One of the greatest athletes in history was in Bermuda this weekend to talk about ... education.

Edwin Moses, who won gold medals in two -- and with any luck would've been four -- different Olympics, used his Olympic Day visit to bring his philosophy of life to a luncheon at Ariel Sands on Saturday.

At 41 and with just a few grey hairs, Moses still looks like he could run the 400-metre hurdles in 50 seconds. Instead he spends most of his time making money for others and passing on three lifetimes worth of experience to mere mortals.

It was the latter that brought him here as a guest of the Bermuda Olympic Association.

And as he relayed his rise from an unspectacular high schooler in Dayton, Ohio, to his current position as a financial wizard with Robinson-Humphrey Bank in Atlanta and various posts within the Olympic movement, the theme was not his revolutionary technique or Nike deals but rather brains and desire.

"Looking back, I can't believe the kind of effort I put in,'' he told close to three dozen former Bermuda Olympians -- including Jenny Smatt, Dennis Trott, Jay Kempe and Clarence Hill -- plus representatives from 13 national governing bodies. "Every day was a harder practice than the day before.'' He described the athletic intensity that drove him to tears, being "pushed to the limit'' academically and, finally, graduation to his status today as one of the Olympic movement's great role models.

In a brief interview later, Moses reiterated his values. "Focus on education,'' he said when asked what his message would be to aspiring athletes. "Don't aim just for success in sports.'' Do athletes need a back-up plan? "Two or three,'' he replied with a smile.

He should know. Moses likes to joke that he's now working on his third career, looking after $240 million worth of athletes' money as vice chairman of the US Olympic Fund.

That's what happens when you earn a degree in physics, the respect of your peers and then during an illustrious career get involved in the "cutting edge'' of the modern, financially-independent Games.

"One of the first questions I asked was, `Why can't the Olympics make money,'' Moses said.

He was one of the first to pursue the angle of marketing and introduce the idea of trust funds for amateur athletes, so that they can devote themselves to athletics without sacrificing their future.

As he told Saturday's sea-side luncheon: "I learned so much about business I figured I better go to business school.'' So he did -- and has a Masters to prove it.

Currently head of the IOC's new Athletes Commission -- each member country has a representative, Kempe being Bermuda's first -- Moses also chaired the USOC Substance Abuse Committee.

Moses' Olympic message From Page 23 Asked about recent positive drug tests by top Americans such as Mary Slaney and charges of foot-dragging by the USOC, Moses was quick to point out he is no longer involved with that end of sports.

But, he said: "Whatever happens (in drug testing) doesn't surprise me.'' He would not elaborate.

Controversy never found Moses -- mostly because he didn't let it -- as evidenced by his 1985 award as Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year and being selected to take the Olympic oath on behalf of all athletes during the opening ceremonies at the Los Angeles Games.

Asked for highlights in a lifetime full of them, he points to his four world records, the first coming in Montreal in 1976, when he won the 400-metre hurdles just four months after running the event for the first time. A year later, he lost a race -- then won 122 straight before finishing third at the Seoul Olympics in 1988, something he still puts down to "just a bad day.'' Despite that loss and the loss of a certain gold when the US boycotted the 1980 Games in Moscow, Moses insists: "I don't even think about it.'' Now when he looks back he means it to be an inspiration for others (on Friday, for instance, he spoke to a group of medical doctors in Hilton Head).

Moses was not good enough to earn a track scholarship and instead attended tiny Morehouse College in Atlanta, where the athletic budget was so small he wasn't allowed to attend the 1975 NCAA championships.

When he wasn't practising he was studying and with a mind for mathematics, he and classmates "looked at track and field from a totally different point of view.'' In time, he revolutionised the event by taking a step off the established norms between the ten hurdles.

He calls the 400m hurdles a "killer event,'' one that requires sprinter's speed, stamina, technique and discipline.

It was the 1976 Florida Relays when Moses, who was running the 400m flat and 110m hurdles, stumbled on to the path that changed his life. Forced into the 400m hurdles when a team-mate became sick, he finished second in a world-class 50.1 seconds.

"I said to myself (afterwards), `This is the event I want to do'.'' Four months later, he would reduce his time to 47.64.

"My life has been dedicated to the Olympic movement and it's brought me nothing but good things in life,'' he said.

OLYMPIC LEGEND -- Former hurdler Edwin Moses is welcomed to Bermuda by BOA president Austin Woods during a luncheon at Ariel Sands on Saturday.