Steve Scott The Miler
By
Woody Green
of
RUNNERS NICHE
Steve Scott, being the man with the most sub-four-minute miles in the
history of track and field should, you would expect, be respected and
admired as one of the greats in the sport. The same man has owned the
American record for the mile since 1982, and has nine national
championships to his credit. None the less, this runner is also known as
one who never quite ran up to expectations, and never won "the big
one."
Scott's new autobiography reveals a great deal about his personality,
and helps to explain his somewhat up and down career. We discover the
kind of pressure he felt as a bright American medal hope going into the
Los Angeles Olympics in 1984, the anxiety of trying to hold a marriage
together while traveling all around the world to compete, and the terror
of facing a battle with cancer that threatened not only to end his career,
but possibly his life.
Scott paints a picture of himself as a carefree prankster who takes little
in life seriously. It often seems he is permanently stuck in adolescence.
This book is filled with anecdotes involving water balloons, prank phone
calls, and "getting horny."
Still, Scott was always dead serious about his running. He trained very
hard through his entire career, always trying to work a little harder
than everyone else. Each day the jokes and kid stuff stopped long
enough to get in his two workouts.
I couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for Scott as I turned the pages. The
pressure of the big races seemed to doom him frequently in his career.
His fastest times and best races were often in meets that didn't matter
so much. After setting the American record in the mile in 1982, the
pressure to win gold at the Los Angeles games in 1984 rattled him
badly. Reading the chapter on those games left me wondering if the
pressure he felt there didn't leave a permanent scare on his psyche.
Still, even though he never won an Olympic or World Championships
race, there are few runners in the history of the sport who so regularly
came to meet after meet ready to perform. His 136 sub-fours is
testimony to that fact. And, when reading about his courageous battle
back from testicular cancer, it is clear that there are few people who
could ever match this man for pure physical and mental toughness.
Marc Bloom, the ghost writer for Scott, has done an excellent job in
putting this work together. It is an easy read and difficult to put down. I
would highly recommend this book to anyone, not just track and field
fans. Marc Bloom has put together a very entertaining package filled
with universal human interest.
