Track and Field / Mal Florence : UCLA’s Top Sprinters Hitting Their Stride at Just the Right Time

Sprinters have been likened to thoroughbreds--fast, delicate to the point that they can break down, and eager to get out of the gate.

UCLA’s thoroughbreds, Henry Thomas and Danny Everett, are apparently peaking at the right time.

The championship meets are next--Pacific 10 over the weekend at Corvallis, Ore., and the NCAA June 3-6 at Baton Rouge, La.

The Bruins figure to be a factor in both meets, especially now that Thomas and Everett are fit, along with recent performances that are auspicious.

Thomas, 19, set a school record in the 100 meters with a non-winning time of 10.18 seconds Saturday at the Pepsi Invitational. He then looked fluid in winning the 200 in 20.37, second-best time in the school’s history.

Earlier, he had run a sizzling 43.7 anchor leg in the 1,600-meter relay at Mt. San Antonio and has an open 400 time of 45.66 this season.

Everett, 20, moved up in class Saturday at the Pepsi meet. He was second in the 400 behind Nigeria’s Innocent Egbunike with a time of 44.82, while beating such older, established runners as Antonio McKay and Andre Phillips.

He became the fourth Bruin to go under 45 seconds, joining John Smith, Wayne Collett and Benny Brown.

“I always thought I could do it,” Everett said Monday at a track luncheon. “Now that I have, it will come easier next time.”

Smith, who is now UCLA’s sprint coach, believes that the best is yet to come for the young sprinters, both sophomores.

“I don’t know their limits, but I know that they can both run much faster,” said Smith, a former world-class 400-meter runner while at UCLA in the ‘70s.

As an example, Smith said that Thomas can knock half a second off his 200-meter time and pare two-tenths from his best 100.

Smith said that Thomas has a range from 60 meters through 400 meters, and that Everett is more effective from 200 through 800 meters.

“Henry is gifted with early speed,” Smith said. “They are different body types. Danny has unusually long legs, while Henry is more compact and evenly distributed.

“Danny is a not gifted with early speed because of the leg difficulty, but he can run the 200, 400 and 800. I consider the 800 a dash, not a run anymore. When you run 1:41 (Sebastian Coe’s world record is 1:41.73), that’s no longer a walk through the park.”

The only time that Thomas and Everett run a quarter mile in the same race is on the Bruins’ 1,600 meter-relay team. UCLA has a collegiate best time of 3:01.9 this year.

Otherwise, Smith keeps them in different sprints.

“I deliberately keep them apart because each athlete is maturing into his own security,” Smith said. “I’m not going to put them together until circumstances are absolutely necessary.”

Smith said that when his young sprinters mature and have left UCLA, it’s likely that Thomas will be more comfortable at 400 meters, with Everett moving up to the 800.

Thomas, of Hawthorne High, came to UCLA more acclaimed than Everett, of Fairfax High. His prep marks of 10.25 in the 100, 20.4 in the 200 and 45.09 in the 400 are all-time best performances in the state.

However, injuries hampered Thomas last year as a freshman. A stress fracture bothered him most of the season, and then he injured his hamstring in the sprint relay at the Pac-10 meet at the Coliseum. He didn’t run the rest of the day and was restricted later at the NCAA meet.

Conversely, Everett was relatively injury free. He was second to Washington State’s Gabriel Tiacoh, the No. 1 quarter miler in the world last year, at the conference meet. Later, he was a respectable fifth in the NCAA 400 and anchored UCLA’s 1,600-meter relay team to a second-place finish in the same meet.

Both Thomas and Everett will be busy at the Pac-10 meet. Thomas is entered in the 100, 200 and sprint relay and could run a leg on the 1,600 team, if needed. Everett will attempt the tough 400-200 double in addition to anchoring the 1,600 relay team.

UCLA and Oregon are expected to fight it out for the team title. As usual, the Ducks are loaded with quality distance runners. The Bruins will try to take the shorter route to the team title with their young sprinters--Thomas, Everett and Mike Marsh.

Track Notes Edwin Moses extended his winning streak in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles to 106 in final races Saturday at the Princeton Invitational. The streak began in 1977, but it could have ended Saturday if Moses had encountered more formidable opposition. Gordon Baskin, Moses’ financial adviser, said that Moses was cognizant of the rule of one false start because he was competing in a college meet. So he was slow coming out of his blocks, got his steps mixed up and had to chop his stride over the first hurdle. Accustomed to running in front of the pack, Moses was still behind after the sixth hurdle.

“All of sudden Edwin realized that he had better shift gears and make his move,” Baskin said. So Moses went on to win in the pedestrian time, for him, of 49.13 seconds. He’s the world recod-holder at 47.02. So the streak is still alive. Had Moses been in a race with Andre Phillips, or Danny Harris, it most likely would have ended.

Moses plans to run May 29 in Torino, Italy, as a guest competitor at a dual meet meet between Italy and the Soviet Union. Then, he’ll compete in Madrid June 4 before the TAC meet June 25-27 at San Jose, which qualifies athletes for the World Championships Aug. 29-Sept. 6 at Rome.

The Pac-10 decathlon and heptathlon got under way Monday at Corvallis, Ore. Camille Jampolsky of Oregon took the first-day lead in the women’s heptathlon, while Simon Shirley of Washington State was comfortably ahead in the men’s decathlon. Jampolsky, a junior, accumulated a four-event total of 3,373 points to push her past USC’s Wendy Brown with today’s three-event schedule to go. Shirley amassed a five-event total of 4,022 points in the decathlon, well ahead of runner-up Joe Duarte of UCLA with 3,714. Shirley, a sophomore from Australia, appeared to have little competition in the absence of UCLA’s Jim Connolly, who is resting before the NCAA championships. Connolly was fourth in the NCAA last year, while Shirley was 10th.

The main portion of the meet is scheduled Friday and Saturday.