Edwin Moses: ‘Atlanta should be a hub for track and field’

Morehouse College hosted the Edwin Moses Legends Track Meet on May 31, with world-renowned athletes running on the Edwin C. Moses Track.

“It is a dream come true,” Moses said after the event’s culmination — the women’s 400-meter hurdles — when world record holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone ran her best time so far this year: 52.70 seconds. She set the world record in 2022 — 50.68. 

Moses broke the world record when he was a physics student at Morehouse.

“We didn’t have a track when I was here,” Moses said. “This has been a vision going back more than 20 years.”

The vision? To make Atlanta a leading city in the country in the hosting of professional track and field events.

Agreeing with that vision is Rich Kenah, CEO of the Atlanta Track Club, who was sitting in the stands just feet away from the finish line watching Morehouse hold its first professional track and field event — the first held on the campus of an HBCU (historically Black colleges and universities). 

“One of the big challenges for the growth of track and field is access to facilities,” Kenah said. “That’s why it’s been such a breath of fresh air to be here at Morehouse.”

On May 18, the Atlanta Track Club partnered with adidas to host the Atlanta City Games at Piedmont Park, a meet that also included some of the top track and field athletes in the world.

“It’s been an incredible month of May,” Kenah said. The fact that, in the course of one month, Atlanta supported two world-class track and field events speaks to the health of the sport in Georgia and Atlanta and the potential of the elite side of the sport to grow here.” 

The Atlanta Sports Council is looking to support those efforts.

“We are always supportive of opportunities to bring global sporting events and exposure to our city and state,” said Dan Corso, president of the Atlanta Sports Council. “Fortunately, we are partners with the Atlanta Track Club, a premier member-based organization centered around running and organizing Atlanta’s top running and track events. In partnership with the Atlanta Track Club, we would support additional opportunities to recruit track and field events if they chose to pursue them.”  

As Kenah sees it, one of the missing pieces is Atlanta having an indoor facility.

 “I’m making it my personal mission to build a world-class indoor track and field facility that can host events like this so Atlanta becomes the East Coast capital for running in general and specifically track and field,” Kenah said. In 2023, the Atlanta Track Club announced it was seeking to build a $100 million facility that would be about 200,000 square feet on a six-acre site in the central city that is close to transit.

The meet at Morehouse had a jubilant atmosphere that included a host of dignitaries, including Billye Aaron, a philanthropist who is the widow of baseball legend Hank Aaron. She contributed $1 million of the $4.5 million price tag in 2022 to refurbish the Morehouse stadium and elevate the dilapidated track to world-class standards.

“It’s a wonderful, wonderful occasion to have at Morehouse College,” said Aaron, who was delighted to have played a part in refurbishing the track. “I think making Atlanta a center for track and field is a wonderful idea.”

Helene Gayle, president of Spelman College, agreed.

“I believe Atlanta should be at the center of most things. Why not track and field?” Gayle said. “To have Edwin Moses, who graduated from Morehouse and is a resident of Atlanta, where better to have a track and field capital? That’s a great aspiration to have.”

Kenah said Atlanta and Morehouse already have an edge because Moses is the most iconic name in the sport. 

During the meet, the announcer introduced Moses by saying he had won 122 consecutive races, a streak that likely won’t ever be seen again. That winning streak spanned nine years, nine months and nine days.

“Edwin was my agent in 1992 when I came out of college and was chasing my Olympic dreams,” said Kenah, who missed making the U.S. Olympic team in 1996 by 1/10th of a second. “Riding the trains with Edwin Moses across Europe, I saw how respected he was internationally.”

Now the two are working together once more. The Atlanta Track Club held four of its All Comers meets at Morehouse in May. The Morehouse track is helping elevate Atlanta as a venue.

“It takes an intentional effort to maintain, to build and to program track and field facilities,” Kenah said. “What Edwin has done here at Morehouse will benefit so many. It will help Morehouse attract some of the best track and field athletes to the school.”

Using several track and field metaphors, Kenah said more is needed.

“The biggest hurdles are facilities,” he said. “Morehouse took a huge leap forward, and the Atlanta Track Club is going to follow that lead soon with an indoor track and field facility. We are pretty far down the track.”

On the day before the meet, Moses and the PUMA American Track League held a press conference where promoter Paul Doyle issued a $1 million challenge to any runner who could beat the record Moses set running the 400-meter hurdles — 47.02. Shakeem Hall-Smith of the Bahamas had the best time at the May 31 meet — 48.79.

The four athletes present — Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Matthew Boling, Angel Piccirillo and Khallifah Rosser — were in awe of being in the presence of Moses.

“It’s a historic moment. I feel honored to be here,” McLaughlin-Levrone said. “Edwin, you have done an amazing job. I just want to perform to the best of my ability and have more opportunities like this.”

All four athletes were honored to be running in the first professional meet held at an HBCU. 

“It’s huge,” said Rosser, who came in second at the men’s 400-meter hurdles on May 31. Rosser went on to say it’s important the meet was being held at Morehouse, an HBCU, because there are so many Black athletes in the sport. “It definitely means a lot to have someone so big in track and field (Moses) involved.” 

Moses said he had signed a one-year license for the use of his name for the 2024 meet, but he made it sound like there would be another meet in 2025. 

“I’m very grateful to have the best athletes in the world here. I’m just very happy all of you have come to the inaugural Edwin Moses Legends Meet. I’m ecstatic,” said Moses, who was keenly aware the meet was happening at a time when athletes are hoping to compete at the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris. “I wish everyone the best in Paris.”

The press conference ended with a trailer for another one of Moses’ projects — a documentary on his life called “Moses – 13 Steps.” He’s been working on that project since 2020. Morgan Freeman is executive producer on the project working along with Lori McCreary and the production company Revelations. Moses is now working on the film’s distribution.

The documentary, however, does not address one of the more amazing stories of his life.

In 2017, he had two traumatic brain injuries, six weeks apart, with the second one occurring on Aug. 17. The first concussion happened when he fell down the stairs, and the second was when he hit his head getting into his car. He ended up with two-and-a-half inches of blood in his skull.

“By Aug. 29, I was in the emergency room and paralyzed. I had to learn how to walk again,” said Moses, who added that it affected his reasoning and his vocabulary. Still, he was able to continue serving as chairman of the Laureus World Sports Academy and as chairman emeritus of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s Education Committee as well as chair of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s education committee. He was running meetings, and everyone he worked with was supportive of his health challenges.

During the May 31 meet, Moses looked at what he had helped create at Morehouse and Atlanta in the world of track and field, and he expressed amazement by how far he had come.

“The recovery was uncertain for four years,” Moses said. “I never thought I would recover the way that I did.”