Dave Sime was in a bad mood when the phone rang in his Manhattan hotel room. Less than two weeks remained until the opening ceremonies of the 1960 Olympics in Rome, and he should have been training with the rest of the U.S. track and field team. But he’d caught the flu, and now he was holed up in his room, brooding. 

The voice on the other end of the phone asked if he was David Sime. The man already knew how his unusual last name was pronounced: It rhymed with “him,” the e silent. The stranger explained he was from the government and asked if he could come up and chat. Intrigued, Sime agreed.

After entering the room, the man showed Sime his government ID. He’d come with a request from the CIA: Would Sime be willing to work on an espionage mission during the Olympics? 

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This had to be a joke, Sime thought. Maybe a prank orchestrated by one of his teammates, trying to entertain him during his sick day. But the man insisted a plane was ready to fly him to Washington, D.C. They’d have him back in his hotel by the evening. Too intrigued to say no, Sime agreed.

Outside, a car waited. The quickest man on Earth — and the future grandfather of 49ers star Christian McCaffrey — stepped in, and they sped off to the airport.

Few NFL players have a family member in their lineage with a life as strange, complicated and dark as Dave Sime. Sime was born in 1936 and grew up in an unremarkable New Jersey home; his father was a house painter, and his mother raised the kids. As a high schooler, Sime became a local athletic — and academic — sensation. He received dozens of scholarship offers, including one to attend West Point. He soon learned, however, that because he was colorblind, he could never become a pilot. So before the 1954 school year began, he instead enrolled at Duke to play baseball while studying to become a doctor.

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Although Sime didn’t have much downtime, he found himself restless before the start of baseball season. Completely unprepared, and never having run track in his life, he took up sprinting on a whim. At his first meet, he nearly broke the world record for the 100-yard dash. Once, coaches asked if he would try the broad jump. He flew 22 feet and 3 inches; at that time, most winners of the event were jumping 23 feet.

An archive photo of Dave Sime while he was a sophomore at Duke. 

Although offers from the NFL and Major League Baseball were pouring in, Sime focused his efforts on the Olympics. As he set record after record, he landed on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1956. His new moniker? The world’s fastest man. 

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But that year would lead to heartbreak for the 20-year-old. In the run-up to the Melbourne Olympics, he strained his leg while riding a horse. He was in his prime and unable to race. 

“I was devastated,” Sime would later tell Newsweek, “but it was the best worst thing that ever happened to me. When I returned to Duke, I got serious about my premed studies.”

Four years later, now married and a student at the Duke University School of Medicine, he was ready for a second chance at Olympic glory. Then, on Aug. 13, 1960, the CIA came knocking. 

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