The stadium roared as the finalists crouched in silence. The gun cracked, and he was gone, fast, fluid, fierce. Each hurdle fell behind him like pages turning in a story long in the making. The build was relentless; his lead grew with every step. Then came the break: the finish line, 13.00 seconds on the clock, the fastest of the year, a personal peak, and a world crown. But what if we tell you that this track and field star would have quit early on?
During his senior year at Howard, David Oliver qualified for the Olympic Trials, a huge deal for someone from his school. At the Trials, he met Keith Rucker, who told him, “If you get into the right environment, you could really take it to the next level.” David had never been around that level of pro track before; all those Nike and Adidas athletes blew his mind. After finishing school, Keith helped him get connected with Brooks, a great track and field coach. He recalled this in the latest episode of Ready Set Go, aired on August 7th, 2025. What else?
After finishing school, he went back to the towers, packed all his belongings into plastic bins, and sent them on a Greyhound bus. David said on the podcast, “I had like my TV and certain things. So, I had got a Corsica and drove that joint from uh from DC down to Florida. It was like 13 hours or something. And you know, I get out of the car, you know, this is 2005, and you know, I got the Howard track sweats on, some Tim boots, a white tea, and I’m thinking like, ‘Oh, I’mma get eased into, you know, practice.’” Running to practice right after a long 13-hour drive was a bad idea because his body was already fatigued from hours on the road, increasing the risk of injury and reducing his performance.
Plus, wearing Tim boots instead of proper training shoes was a big no. And there was another problem. “I mean, I ain’t trained. I was playing football, you know, I haven’t done any track stuff since June or whenever the trials was in 2004.” At the 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials held in July in Sacramento, David Oliver did not finish (DNF) in his heat of the men’s 110-meter hurdles. How did the practice go? He went to the weight room with Randy Hadley, a really impressive strength and conditioning coach. When he walked in, everyone looked at him like, “Oh, you’re this big guy,” but the truth was, he hadn’t lifted weights much in school.
Randy had him try to lift a PVC pipe overhead and squat, and he couldn’t even manage that. The next day wasn’t easy either. He said, “The next day we had nine times 300, and I was like, man, hold, I was like, I’m like timeout, time out I was I haven’t run in like six months or so. I have not ran in six months. And but Brooks, you know, he didn’t give a damn about none of that.” He was watching the triple jumpers doing their thing, and everyone was pushing through it. Meanwhile, he had to do three sets of three throws, and after each set, he ended up throwing up. After the first set, he thought, “Oh, nah, nah. This this not for me.” It was rough enough that he just went straight home.
The World Champion said, “I was living across the street from a Walmart down there by down the street from Universal Studios. And I called my mom. I was like, “Hey, yeah, I don’t think this is for me. I don’t think this is for me. This is too much.” Coming from Howard, things were different. His coach, the late Mike Merritt, was a distance coach, so they didn’t do all the specialized sprint training or complex drills. Instead, they focused on basics like block starts and running, keeping it simple. “I had never done nothing like that in my life. And I was like, “Yeah, this ain’t for me. If this is what it takes, this ain’t for me,” David Oliver confessed. But ultimately, this was for him, and he excelled at it.
The track and field sensation David Oliver was
David Oliver might have thought that 100mH is not for him, but his achievements differ. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he secured the bronze medal with a time of 13.18 seconds. In 2010, Oliver earned a bronze medal in the 60-meter hurdles at the World Indoor Championships in Doha. The same year, he clinched gold at the Continental Championships in Santo Domingo, becoming the first American to win the continental 110-meter hurdles title since Roger Kingdom in 1995.
Track and Field: Pan Am Games Jul 24, 2015 Toronto, Ontario, CAN David Oliver USA takes a victory lap with United States flag after winning the 110m hurdles in 13.07 during the the 2015 Pan Am Games at CIBC Pan Am Athletics Stadium. Photo by Claus Andersen Toronto Ontario Canada EDITORIAL USE ONLY Copyright: xImagexofxSportx ClausxAndersenx iosphotos135042
“I would say my favorite achievement of my running career was winning the World Championships. It was such a soul-searching and mentally straining process that started the fall of 2012, and to see it culminate 9-10 months later, standing on top of the podium, meant the world. Winning is the most important part of track and field to me.” He confessed in an interview.
Oliver was also a three-time Diamond League winner in 2010, 2013, and 2015. In recognition of his outstanding performances, Oliver was honored with the Jesse Owens Award in 2010, acknowledging him as the U.S. Track & Field Athlete of the Year. His collegiate achievements at Howard University were celebrated with inductions into both the Howard University Athletics Hall of Fame in 2014 and the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Hall of Fame in 2016.
The post “Ain’t for Me”: Track and Field Star Gets Candid on the Moment that Nearly Ended his Career appeared first on EssentiallySports.