Jim Hines - Track Career

Track Career

Born in Dumas, Arkansas, Hines was raised in Oakland, California and graduated from McClymonds High School in 1964. He was a baseball player in his younger years, until he was spotted by track coach, Jim Coleman, as a running talent and became a sprinter. At the 1968 US national championships in Sacramento, California, Hines became the first man to break the ten second barrier in the 100 meter race, setting 9.9 (manual timing), with a real time of 10.03 - two other athletes, Ronnie Ray Smith behind him (real time 10.13) and Charles Greene on the other semi-final (real time 10.09) having the same official clocking. That evening of June 20, 1968 at Hughes Stadium has been dubbed by track and field historians as the "Night of Speed." Hines attended Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas. He was a member of the Texas Southern University Tigers track team.

A few months later, at the 1968 Summer Olympics, Hines — a black athlete — found himself in a tense situation, with racial riots going on in his home country and a threat of a boycott by the black athletes of the US team, who were disturbed by the controversial idea of admitting apartheid South Africa to the Games and revelations linking the head of the International Olympic Committee, Avery Brundage, to a racist and anti-semitic country club. Hines reached the 100 m final, and won it with the time 9.89 appearing at the screen, later corrected to 9.95. There was some controversy over how to his (slower appearing) electronic time of 9.95 should compare to the hand timed 9.9 "record" races of the day. It took until 1977 before fully automatic timing was required of world records. As the fastest electronic time to that point, Hines' mark was recognized exclusively as a new world record. The race was also significant for being the first all-black final in Olympic history. Hines helped break another World Record, when he and his teammates sprinted to the 4 x 100 m relay gold at the same Games.