While basketball star Shaquille O’Neal rotated into the Reebok spotlight, O’Brien retreated to the small-town obscurity of Moscow, Idaho. Yet in the year since his famous flop, with virtually nobody in this country watching, O’Brien, still just 27, has rebounded to new heights. He set world records both indoors and out and earlier this summer reclaimed his national title, earning the right to represent the United States in next week’s world championships in Stuttgart, Germany.
That’s a long way from the sunbaked track in New Orleans. As Dan lay there last June, he was ready to quit. He recalls saying to himself, “That’s that. See you next year.” But after talks with his coaches and sponsors and after something only a true athlete of the ’90s can admit to–a good cry–Dan returned to the track for the final two events. Having lost in the medal chase, he proved his mettle instead. When the U.S. Olympic decathlon team gathered, Dan led the cheers. Then he faced the press, patiently answering the how-does-it-feel question that was asked a dozen different ways. O’Brien offered no excuses, not even a mention of the leg fracture that had prevented him from competing in the pole vault for the entire outdoor season until New Orleans. “The way Dan handled himself may have raised his stock as much as going to Barcelona and winning the gold,” says Rick Sloan, one of his two coaches. “Not that we wouldn’t have traded the two if we had the choice.”
What happened last summer has inevitably become an appendage to O’Brien’s name. “I swear he could be elected president,” says his coach, Mike Keller, “and they’d still write, ‘Dan O’Brien, who failed in his bid to make the Olympics’.” But O’Brien had already bounced back from far worse. On Christmas Day 1987, Dan hit a “true low point.” Out of school, out of work and wasting his life with drugs and alcohol, he was too ashamed even to go home for the holidays. Coach Keller took pity and gave Dan one last chance. O’Brien made the most of it. This time, bolstered by family, friends and many favorable letters, Dan says, “I felt half the country was still rooting for me.” He returns the favor, regularly sharing his experiences with schools and business groups. “So many people fail and just quit,” he says. “I tell them it’s OK to fail as long as you don’t give up.”
O’Brien doesn’t intend to give up until he wins the gold medal at the ‘96 Olympics in Atlanta. This time there won’t be as many distractions along the way. Dan’s days as the Reebok poster boy are over, though he and Dave Johnson, who won a bronze medal in Barcelona despite a foot fracture, did land a new Dan-and-Dave ad for Ryder truck rentals. “If Dan can stay healthy–with his speed, strength and jumping ability-he can’t be beat,” says Fred Samara, U.S. national decathlon coach. But Atlanta is three long years away. Nobody knows better than Dan O’Brien that the only sure gold is fool’s gold.
