Steve Scott Still Chasing Best With World Class : The Competition Isn’t Getting Any Easier as America’s Top Miler Turns 30

Stop, Steve Scott, stop. Enough is enough . . . you should know by now. Everyone should know. Even your tired-but-true body should know by now.

But Scott won’t listen. He keeps proving us wrong.

Scott, who lives in Fallbrook, should be a contemplative soul these days. It is a time of change for the man who fought his way to become America’s greatest miler--and has remained there for almost a decade. Scott turned 30 this year.

Furthermore, this is Scott’s 10th summer season competing in Europe.

And though he has accomplished so much, including a U.S. mile record of 3:47.69, it has been 10 years of toiling behind, sometimes by less than a step, the world’s greatest runners.

Scott has endured John Walker’s reign. He has watched Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett turn the mile into an English tea party. Then Steve Cram became the chief crumpet. And now Morocco’s Said Aouita challenges Cram.

Scott, however, is still there with the same boyish face, the same enthusiastic blue eyes. Age has been good to him. He looks as if he is the 23-year-old UC Irvine student on his first European excursion walking through the southwest London suburb along the Thames instead of the veteran of eight sub-3:50 miles.

But why?

He is America’s best, but he never has been the world’s greatest miler and probably never will. If there is one overriding question that follows Scott as closely as he tails his competition it is this: Why is he still running?

Scott smiles while pondering the question he has been asked so many times since the 1984 Olympics, where he had a disappointing 10th-place finish in the 1,500-meter final. But he has answers, perhaps formulated a long time ago when the same questions were running through his own head.

And the answer was as simple as Scott himself.

Why not? Why not continue with a life style he so loves? Why not endure this game of follow the leader where his great mile times are always fractionally less impressive than those by the Coes, Ovetts, Crams and Aouitas?

He can bear the disappointment because he thinks he has so much left.

“If I can’t get a claim from winning a major meet, I’ll get it from being the Lou Gehrig of the mile,” he said. “That is a factor that keeps me going. I haven’t been No. 1 yet. I still have hopes that there will be a time when I can set a world record or win a world championship.

“I don’t feel like I’m 30. I feel like I’m 23 or 24. I don’t think like I’m 30. I can’t waste day after day like I used to, and I don’t have the resiliency anymore. I can’t come across the ocean and race great without some rest first. But as long as I’m No. 1 or 2 in the U.S., I see no reason to quit.”

This attitude has carried Scott a long way. When the retirement signs came flashing neon warnings last winter, Scott continued.

He suffered a virus in December but thought he had recovered in time for the indoor season. He hadn’t, running 4:02 and 4:03 in his first two races.

“I felt like I had my kids hanging on my legs while I ran,” he said. “I’d take two days off and come back, and it’d be worse. I couldn’t do any kind of speed work.”

When the problems persisted into the spring, Scott went to the Scripps Institute in La Jolla for a complete check-up. Doctors were unable to find anything wrong. Scott continued to run but figured the 1986 summer season was lost. He took April off. His only workouts were swimming at Fallbrook High School. Then, he ran a 10-kilometer road race in Laguna Beach and finished in about 32 minutes.

“At that point I was close to kissing off the whole season,” he said. “I thought I was gone, I was washed up.” But he kept training. And he started winning the big U.S. races (the Pepsi and Bruce Jenner invitationals) albeit with times just less than four minutes. He went to Europe a defeated man.

Then came the July 5 Bislett Games in Oslo, Norway, where he had run so impressively in years past. He found himself in a fast race against Cram, finishing second in 3:48.7. Cram was a step ahead in 3:48.3.

“I got my confidence back with that race,” Scott said. “It was what I needed. I never did know what was wrong with me. But I’m feeling 100%. I’m looking forward to the rest of the summer.”

His next Mobil Grand Prix meet--the one in which he expects a fast 1,500 with Aouita, Cram and himself--is today in Zurich, Switzerland. Last Friday, he easily won the mile at London’s Crystal Palace with a time of 3:54.04.

Instead of going to the circuit’s meet in Budapest, Hungary, Monday night, Scott stayed in suburban London, where he could relax and train along the Thames. Teddington is quiet, like Fallbrook.

The fact that Scott is selecting his meets more carefully shows maturity. He once was known as the miler who would never say no to a race.

“I’m thinking a lot more,” he said. “I chased the dollar a little too much. In years gone by, I’d run them all. Now I’m not thinking of the dollar, I’m thinking of doing the best I can. I wouldn’t have thought about where I was running in the past, I’d have just run.”

Athletes command appearance money, legal under International Amateur Athletics Federation rules. The biggest draws--Edwin Moses and Carl Lewis--earn thousands from competing. Scott refused to say how much he gets per meet, but with the shoe company’s sponsorship helping defray his costs, he can be selective in his races.

“Still, it’s hard to say no to the money,” Scott said. “You have to be a mature person to do it.”

But really, it is difficult for Scott to say no, period.

Stop? Steve Scott?

Perhaps that day will arrive. But for now it’s difficult to imagine an international track and field meet without him.