From The Bahamas to Brooklyn and Back, A Sprinting Great Takes on All Challenges and Conquers the World

By Marc Bloom

Part One | Part Two

As a youngster growing up in Nassau, the Bahamas, in the early 1960s, he would rise at 4 in the morning to sell newspapers before school. He would do the same after school. The Guardian in the morning, the Tribune at night. Morning and evening, year-around.

“Pocket change,” he told me.

The papers did not publish on Sunday, so the boy would stock shelves at a food market and deliver groceries for tips.

“I roamed the streets,” he said, “but in a good way. I wanted to be independent, to make things happen for myself, to have a few dollars of my own.”

He washed cars, caddied at a golf course. Always on the go. “That defines me,” he said. “To this day.”

One day a song lyric found its way into the boy’s heart and he couldn’t stop humming it. He’d picked it up from his mother, a spiritual woman, who advocated righteousness and a sense of duty in her four children. She would sing it, holding onto the blessings of common folk who could elevate one another and, in doing so, elevate others.

The tune went, “If I can help somebody as I travel along…if I can help somebody from doing wrong, my living shall not be in vain.”

The boy, now a man of 70 — one of the legends of New York City sprinting over a half-century ago, later a pioneering Bahamas national record holder and international gold medalist, and, today, a figure of renown who with colleagues is hosting the World Athletics Relays, a Paris Olympics qualifier, on May 4 and 5, in Nassau — continues pondering the song as his mother once did, as a beacon of biblical promise that love and kindness will win the day.

“I live by that,” Mike Sands told me recently in Face Time conversations from Nassau that were reunions as much as interviews. Referring to the lyric, he said, “It’s really serious. It stays with me.”

Reunions, you see, because Mike Sands and I grew up together in Brooklyn.

While he’s younger than me, we both ran for the same high school, Sheepshead Bay. By the time Mike was knocking down records at the Armory, Randalls Island and beyond, I was well into my reporting career, covering his every stride. And since the teen-age Mike always carried himself as an adult — he had to, living on his own — his presence, on and off the track, conveyed a mastery of his environment.

I kept up with Mike’s exploits through the years, seeing him at the Olympics and other events, taking pride not only in his continuing excellence in all three sprints — the 100, 200 and 400, few can do it — but even more so in his elevation to the highest levels of track-and-field administration. 

Mike’s sweetness and boldness — he had it all — and show-stopping allure, embodied in the photo at the top, taken in 1971, his senior year of high school, could bowl you over, never with the dust of privilege, never with cunning, just Mike, feasting on life and the people he met: a man in full, on the way up, there was no stopping him.

The photograph, taken for a cover story I wrote in the April, 1971 issue of Letterman, a magazine about high school sports, still stuns me now for its bracing depiction of perfection — Mike’s sculpted body, classic form and movie star visage speak for themselves — along with the bay’s teasing winter backdrop, footprints in the sand, the bluest of skies as though on canvas, the Marine Parkway Bridge (no, not the Verrazano) as anchor: Edward Hopper meets the beach.

Not just any beach but an obscure and beguiling spot called Plum Beach, a couple of miles down the road from where I lived. Think Stephen King, horrors at darkness. Indeed, bodies have turned up there, courtesy of the local gentry. A few miles east along the adjacent Belt Parkway (world’s worst traffic jams, thank you Robert Moses), where the Brooklyn border bleeds into Queens, you’ll find “Goodfellas” wise guys all over the place.

Memories being what they are after 53 years, I can recall no details about the photo session other than being sure that I would have been the one to put it together. The photographer, Stuart Warner, another member of Team Mike, remembered that the site was Plum Beach and not, as I had assumed, Coney Island or Brighton Beach a short drive west. The key figure in Mike’s life and ascent, Sheepshead Bay coach Stuie Levine, was not even there at the shooting.

The only person with a good memory of the day was Mike himself. Notice his tight fists and partial grimace. Mike said he was freezing. The session was held in the dead of winter, considering the monthly magazine’s lead time. It was probably 30 degrees. Mike had to run back and forth for the camera in his skivvies. He laughs about it now.

