Jim Hines, the 1968 Olympic 100m champion and world record holder, died June 3. He was 76. Hines won the Mexico City 100m final in 9.95 seconds to become the first man ever to run under 10 seconds with automatic timing and a legal wind, and he came back to anchor the U.S. 4x100m relay to gold in 38.24, also a world record. His 100m standard stood for 15 years until it was bettered by Calvin Smith with a 9.93 in 1983. Hines set six world records during his career, three in the 100m, one in the 100y, one in the 4x100m relay, and one in the 440y relay. A native of Arkansas, Hines graduated from McClymonds High School in Oakland, California, where as a senior he won 1964 state titles in the 100y and 220y after equaling the national prep record in the 100y with a 9.4 at the Fresno Relays. Taking his prodigious talents to Texas Southern University and legendary coach Stan Wright, Hines quickly made his mark on the national scene as a freshman, qualifying for the U.S. team that would compete in dual meets against the Soviet Union, Poland, and West Germany with a runner-up finish at the AAU Championships in the 220y and a fourth-place effort in the 100y. In the next two seasons at the Houston school, Hines won back-to-back NAIA championships in the 100y and added a 220y crown in 1967. He raced to gold in the AAU 220y in 1966 and was second in the 100y, and then moved to the top of the podium in the 100y in 1967, clocking 9.3 seconds to earn a berth on the U.S. team that competed against a Commonwealth squad. Hines false started in the 100m at the USA-Commonwealth dual in Los Angeles but gained redemption as he anchored the 4x100m relay to gold in 39.0. Also a football player at TSU, Hines was selected by the Miami Dolphins in the sixth round of the NFL draft in January 1968, but the year was filled with turmoil as he had quit the TSU football team and had his track scholarship cut in a power struggle between Wright and the school's new football-centered athletics administration. Running under the tutelage and rumored sponsorship of 1956 Olympic 100m champion Bobby Morrow for the Houston Striders track club, Hines won the Olympic Trials 100m over longtime rival Charlie Greene, taking the semifinal Trials in Los Angeles in a wind-hindered 10.2/10.38, and the final OT in 10.0/10.11 at altitude in Echo Summit, California. That set the stage for an epic showdown in Mexico City, where Hines lived up to the hype and romped to gold in the 100m, with Greene claiming bronze behind Lennox Miller of Jamaica. The quartet of Greene, Mel Pender, Ronnie Ray Smith, and Hines then dominated the 4x100m relay to break the WR of 38.39 that was set by Jamaica in the semis. Heading to the gridiron after the Games, Hines played in 10 games for the Dolphins in 1969 and in one game for the Kansas City Chiefs in 1970. He later worked with youth in Houston and was inducted into the National Track & Field Hall of Fame in 1979. Photo Credit: USOPC Archives