That was good! What kind of rhetorical question is that? You mean winning? My chances of winning? The answer--the answer's out there. I got you. I feel you on that.

Greene: I say I'm 98 percent sure that I will get the gold medal.

Tavis: Or to quote Don King: 'Your chances of not winning are slim to none, and Slim is outta town.'

Greene: Yeah. Ha ha ha.

Tavis: Let me ask a broader question to you. How is the American team going to do in track and field?

Greene: You know what? I think this is gonna be one of the strongest teams that we've had in a long time.

Tavis: You think so?

Greene: I think so. We have a lot of newcomers coming up, especially in the 400 meters. They're going through the trials right now, and you're seeing a lot of new faces, but you're seeing a lot of fierce competitors also. I think our chances are good.

Tavis: You got some young 20-somethings who want the same thing you want.

Greene: Yeah, of course, but, you know, they can't have it yet. They can have it after I'm gone.

Tavis: I started our conversation earlier by teasing you about your tattoo, 'Greatest of All Time,' on your arm. Did Mr. Ali call you and say, 'Hey, Maurice, are you trippin'?'

Greene: No. He--no. Ha ha.

Tavis: Ha ha ha! You can't take my motto!

Greene: I'm not taking his motto. I'm just--I'm improving it.

Tavis: Ha ha ha ha ha!

Greene: No. I wouldn't say I was improving it. But, you know, Ali is a great man, and he was a great athlete. And you can't dispute the things that he's done.

Tavis: So you're the greatest of all time--in track and field.

Greene: In track and field. He's the greatest of all time in boxing.

Tavis: I'm trying to help you clean that up a little bit, that's all. Nice to see you. Congratulations on doing so well during this season and all the best on the warm-ups between now and Athens, and go get your gold.

Greene: For sure.

Tavis: For sure. That's our show for tonight. As always, you can catch me on the radio on National Public Radio, NPR, and I'll see you back here next time on PBS.

Until then, thanks for watching. Good night from Los Angeles. All the best to Maurice Greene and the entire American team at the Olympics this summer. And keep the faith.