That was the team nurturing Mike and marveling at his man-boy insouciance: Field general and head coach Stu Levine, a trackman in the first Sheepshead Bay graduating class of 1961; yours truly, gadfly, catalyst and track scene wellspring who graduated in 1964; and Stuart Warner, amateur photographer (and a darn good one), independent-minded runner who ran the streets and marathons when few did, and a budding philosopher with big ideas who could quote Montesquieu even then, graduating in 1967.

See the black-and-white photo, from the 1971 Golden West Invitational in Sacramento, California, the only national high school championship at the time (only for seniors, and not yet for girls; Title IX was soon to come). That’s me on the left with the embarrassing paunch (I had not quite started my adult running yet), coach Levine on the right, with Mike in the middle. Warner took the photo.

The team.

Looking back, I would say the four of us represented an era, with graduate years of 1961, 1964, 1967 and, Mike, 1971. Then, track-and-field had majesty, not for any marketing gimmicks but for how it conveyed the unadorned promise of athletic power.

With our scrubbed professionalism and arcane track-ness, we were, frankly, at odds with the neighborhood vibe. The most famous of all Sheepshead athletes was Rico Petrocelli, a 1961 first-team all-city basketball player and city baseball Player of the Year, who went on to become an all-star shortstop with the Boston Red Sox.

We had no football team then. No track either.

Indoors, we ran the school hallways, sweat pouring off us in the fetid closeness, the bane of upright students making their rounds. Outdoors, we trained at rival James Madison High, a long bike-ride away, on a cruddy, 220-yard cinder track. Out of sight, out of mind.

The most famous Sheepshead graduate of all was Larry David, class of ’65, a year behind me, of “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” fame. I can attest that there were quirky “George” goofballs on every street corner, and that the take-it-or-leave-it Larry-style angst was barely concealed behind bad haircuts, Brooklyn schtick, and too many hotdogs at Nathan’s Famous.

“If I Can Help Somebody,” as the song was titled, continues to emboss the reflective disposition of Sands, as he serves World Athletics as president of the 37-nation North American, Central American and Caribbean Athletic Association (NACAC), along with a seat on WA Council that makes all the major decisions governing international track-and-field.

Such was Sands’ reputation that the inaugural World Relays was awarded to the Bahamas, and put into Mike’s hands, in 2014. He was named CEO of the event in 2014 and 2015, spearheading the new concept. The Bahamas staged the Relays again in 2017, and this time around, with Sands’ position as a member of the board of the local organizing committee, some 50 nations and 1,000 athletes are expected to compete.

Teams will attempt to establish credentials for Paris in the 4x100, 4x400 and mixed 4x400 relays, using a repechage format, French for “second chance.” Each nation will get two shots at being among the fastest 14 teams in each event; with two at-large selections to be added, there will be 32 quartets set up in four men’s and women’s semi-final races in Paris.

The host nation will have a chance to showcase its stars, like reigning Olympic 400-meter champions Steve Gardiner and Shaunae Miller-Uibo, and recent world indoor hurdles titlist and world record-holder Devynne Charlton. They have Mr. Sands as their heritage.

A new track surface, the same as in Paris, will be tested for the first time at the venue, Thomas Robinson Stadium. Robinson, a medal-winning sprinter from the 1950s and ‘60s, who died in 2012, is considered the Godfather of Bahamas track and field. “He was my hero,” said Sands.

The influential melody that marshaled Sands’ mission was composed in 1945, probably as a post-War pledge of renewal. For its spirituality, the verse was taken up as a gospel tune and sung by numerous artists including Mahalia Jackson, one of the most influential voices of the 20th century.

In 1964, three years after she sang the national anthem at the JFK inauguration, Jackson released “If I Can Help Somebody,” as her own. When the devotional messages were instilled in Sands, he was attending Bahamas Academy, a parochial school for Seventh Day Adventists, the religion of the Sands’ family.

Big and strong for his age, young Mike was a top soccer player and one of the fastest runners, but the school’s strict guidelines prohibited competition outside the grounds against opposing teams. The Academy’s sports were held like intramurals. In addition, Adventist orthodoxy forbade sports play from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. 

Sands and his teammates were frustrated at not being able to test themselves against schools with big reputations. One time, Sands recalled, the young athletes took it upon themselves to schedule a soccer match on a Friday night against powerful St. Andrew’s. “We never knew how good we were,” Sands said. Pretty good, it turned out. They beat St. Andrew’s.

