She Was Born Fast And Ran With It

Brenda Matthews winning the gold medal in an international meet in Toronto in 2019. She has the genes, but what else? Please read for three minutes why there is more to activity than DNA. Photo by Rob Jerome.

By Ray Glier

HUNTSVILLE, Ala.____Brenda Steele-Matthews, 76, was bow-legged as a kid, but she could still beat the boys barefoot in a race on the dusty paths in Jerome Park in Santa Ana, California in the late 50s and early 60s.

The boys were relieved she could not be on the school track team because girls weren’t allowed that privilege. Brenda heard one of them say, “I'm glad she ain't out here’.”

As an adult. Brenda played softball and her hits included many that never left the infield. The fielders could not get the ball out of their gloves fast enough to throw and get the fleet-footed Matthews at first. 

When she was 30, Matthews had an operation on her legs to correct the bow-leggedness. The doctors were understanding of her athleticism, she said, and took a wedge of bone out of both knees, replaced it with hardware, and Brenda was faster.

She is still fast.

Here at the USA Track & Field Masters Outdoor Championships July 17-20, Brenda won gold medals in the 100-meter dash, 200, 80-meter hurdles, and took a silver medal in the long jump. She was disqualified in the 200-meter hurdles where she finished first. Two officials said she touched a hurdle with a hand.

No matter, the boys back in Jerome Park would be proud of her. And they probably still can’t beat her. Brenda did the 100 in 18.35 seconds...at 76! She is No. 1 in the U.S. in the 80-meter hurdles and No. 3 in the 100 and 200 (W75-79).

“It's genes,” Matthews said “My mom was fast. She had the fast twitch muscles, and she passed them on to me.”

It’s more than being encoded with the DNA to run fast, of course. More than one athlete told me at the outdoor championships after they medaled, "It's genes." They sell themselves short every time.

While she didn’t have Title IX yet to get her into school sports, Brenda had the local parks and recreation center. Two-time All-Star shortstop Garry Templeton developed skills in the Jerome Park rec program. There was speed galore around Matthews and she kept up daily.

But Brenda wasn’t just modeling her mother. Her father, Charles, passed on grit and accountability.

Brenda learned how to grind in Charles Barbecue Pit. She worked there as a teenager and remembers one time at a festival hearing the command from pops, “We need 100 sweet potato pies. Fast.” Brenda hopped to it.

“They were the three-inch kind. We had to roll out dough and fill them. It’s where I learned my work ethic,” said Matthews.

Brenda, who was a radiology manager for Kaiser Permanente, did not take up Master's track and field until she was 50 and, by then, women could race all they wanted. 

It’s what she did with hidden skills, the skills that had nothing to do with DNA, that made a difference.

“I have a personal trainer twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then I go out to the track Monday and Wednesday and Friday or Saturday,” Matthews said. “So it's pretty much every day I’m doing some kind of training.

“I like to win.”

On some of those days Brenda is on the track she runs five to six 200s. She will run 10 80-meter dashes with two minutes rest in between. Remember, she is 76 years old.

There are days when Matthews does the technical-heavy 80-meter hurdles practice and will spread out multiple repetitions.

I actually had a male reader write in that he was tired of Geezer Jock writing about how women, like Brenda in Masters track, had to overcome bias, like Title IX, or started track in their 50s, 60, or 70s, because they wanted to make sure the family stayed knitted together.

Title IX and family are part of their story because many times it’s central to their motivation. If they don’t bring up the roadblocks, or emphasize them in the interview, I don’t write it.

Matthews acknowledges the genes in her success. The rest of us should acknowledge her motivation and work ethic.