treg

By Johnette Howard

Detroit Free Press

May 12, 1983

3:48.1 Mile in 1996 PreFontaine Classic

1997 30K

There's virtue, we know, to be found in the simple innocence of youthful dreams. Treg Scott proved that when he left Birmingham Seaholm for Arizona State University but confided in a few close friends one of his secret ambitions. Scott was coming off a fourth-place finish in the 800 meter run at the 1982 Michigan high school school championships. Even if he was, by his own admission, a "fair at best" high school runner, Scott's dream wasn't diminished. He turned down a couple of instate scholarship offer to try out for the track team at Arizona State, a school with a rich track tradition in the highly competitive Pac-10 conference, with world-class miler Steve Scott (who is not relation) already in its stable.

Shortly before heading west, Treg Scott told his high school coach he would "do his best" to come back to Michigan during his freshman year to run int he NCAA Indoor Track Championships at the Pontiac Silverdome. Those who knew Scott smiles, careful to puncture his fantasy. They waved good-bye at the airport and didn't expect to see him home except on for holidays and summer vacation. But when runners lined up for the two-mile relay at the NCAA's at the Silverdome in March, Scott was there.

He shed a cutoff Seaholm sweatshirt and ran the second leg for the Arizona State relay team the finished second behind record setting Villanova. Not bad for a kid who came out for track in 11th grade after getting cut from the baseball team. "I guess it would be kind of hard to believe with all my inexperience. I'm a little surprised, but I think everyone else is a little more surprised than me."

Now Scott has traveled around the country to run in some of the nation's most prestigious track meets. He has run indoors at TAC championships at Madison Square Garden and outdoors at the Penn Relays. At the Pepsi Invitational at UCLA, he was the pacesetter in the mile run, in a field that included Steve Scott, the current American record holder; All-American Jim Spivey of Indiana, and German-born Thomas Wessenhage.

With Treg Scott, Arizona State's relay team has set meet records in the of the five major races it has entered, and the team owned the fastest outdoor time heading into last month's Penn Relays. Other people are starting to believe what Treg Scott felt - if there were limits to his ability, he hasn't reached them yet. "I guess you really never know how good you're going to be able to get. I get excited about how good I could be, but I'm still trying to just concentrate on right now."

Right now, Arizona State Coach Len Miller, a veteran of 23 years, thinks Scott can be "very, very good" in the half mile and as he continues to mature, in the mile. Already Scott has been ranked as high as eighth in the open half mile in the tough Pac-10. If anything, Miller says, his experience has taught him to give an athlete room to fulfill his dreams or let reality snuff them out. He learned that when an Arizona State walk-on went on to win an NCAA championship. So when Scott showed up in September to train with the team, Miller welcomed him. Soon he noticed a special air about the kid from Michigan.

"The first time I saw him run I was impressed. He had a presence on the track. He has a lot of inherent, natural strength. But I don't really think he even knew he's be this good. It's not unusual for an athlete, when he comes to college, to not really have that vision. A lot of times the kids with visions don't have the talent commensurate with the visions. After working with him for four weeks, I had a feeling he would be very, very good."

Statistics back up the coach's hunch. Since high school he has dropped his 880-yard time from 1:54.9 to a personal best of 1:49.6. Miller thinks Scott could pare that down to 1:46 and run under 3:50 in the mile as he matures and gains strength.
"He is mentally the toughest freshman I've ever had. I've coached 23 years and I've never had an athlete mean enough as a competitor to be a world champion prize fighter. He has that kind of attitude. He has a tenacity and he's aggressive. He's like a bulldog. And he's run faster almost every time he competes."

While running, Scott has a powerful style - and strategy. He usually lurks behind the leaders, waiting till near the end of for the right moment to kick in and roar by. As testament to Scott's tenacity, Miller moved him onto the anchor leg of the two-mile relay for the Penn Relays after he teams string of second-place finishes, starting at the NCAA indoor championships.

"In terms of time, he has the least potential of running the fastest. His three teammates can run faster, but of the four, Treg is the one guy that if it means getting the baton to the finish line first, he'll get it there. I changed the order of the relay because we don't run for second place."
Compared to other distance runners, 5-foot-7 Scott is an aberration, Miller admits. He's a little too short, a bit more muscle-bound than the spindly, long-legged athletes more common in distance running.

"Most of them do like they're all legs, but there have been great runners in the past like him. Jim Beattie held five American records and was only 5-7. Rick Wolhutter, who still holds an American record, wasn't taller than 5-9." Whether Treg Scott can achieve that much will depend on continued development. Miller thinks Treg has great promise for improvement, especially in the mile.

Miller often describes Treg Scott in the same terms he uses for Steve Scott, who has established himself as one of the world's premier milers. Both, he will say, have an air of confidence, a "presence", pride, toughness - and the propensity to get to the finish line first. Whatever it takes.

For now, Treg is willing to think of greatness as a goal for tomorrow. Treg's immediate goals are to keep cutting his time and finish in the top six in the Pac-10 at the outdoor championships May 20-21. He says he's still a little awed by running in meets like the TAC championships at Madison Square Garden, where 14,000 fans watched him compete against the same athletes that he, like most runners, once knew only from posters on some shoe store wall. "I don't consider myself one of the elite runners yet, but I guess I'm in there somewhere. You think of going all the way, but everyone who runs dreams of being number one. I'm not worried about being the best right now. I'm just fighting against time and lowering mine."

He's satisfied with this progress at this point in his career. But not as surprised as some people. "I had been kind of anticipating a good time because of all the training," he says.

"It's more of a mental thing than a physical thing. It's just a matter of setting in your mind that you're just as good or better than them. You might call it a little cocky."

As unusual and unfinished as Scott's story is, a bit of history at Seaholm bodes well for him.

In the early 1960's, a kid named Jack Bachelor had to talk Kermit Ambrose into letting him come out for the school's championship cross-country and track teams. The 6-foot-6 ,156 pound Bachelor had played basketball until then, and not very well. He wasn't exactly the prototype for a distance runner. But after beating a couple of members of the cross country team in an impromptu race around the block, Bachelor was convinced he could compete.

Dr. Jack Bachelor is now a professor of entomology at North Carolina State. Before that he was a collegiate All-American and qualified for the 1968 and 1972 Olympic Games - once in the 5,000 meters and alter in the marathon, where he finished ninth in 1972.

"Oh yeah?" Treg Scott said, pondering the story for a minute. "I never heard about him."