In His Seoul Fantasy, Butch Doesn’t Hear Any German Music

For Harry (Butch) Reynolds Jr., maybe Saturday will be the day. The day he turns loose the juice. The day he leaves Lee Evans behind. The day he runs the fastest quarter-mile ever run. It could happen at the Pepsi Invitational at UCLA, which will feature five of the fleetest 400-meter speeders you ever did see.

Or, maybe Butch will have to wait. Wait for the Summer Olympics. Wait for that hi-beam spotlight. Wait to break Evans’ 43.86 until the whole wide world of sports is watching, then stand up there on that platform and sing a little off-key Francis Scott Key.

Reynolds has been daydreaming about this ever since last year’s World Championships at Rome, where he finished third as Thomas Schonlebe of East Germany won the gold medal. His fantasy is an understandable one. “What I see myself doing, in my dreams, is running a record-breaking race in the finals at Seoul, and the crowd erupting and then not having to hear a German song when the race is over,” Reynolds said.

Speaking from his home in Columbus, Ohio, where he remains in training even though he no longer runs for Ohio State, Reynolds, 23, lets his imagination work overtime. He still has the homemade sign near his bedroom door that reads “HARRY REYNOLDS, WORLD RECORD: 43.81”--which is a goal, not a fact. Butch is the first to confess it: He’s got Lee Evans on the brain.

The record Reynolds already owns is the fastest 400 ever run at sea level. He flat-outted a 44.10 at last spring’s Jesse Owens Classic in Columbus, after which he suddenly became the most talked-about sprinter out of Ohio since . . . well, Owens. Promoters worldwide started ringing his phone. They all wanted the guy who had run the hottest quarter-mile clocked in two decades.

When Evans ran his famous 43.86, it was in the high altitude of Mexico City, at the 1968 Olympics. Until Reynolds came along, the closest anybody had come to Evans’ mark was the 44.26 that earned a gold medal for Alberto Juantorena of Cuba at the Montreal Olympics of 1976. Reynolds really broke new ground. Scorched it, even.

“I just love the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, especially the thrill of victory,” Reynolds says. “I just love to perform, however it comes out.”

Whatever thrill he gets at Sunday’s meet will depend on the competition, of which there is plenty. Have any faster 400-meter fields than this one been assembled? In one lane we have Innocent Egbunike, whose 44.17 personal best is right on Reynolds’ heels. Alongside is Antonio McKay, bronze medalist in the 400 at the L.A. Olympics. Next is Roddie Haley, who’s done 44.48, and then there is Gabriel Tiacoh, who holds the stadium and meet record of 44.32. Gentlemen, start your engines.

Track people will tell you that there is no tougher race than the 400. It takes the most out of you. It’s all out, sheer acceleration; there’s no pacing yourself. It’s Carl Lewis times four. Not just a straightaway of pain, but a whole lap of it. Hell on wheels.

“I hate the 400,” Reynolds says, laughing. “Why couldn’t I have found some easier line of work?”

Back growing up in Akron, he thought he might become a pro football receiver some day, as any 6-foot 3-inch kid who runs like the wind is wont to do. You know, nothing beats a great pair of legs. After his Archbishop Hoban High School team went 1-9, though, no scouts came by and no college coaches called. Butch’s 20-yard average per catch got him nowhere.

So, he counted on track to take care of his future--only that went sour, too. Before the state meet, at which he was expected to win four events, Reynolds jammed a knee. Scholarships went out the window. College doors closed, because Butch hadn’t taken classroom work seriously enough, and his dad’s job as a maintenance man at General Tire couldn’t finance his schooling. Worse yet, the plant shut down in 1982, and Harry Sr. was unemployed.

Butch went to a community college in Kansas, to get on track. “I’d never seriously studied and I’d never seriously trained,” he says. “It was time to get down to business.”

Things came around. Dad found work. Junior’s times improved. Brother Jeff became a sprinter as well, and tore up the track at Kansas State, taking a Big Eight title. Butch transferred to Ohio State, to fine-tune his legs. And, he set out after his diploma, which he intends to get one way or another, no matter what.

Everything’s going his way now. He and Jeff ran 1-2 at this year’s Jesse Owens quarter-mile, and will go to the Olympic trials at Indianapolis together. “Maybe we’ll be the awesome twosome,” Butch says.

He is motivated by the Olympics, having learned valuable lessons at the trials of 1984. He was happy-go-lucky back then, a little too casual. It takes a certain intensity to get where you’re going in this event, and to be the fastest one to get there.

“I picture Seoul in my head, even though I’ve never been there,” Reynolds said. “I’m expecting nice people. Nice, short people. I’m expecting the Americans to feel welcome. I’m expecting my race to be the race of a lifetime. And I’m just going to take it, you know, in stride.”

In long strides, he hopes. With a big finishing kick and a 43 on the clock. It’d be the time of his life.