But when a story about the victory appeared in the local newspaper, the Academy principal was incensed and inflicted corporal punishment on each boy. One by one, the youngsters were brought up in front of the assembly. The principal whipped out a cane and swiped each student repeatedly in the palm of the hand. 

“We were the rebels,” Mike told me.

It was a lesson in bureaucratic authority Sands would not soon forget. Time and time again, in college, on international teams, even in the mundane events of everyday life, Sands would have to confront ill will and intransigence, human flaws his spirit of rightness could not countenance, leaving him no choice but stand up for others, not only for himself.

Living the scripture of her gospel sound, Mahalia Jackson was known for her benevolence, often paying for the education of poor children. Sands’ mom was cut from the same cloth. “She taught us, even if you think you have it bad, there’s always someone worse off than you,” he said.

Mike’s mother worked as a domestic. Mike’s father was a correction officer. The family lived in quarters on the prison grounds. Despite their modest means, Mike would always follow his mom’s example, helping those in front of him on the supermarket check-out line who could not afford to pay. “I could never let that happen,” said Mike. “They had to have something to eat.”

Sands’ grace, together with his big smile, flawless good looks, and the cool-cat bravado of another Bahamian legend, the actor Sidney Poitier, did not go unnoticed as he has made his way through each stage of life and sport.

At Sheepshead Bay, Sands was a key member of Peer Group Leadership, helping classmates cope with drug abuse and other problems. On one retreat to upstate New York, the school guidance counselor took Mike aside and asked him to speak to needy kids on an individual basis.

In college, at Penn State, Sands was “the glue of the team,” recalled his friend and Nittany Lions teammate, the hurdler Fred Singleton. Sands would speak up if athletes felt that coaches were being insensitive to their needs. Only Sands had the conviction and courage to challenge the sometimes irksome head coach Harry Groves when necessary.

Preparing for his first Bahamas international team, the 1970 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, Scotland, Sands, then barely 17 and still in high school in Brooklyn, used the training program designed by coach Levine, who’d become like a second father to Mike. The Bahamas head coach, an autocratic figure, objected and insisted on his workouts. 

Mike refused, saying he would quit the squad rather than submit to political pressure. “You don’t know me,” Mike protested. “You can’t disrespect me or my coach.”

The coach capitulated and Mike went off to Scotland as his nation’s youngest participant.

Two years later, with national team contretemps in the past (well, not quite), Sands was not only selected to compete in the Munich Olympics but accorded the privilege of being his country’s flagbearer. At 19, Sands was certainly among the youngest to carry the flag in the 1972 Opening Ceremonies, and perhaps among the youngest ever at the summer Games.

In 1976, in Montreal, Sands was again awarded the distinction of leading his delegation into Olympic Stadium, flag in his grasp.

“I can think of no greater honor,” Sands told me.

When I asked Mike how he handled the stature and responsibility, especially the first time when still a teen-ager, he surprised me, saying he was not overwhelmed, he took the honor coolly and without pressure, as he had with all his big moments: the championship races; his move to New York; his college choice; heading up the various sports bodies; and, for the fourth time, hosting the World Relays, now with the added pressure of Olympic selection.

“I reflect on things in my life,” said Sands. “How did I arrive at a decision at a young age? I believe in fate, destiny. My mother always sticks in my mind. In Nassau, we lived in the hurricane belt. Mom would say, ‘Let’s prepare for the worst and hope for the best.’”

That philosophy would take the Bahamian far. However, it was turned on its head when the evil twist of history confronted Sands, and resulted in a catastrophe that resonates powerfully to the present day.

At Munich, in the 100-meter heats on Aug. 31, Sands placed second to eventual gold medalist Valeriy Borzov of the Soviet Union. Later that same day, Sands took sixth in his quarter-final and was eliminated. The final was run on Sept. 1.

On Sept. 3, Sands placed fifth in the 200 heats; his race was won by Don Quarrie of Jamaica, who would become a lifelong friend. On Sept. 4, Borzov won gold again for a sprint sweep.

The next day, the 5th, Sands and his Bahamas roommate, Walter Callendar, were awakened in the early dawn by frantic knocking at the door. Their dorm was next to that of the Israeli contingent. “Please let me in, they’re killing my friends,” the man pleaded. They opened the door and saw an Israeli athlete sweating profusely, and seemingly disoriented, in his pajamas.

