In the summer of 1976, I had just completed my freshman year of high school. I was quickly realizing I wasn’t going to go very far as a baseball, football or basketball player. I’d run track that freshman year … very poorly, skipping many of the grueling workouts for baseball, which was much more fun.

But then the Olympics came along. I learned a sport didn’t need a ball in it to be cool. Two guys stood out to me. A marathoner, Frank Shorter, and Bruce Jenner, a decathlete. Jenner won the gold medal and the title of “World’s Greatest Athlete” that went with it.

Jenner inspired lots of kids. He was at once the embodiment of the boy next door and some kind of mythic superhero. And, remember, this was during the Cold War, when beating Russians and other communist countries in the Olympics was huge.

Shorter, and especially Jenner, got my 15-year-old brain thinking that getting good at track might make me popular (I didn’t realize it was one of those sports that was paid attention to just once every four years).

He had me convinced that eating a cereal with his picture on the box would make me bigger, faster and stronger. If I followed the lead of Bruce Jenner, I would become a man.

The decathlon required athleticism as well as discipline. As I had learned I’d never be the next Willie Mays, I learned I’d never be the next Bruce Jenner. But over the next three years, I trained and raced long enough and hard enough to place in a few distance events and help my school win some meets. It gave me a sense of worth and confidence at a time in life when that could be in short supply.

As the decades went by, Bruce Jenner faded along with other high school memories. Then a few years ago while flipping channels I saw him on a reality TV show where he had married into a narcissistic family and seemed like the only sensible person.

Then, more recently, I’d see him on the covers of tabloid newspapers while standing in supermarket checkout lines. Headlines and photos suggested he was transitioning into a woman. Considering the sources, I thought it about as true as the stories about UFOs landing in back yards and JFK still being alive.

But now, it is all very real. Bruce Jenner is Caitlyn Jenner. Her verified Twitter account has 2.25 million followers.

Part of me thinks that’s enough, just go live your life quietly now. But the publicity might help tortured souls by preventing suicides and generating understanding and tolerance for transgender people.

It’s pretty incredible that someone who inspired millions of people as a man can do so again 39 years later as a woman.

A New York Post story by Phil Pepe about Jenner winning the Olympic decathlon in 1976 ended with this line:

“And now it was over, his challenge met and conquered. And now Bruce Jenner could rest.”

That seems as apt now as it was then.

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at hawaiiwarriorworld/quick-reads.