TRUE STORY!

Every month, Ato will post a true story that happened during his career.  Of course, being on the road since 1995 and then being in a group like HSI, he has a ton of stories.

Enjoy.

JANUARY 2005

"BE NICE to strangers!"

It was 1997, and Maurice Greene and I were just coming into our own as sprinters. We had just won our world titles in Athens - he in the 100m and I in the 200m.

Well, we were staying at the Loews Monte Carlo Hotel, one of my favorite hotels.  They've changed the name since then.  Anyhow, we were just beginning to deal with our little bit of fame, and not quite used to people staring or being in our business, and in Europe that happens a lot.

Anyhow this one guy in particular anytime we saw him always seemed to stare just way too long, to the point where we would get uncomfortable.  Days passed and he continued to do it every time we saw him.  If I think back , we had probably contemplated saying something.  In Europe, as a young black man, I remember always looking out for racism or people acting badly towards you, which I have to say in a decade of being there every summer was rare, but we did have the occasional moment where the dog in the restaurant (yes, Europeans sit their dogs at the table in many countries) would look at us as though we didn't belong (that's another true story I guess to come).

So on the day in question, we see the same guy as we are walking outside from the lobby to the place where you'd pull up to enter the hotel.  He's staring with that blank expression again.  Ok, I am going to say something to him.  Before I can, he says, in the heaviest Italian accent

"Ah, Ato Boldon, ay, Moore-eecee Greeen-eh!"

Ohhhhh-k - so he's a fan. Cool. The man embraces us like we are his long lost children, so that was kind of funny.  So we then walk out to the most gorgeous Lamborghini Diablo.   Monte Carlo has the best cars in the world in the summer, because the rich and famous from all over the world come there with their many expensive toys.   Most of u may know what that is.  Some may not. 

This is a Lamborghini Diablo.

So of course we are drooling over this car.  The Italian man says " "Ah, you like, eh? Please, you can drive if you want.

Does he know who he's talking to?  He gives Maurice the keys.  Who promptly hands them to me. He knows he wouldn't have been able to get that car out of the parking lot (LOL).

Not bad for two 23 years olds from Kansas and Trinidad.  Playing in his CD player?  James Brown - "The Big Payback" - it was like a scene from a movie.  We were grinning like school-kids as I took it out of the parking lot and out to the street.  That man had no clue what he had given us permission to do.  The car was such a monster I could not get it out of first gear before I had to slow down for traffic.  We didn't care....the engine roar and the people staring weren't a problem now!

You know sprinters are show-offs, so it's not news!

Meanwhile back at the hotel, the man was waiting on his car.  Oops.

 We brought it back in one piece in about a half- hour.  To him it might have seemed a lifetime, especially after our esteemed manager came outside and discovered what he had done, and then he really got worried when he saw the reaction of our manager.

I never forgot that day, and that James Brown song still makes me think of the generous Italian guy that day in 97 with his  Diablo SV.

MORAL: Make sure you know if someone wants to let you drive their quarter-million dollar car BEFORE you try to be rude to them!