Sands and Callender thought the athlete might have been drinking. Soon, as Sands recalled it, a German soldier appeared, tasked with chauffeuring some athletes from the dorm complex. The three men, as yet unaware of the dangers in their midst, took up with the Israeli, increasingly incoherent, and walked him back to his room to see what the fuss was about.

At the door of the complex where it would later be learned the terrorists were holed up with captured Israeli athletes, one of the terrorists, from the Palestine Liberation Organization, clad in the head-covering scarf that would soon become a haunting icon of mass murder, emerged with an automatic weapon and stuck it right into the German soldier’s face.

At that instant, the soldier was standing in front of Sands and Callendar, both tall, with the short Israeli behind them, shielded from the vision of the terrorist. According to Sands, the terrorist, referring to his weapon, told the soldier something like, “This is not for you,” and ordered the group back to their quarters.

The four men hurried back. The soldier phoned his superiors. Sands called the police. These alerts were among the first of the tragedy that was unfolding.

“We had no idea of the magnitude of what was going on,” recalled Sands.

Soon they would find out. Within hours, eleven Israeli coaches and athletes would be massacred. A shaken Sands was among 3,000 athletes who filled the track stadium the next day in a memorial tribute. Despite pleas from Israeli advocates and family members of the victims, it took the International Olympic Committee 44 years, until Rio in 2016, to officially commemorate the loss of life.

The athlete who Sands and cohorts helped protect was later determined to be a fencer, Dan Alon, one of the few Israeli survivors of the attacks. Soon after the Rio Games, in 2016, Alon was on a speaking tour in the Caribbean and invited to appear in the Bahamas. He and Sands had a tearful reunion. Alon died two years later at 72.

A guiding spirit seemed to have Sands in its grasp. He has always been moved by the light cast upon him.

If not for a New York City teacher’s strike in the fall of 1968, who knows what turns Sands’ life would have taken?

At the time, Mike’s mom made occasional trips to Brooklyn to visit an adult niece in the Crown Heights section, in the central part of the borough near Prospect Park. She would return home with grand tales of the tall buildings and the subway system. “I couldn’t fathom it,” Mike said. “I had to see it for myself.”

In the summer of 1968, Mike, just turned 15, accompanied his mother to Brooklyn. He liked what he saw and pleaded with his mother to stay: to start a new life in Brooklyn.

Mike’s mother agreed. She went back to the Bahamas. Mike proceeded to live with her niece — his older cousin — in Brooklyn.

For the 1968-69 school term, Mike was assigned to Wingate High. Crown Heights was fast becoming a melting pot of Caribbean immigrants. The city-wide teacher’s strike had begun in May, causing chaos and uncertainly. The heavily Black and Latino neighborhood had become a flash point in the conflict between the teacher’s union and parents over “community control” of schools. 

When Sands showed up at Wingate to register, he didn’t like what he saw: students hanging around aimlessly, unseemly commotion. Jarred, Sands turned around and found his way to Board of Education headquarters, a dizzying bureaucratic fortress with little patience for change.

Sands appealed to a Bd of Ed official, asking her to permit him to attend another Brooklyn high school, it didn’t matter which one, as long as it was not Wingate. Mike’s “hope for the best” scaffolding gave him the survival instinct to make his case. Attending school out of one’s jurisdiction was a hard case to make.

However, the controversial school busing measures for purposes of racial integration — sending Black youngsters to mostly white, and presumably “better,” schools — were expanding. The definition of a “local” school was evolving. Without argument, the official agreed and suggested Sheepshead Bay. It would take an hour by bus and/or train — the vaunted subway.

“I did them a favor,” said Sands. “I played into their hands.”

The teacher’s strike ended in November. Sands entered Sheepshead as a sophomore. He played soccer, then decided to run indoor track. He met coach Levine. Mike Sands was on his way.

The journalist and author Marc Bloom, whose career spans 60 years, contributes historical stories. His books include “God on the Starting Line,” about his experience coaching a Catholic school, and “Amazing Racers,” about the Fayetteville-Manlius cross-country dynasty. In 2022, Marc was inducted into the Van Cortlandt Park Cross-Country Hall of Fame.