BOLDEN TRACKS DOWN SUCCESS TRACK & FIELD: COACH AND MOTHER KNOWS HOW TO MOTIVATE OLYMPIANS.

Byline: JILL PAINTER

Staff WRITER

Jeanette Bolden is a baker, mother, wrestler, wife, track coach, part-time psychologist, asthma spokesperson, business owner and Olympic gold medalist.

Her circus-like schedule of activities could rival an actor's resume. As Bolden, UCLA's longtime track coach, sat in UCLA's Drake Stadium stands recently, she kept excusing herself to answer the phone.

There was the call from a UCLA athlete about a flight schedule; a colleague called to discuss an NCAA rule and its application; her husband, Al, had news that another bakery was going out of business and there was an equipment sale. They needed to discuss purchasing machinery for their family-owned 27th Street Bakery in Compton.

And there were outfits to select for her 7-year-old twins, Anthony and Kimberly, whom she and her husband adopted four years ago. The children were scheduled to be in a wedding, and Jeanette would be out of town. She tried to do laundry the night before, but the dryer broke.

Yet all of Bolden's duties are shelved while she's pacing the track, where she's a calm, steady and firm influence. She's stern and tough but fair and well-respected. Her role in winning gold as a member of the 400-meter relay team in the 1984 Olympics resonated with the Olympic committee and made her the most compelling candidate to coach the U.S. women's track team.

The 48-year-old Bolden, the only U.S. Olympic track coach who has won gold as an athlete, will be the driving force behind U.S. superstars Allyson Felix, Sanya Richards and perhaps a no-name who earns a big name in Beijing.

It's an assignment that's almost as good as winning gold to Bolden.

"My role is to help facilitate them and make their lives as easy as possible to alleviate any stress," Bolden said. "I think I've been received very well by the world-class athletes. I've been out there. I've made myself known to them. As a college coach, I've recruited some of them. I'm open and very approachable. I want them to have peace of mind. We're going to have a nice time at the Olympics."

She's just not an open book when it comes to telling tales from the Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Bolden, a Compton native, was overjoyed the Olympics were in her backyard 24years ago. She'll chronicle a disappointing (by her standards) fourth-place finish in the 100 meters and a gold-medal leg on the relay if asked. But Bolden, unlike many of today's track stars, doesn't hoot and holler about the smooth exchanges and fast start that ended with gold around her neck.

The medal ceremony, where she stood alongside relay teammates Evelyn Ashford, Alice Brown and Chandra Cheeseborough, wasn't even her favorite Olympic moment. Her most cherished memory came in the closing ceremonies, when she traded uniforms with Great Britain sprinter Helen Barnett, who remains a good friend.

"I can't tell you how much fun I had in the closing ceremonies," Bolden said. "Every time I see pictures, I think about it. But I don't pull out the medal."

Bolden sheepishly showed her rusty Olympic gold medal, now 24 years old, only because she was asked to do so. It still sits in a velvet case in a drawer in her Canoga Park home. She's been meaning to clean it up and frame it.

"I've known Jeanette since she was 18, and that's just her natural personality," Al Bolden said. "She's one of those people who sets goals for herself. She's very determined. She's a doer, not a talker. To her, showing off her gold medal would be more like talking about stuff. If I had a gold medal, I'd probably wear it around my neck every day. I'd probably take it to the grocery store with me."

Bolden has had little time to do things like shop these days. Bolden, along with her husband and other family members, runs the 27th Street Bakery in Compton. Her grandfather and mother ran the family-owned store before her. Their signature menu item is the sweet potato pie, and Jeanette knows the recipe by heart.

She must continue to recruit for UCLA's successful track program, which under her guidance won the 2004 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

Performances in the Olympic Trials in Eugene, Ore., gave the U.S. women grand hopes for numerous medals in track. The U.S. has depth, which should go a long way in determining members of relays. Bolden recently went to training camps in Europe with the Olympians and in between, she was trying to spend as much time as possible with her husband children. The twins will turn 8 while she's in Beijing.

She recently took Kimberly on a girls' day out in which the two received manicures and pedicures. Anthony is easy to please and just wants 10 minutes of his mom's time in order to pin her in a wrestling match. Last year, Anthony accidentally head-butted her square in the nose and sent her to the UCLA athletic training office. She thought she injured the bridge of her nose, but she was fine.

Time away from her kids is difficult, although she has plenty of relatives who will care for them while she's in China. She already tried a web cam to assist in communicating with them, but it just made Kimberly cry.

"They understand the Olympics, and they know mommy ran track and that mommy ran really fast and came in first place," Jeanette said. "But they don't really don't know everything just yet."

They don't know how their mommy was injured right before the 1984 Olympic Trials, which is just six weeks before the Olympics. In track, unlike many Olympic sports, athletes must place first, second or third in their respective events. That's the only way to qualify.

Bolden told only those closest to her about the stress fracture in right foot, something even the media wasn't aware of before the Games. She qualified at the trials as part of the relay team and the 100-meter dash, but she was relegated to pool workouts while her teammates trained without her. Her teammates on the relay stopped by the pool daily to offer encouragement and cheer.

"I stayed fit and did a lot of mental training," Bolden said. "It was very hard not being on the track. I wasn't allowed on the track after the trials."

Bolden is a master at pep talks. When UCLA's Nicole Leach stumbled on the seventh hurdle during the 400-meter hurdles during the Olympic Trials, she was comforted by a mishap in Bolden's career. Though it seems like everything always went right in Bolden's career, she failed to make the Olympic team in 1976. She shared that disappointment with Leach.

"One of the things I like about her is that she's very tough," Leach said. "She has enough control. It's not that she won't compromise, she will. She was once an athlete. She knows what you're going through. She can relate. It's not like she's a dictator and has no idea where you've been. She comes at you in a way that's reassuring and keeps you confident, whether things are going good or bad."

Things weren't going well for Bolden in 1980, either. After failing to make the Olympics four years earlier, Bolden made the team, but the U.S. boycotted the Olympics in Moscow. For Bolden, everything worked out as she won gold four years later. She wasn't bitter, but she was disappointed. That wasn't erased until a couple of months later.

"Knowing that the next Olympic games were going to be in L.A. made it a little easier for me," Bolden said. "Even though you never know who's going to make it, that gave me that extra edge. And when we were in Eugene for the trials (in June), they honored the 1980 team. That was really nice. They had a nice reception and people got to talk. I think it brought closure to everyone in a sense. The crowd had a lot of appreciation for the people that made the '80 team. We never had any closure.

"Don't get me wrong, they did do some things. They took us to (Washington) D.C. and had a fireworks show, but when you sacrifice and train all your life for that Olympic moment and it comes once every four years, it was very difficult."

Bolden shouldn't have a difficult time navigating the Olympics in Beijing. She's been there and done that. There are concerns regarding politics, heat and humidity and pollution. Bolden is focusing on what she can control on the track.

"She's just thrilled about it, mainly because it gives her an opportunity to kind of tell her story a little bit," Al Bolden said. "She came from the inner city. She has a pretty high profile as a coach at UCLA, but to be on the biggest stage with other young women who have come from similar backgrounds and are doing things she does.

"She's overcome a lot of things. She's excited about that. She wants other young women to be motivated to do the things they want to do."

Whether that's being a baker, coach or gold medalist.

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2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Jeanette Bolden, coach of UCLA and the U.S. Olympic women's track teams, won a gold medal at the 1984 Los Angeles Games.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer

(2) Members of the 1984 4x100-meter women's relay team, from left, Chandra Cheeseborough, Jeannette Bolden, Evelyn Ashford and Alice Brown, take a victory lap.

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