Rachel Robinson was a guest in the ESPN booth with Jon Miller and Joe Morgan during the game between the Dodgers and Padres, and she projected an energy and an acuity that belied her 84 years.

She reminisced about her life with Jackie and spoke about present-day concerns, and she also reacted spontaneously to several plays on the field, as the Dodgers were scoring four runs in the second and third innings.

 
Miller and Morgan wisely granted their regal guest immunity from the rubric, "No cheering in the pressbox."

Payton Jordan, who witnessed Jackie Robinson's early athletic efforts at Washington Junior High in Pasadena, is not surprised that Rachel is a woman of such strength and poise. She and Jackie were married in 1946, a year before he broke the color barrier in the major leagues.

 "It takes a great wife to stand behind a man undergoing trial and tribulation," Jordan said. "The grounding that she gives you during the greatest stresses of your life -- you can't eliminate that from what you've accomplished."

Jordan himself is a man of considerable accomplishment -- one of the world's top sprinters both as a USC track star and as a record-breaking senior athlete all the way into his 80s; a renowned coach at Occidental College and Stanford University; and the head coach of the 1968 U.S. Olympic track and field team.

Through all of it, Jordan had his own great wife at his side. Marge Jordan died last Oct. 19. She and Payton were married for 67 years, including the last nine at Vista del Monte in Santa Barbara.

"Marge was my best friend and my best critic," said Jordan, who turned 90 a month ago. "We're only as good as the people around us."

Pasadena in the 1930s was full of good athletes, including Jordan and the Robinson boys, Mack and Jackie.

"Mack and I were older," Jordan said. "We watched Jackie compete in junior high. He was a fiery little devil."

For the record, that was not a disparaging comment. Later in our conversation Tuesday afternoon, Jordan's phone rang. He picked it up and said, "Speak up, you little devil." It was his daughter, Wendy.

"He hated to lose," Jordan continued about young Robinson. "He had a warm personality, but there was a hot streak when he played. He was a ruthless competitor. He wanted to be the best in everything he did."

Jackie Robinson did everything at Pasadena City College and UCLA, where he lettered in four sports in 1940 -- football, as a dazzling punt returner; basketball, as the West Coast Conference MVP; track and field, as the champion long jumper in the conference; and baseball, his poorest sport at the time -- he hit .097 in his only season with the Bruins.

Payton Jordan, a year out of college -- he was on USC's 1939 Rose Bowl football team -- was among the nation's fastest 100-yard dashmen at the time. He and Jackie Robinson might both have made the U.S. Olympic team in 1940, but the Games were called off because of the war in Europe.

Mack Robinson did compete in the 1936 Olympics. He took the silver medal in the 200 meters behind Jesse Owens.

"Mack was a great long sprinter," Jordan said. "His brother was more compact. He was quick over a short distance."

That quickness translated to skill on the basepaths when Jackie Robinson got serious about baseball.

Jordan was in his first year as coach at Occidental when Robinson played his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers 60 years ago.

"We read about what was going on," Jordan said. "Pasadena was proud of him."

Looking back, Jordan ranks Robinson and Owens as the two greatest icons in their respective sports. Eleven years before Robinson struck the first blow against segregation in the big leagues, Owens punctured Adolph Hitler's doctrine of Aryan supremacy by winning four gold medals in Berlin.

"I knew Jesse better than Jackie," Jordan said. "I admired him as a human being, a sportsman and a friend. He became a mythical figure in track. I don't care who runs the fastest sprint today. Carl Lewis did more, but you don't think of him; you think of Jesse Owens.

"The same for Jackie Robinson in baseball. He and Jesse stood out not only in their sports, but in the culture.

"They didn't plan it that way. They were just the kind of people who made it happen."

Owens too had a loving wife, Ruth.

Behind every great man . . .