Mission Accomplished
By Chris Wadsworth
As a child growing up in rural Jamaica, Dennis Blake knew one thing – he liked to run, and he liked to run fast. When he saw runners on TV at a friend’s house, he set some pretty heady goals for himself. One, get on TV. Two, run in the Olympics. And, three, win an Olympic medal.
Spoiler alert – the Broadlands resident achieved all three.
Today, after several years working at Briar Woods High School as a resource teacher and track coach, Blake is a private mentor and coach and also does public speaking.
Ashburn Magazine sat down with Blake, 53, at a local coffee shop to talk about his life and his goals – and whether he will be watching the Olympic Games in Paris this summer. Another spoiler alert – the answer is yes, and possibly for a very special reason. Here are excerpts from our conversation.
Q: Going back to childhood, all kids like to run – when did you first figure out that you were fast? That you were a good runner?
Blake: “As a little kid in primary school – elementary school – I would run for fun. I would compete against my peers, and I would be the winner most of the time. It was then the principal and the vice principal of the primary school saw some talent and started taking me places for competition.”
Q: You had a childhood dream to go to the Olympics and to win an Olympic medal. How old were you when you set these goals? And where do you think the idea to go to the Olympics came from?
Blake: “Maybe around fifth or sixth grade, I didn’t have a television at home to watch TV, so I would go to my friend’s house. I would always watch athletes running on TV, and I thought it was exciting. I created my own dreams, my own goals, at that time, but I kept them to myself.”
Q: What were those goals?
Blake: “The first goal was I wanted to be on TV. I thought it would be cool to be on TV and for my friends and family to see me. My second goal was I wanted to run in the Olympics and have the whole world watching. And then my dream, my last goal, was to win an Olympic medal.”
Q: Lots of kids have big dreams – why do you think you pursued yours so determinedly?
Blake: “I think from the time I was a little kid, I recognized that I was different. I never wanted to do things the way other people did things. The way I carried myself, the way I talked – it always drew attention and that was a motivator for me. Couple that with my talent for running fast and I think that’s what gave me the drive.”
Q: You made it to the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. You were competing in the 400 meters and the 4×400 relay. Tell us about that.
Blake: “I remember running the 400, and I ran out too hard. I think I was a little bit excited and anxious. I ran out too hard. But I made it as far as the second round – the quarterfinals. But that was still a great experience.”
Q: How about the 4×400 relay?
Blake: “I ran the first leg of the 4×400 in a qualifying round. We won, but then we were disqualified. The person I handed off the baton to accidentally stepped on the inside of the lane three times, so that was grounds for disqualification.”
Q: You then set your sights on the 1996 Olympics – what made you feel you wanted to try again?
Blake: “My goal was not yet achieved. My dream to win an Olympic medal was not yet achieved. I left [Barcelona] fully focused.”
Q: When the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta were approaching, you were finishing up college and had a decision to make.
Blake: “I was at Alabama A&M University, and I would be the first to graduate with a college degree in my family – but I had to make a decision: Am I going to stay in school and try to train and hopefully somehow still make the team or am I going to go home to Jamaica and focus solely on training and making the team? My decision was that I was going to take off and go home because I promised myself that the next Olympics, I was going, and I was going to win a medal and the only way to do that was to go full force.” [Editor’s Note: Blake went back and finished his degree after the Olympics.]
Q: And you made the team — but it was a close call.
Blake: “I was four years older, and I was blessed to make the team. I was the last qualifier – you are barely hanging on to the tail of the plane, so I had to stay really focused.”
Q: Tell me about your race – the 4×400 relay – and ultimately winning a bronze medal for Jamaica. You ran in earlier qualifying heats, but not the final. But that final had some drama, didn’t it?
Blake: “I knew we had a strong group of guys – strong enough to possibly win the gold medal. But in the final, one of the athletes fell and did an acrobatic roll. He fell right over and got up and kept running. I don’t know, if it was me, if I would have gotten up and kept running. And we got third place.”
Q: What was that experience like? How did you feel when you got your medal?
Blake: “It was an ‘a-ha’ moment. That was ‘dream accomplished.’ My final dream was accomplished. The feeling of winning a medal at the Olympics is unexplainable.”
Q: Let’s flash forward a number of years – what brought you to Ashburn and Briar Woods?
Blake: “We were living in New York, and my wife and I were trying to make a decision on what state we were going to move to. My wife knew a pastor here – they were my wife’s close friends from Jamaica – so it wasn’t hard to fit in and make friends because we knew them. That was in 2016.”
Q: How do your Olympic experiences play into how you coach or teach today?
Blake: “I tell kids that playing sports – any sports at all, not just track – is a good thing for all kids because it’s a life-building mechanism that teaches you teamwork and how to deal with people from different backgrounds and cultures, which is something that everyone needs to learn when they go into the job market.”
Q: I understand you will be watching the Olympics this summer for a very special reason.
Blake: “I am definitely going to be watching because my son is hopefully going to be there competing. His name is JuVaughn Harrison, and he competes in both the long jump and the high jump. He competed in Japan [the 2020 Olympics, which were actually held in 2021] – he didn’t medal, but he was the first athlete to make the Olympics in both the high jump and the long jump since 1912.” [Editor’s note: At press time for the magazine, the U.S. Track & Field Olympic Trials were still underway, and the final team lineup hadn’t been announced. Since then, we can confirm that Harrison succeeded in getting named to Team USA and is in Paris preparing to compete.]
Dennis Blake has a coaching and mentoring business in Northern Virginia called CrossOver Mentoring. Learn more about it at crossovermentoring.com