There was an era when track and field officials, the guys with stopwatches—“These Are the Souls That Time Men’s Tries,” a Newsday headline once proclaimed in a delightful play on the famous Thomas Paine quote—were attired quite formally in tuxedos and bow ties.

And that comes to mind with the death of John Paul Stevens this week at 99. Stevens, of course, was widely recognized as “the Supreme Court justice in the bow tie,” and in 1992, he weighed in on the eligibility of 400-meter world record holder Butch Reynolds during the U.S. Olympic Trials.

In the greater scheme of calling balls and strikes in such weighty matters as Bush v. Gore and the Citizens United case, Stevens’ Reynolds decision likely is only recalled by my fellow sports journalists who dealt with the story at the time. But it was a significant application of individual due process as well as U.S. versus athletic jurisdiction.

At issue was whether Reynolds, who was fighting a two-year suspension for doping, not only was personally ineligible for the Trials, but whether he would violate a vague international track federation “contamination” rule. That is, by competing, he might render ineligible not only the other 31 entrants in the Trials’ 400 meters—and also the upcoming Barcelona Olympics, for which the Trials was a qualifier—but the entire 866-athlete field in all of the Trials’ events.

Reynolds arrived at the 10-day meet, which played out in New Orleans, brandishing an order from a U.S. district court that had cleared him to run, based on his ongoing argument that a positive urine sample for steroids from a 1990 meet in Monte Carlo had been mislabeled and in fact came from another athlete.

Later the same day, however—on the eve of the first of four rounds of the 400-meter competition—a circuit court granted the appeal by the U.S. track governing body, with three other 400 runners as co-defendants, barring Reynolds.

Reynolds’ representatives immediately petitioned the Supreme Court and, less than three hours before the competition was to begin the following day, Justice Stevens ordered Reynolds be allowed to run. All the other 400 competitors, excluding Reynolds’ younger brother Jeff, then voted to reject meet officials’ attempt to further delay the competition, with the possibility of formulating a Plan B—determining the 400-meter Olympic team apart from the Trials’ process.

The track federation was in a hopeless bind: As the U.S. arm of the international governing body, it was required to uphold the latter’s ban on Reynolds, even as it was bound by the Supreme Court order to let Reynolds run. (Stevens’ fellow justices had quickly concurred with his ruling, the first time the Supreme Court ever ruled on an Olympic matter involving competition.)

With the other 400-meter runners threatening to sit out the event if Reynolds (and his brother) ran, prominent U.S. track official Leroy Walker convinced Primo Nebiolo, the international federation president from Italy, to back off the “contamination” ultimatum.

In all the chaos, the five-ring Olympic logo seemed to have added a sixth—the vicious circle. Ultimately, everybody ran, with the top three finishers in the final guaranteed Olympic berths and the top six eligible for the 4×400 Olympic relay. Reynolds finished fifth.

“I guess I’m going to Barcelona,” Reynolds said. “If I’m not chosen to run on the relay, I guess I won’t run. But I’ve proved Butch Reynolds can take a blow and keep on going.”

Shortly before the Barcelona Games, his name was withdrawn from the U.S. roster. Five months later, he was awarded $27.3 million in damages by a Columbus court, citing the world-governing body for “ill will and a spirit of revenge.” But that was negated by an 1994 appeals court ruling declaring it had no jurisdiction over the Monte Carlo-based international federation. And the Supreme Court declined to intervene again.

But the justice in the bow tie had given Reynolds his shot.