O’Neill Hopes Quantity Leads to Quality 1,600

Francis O’Neill padded out of the locker room, walking on the outside part of his bare feet in an effort to avoid stepping on stones.

Once he hit the track at San Pasqual High, O’Neill felt at ease. There were plenty of tiny stones on the dirt track, but somehow they didn’t seem to hurt when he ran a warmup lap, as he usually does, without shoes.

“It’s comfortable,” said O’Neill, a junior. “Your feet feel so light. A lot of times we run on the outside edge of the (infield) grass. But it doesn’t hurt too bad when we run on the track.”

Even if it did hurt, you get feeling O’Neill would continue to do it if it helped. He seems able to endure anything as long as he is running.

There was plenty of pain Saturday at the San Diego Section track and field finals. O’Neill won the 1,600 meters, finished second in the 800 just 50 minutes later and then held on to finish second in the 3,200 meters an hour after that.

“I have been around track in the county since 1968,” said his coach, Will Wester. “And I don’t remember anyone running that triple, certainly not with the kind of marks Francis had.”

Said O’Neill on Tuesday: “I’m still stiff.”

But it was worth it. O’Neill knows what it feels like to not be able to compete.

He was academically ineligible last year. That hurt more than anything that could happen to him while running, O’Neill said. It is that memory that has driven him to success.

O’Neill’s section time in the 800 (1 minute 52.55 seconds) made him the 11th-fastest high school performer in San Diego County history, although he lost to Mt. Miguel’s Mark Senior.

Though he currently ranks fifth in the event, O’Neill won’t compete in it at the state meet, which begins with the preliminaries today at 3 p.m. at Cerritos College in Norwalk. O’Neill will only run the 1,600--which he won at the section meet (4:18.23)--even though he is not among the state’s top 10.

If O’Neill qualifies today, he will run in the finals Saturday at 6 p.m.

O’Neill had run in a competitive 1,600 only twice before the section meet. But Wester points to a 4:14 distance medley relay leg that O’Neill ran at the Mt. San Antonio College Relays as proof O’Neill can stay with the best.

“That was without ever developing a strong kick in practice,” Wester said. “The first part of (Saturday’s) race was slow, but he ran a 59-second last lap. He has the ability to run in front.”

Said O’Neill: “I think I’m ready to run a real fast mile. My day in the mile hopefully will come this weekend.”

O’Neill said he has been waiting since last May, when he sat in the stands at the Avocado League finals, watching.

“ That hurt,” O’Neill said.

He said he was in that position only because of his own laziness. It wasn’t that he couldn’t do the work; he just didn’t feel like trying.

O’Neill had the same attitude on the track. He’d run if the coaches were looking, but otherwise he’d goof off. Run on his own? Forget it.

“I was too lazy to get up and put on my shoes,” O’Neill said. “I couldn’t get motivated for anything.”

Wester said he remembers being frustrated with O’Neill two years ago, when he was a freshman.

“He came to us with obvious talent, but he missed a lot of practices,” Wester said. “He had run a sub-37 (minute) 10K as an eighth grader. But he thought that he could win without training. It took me a long time to convince him to work hard.”

Once he saw what he was missing, O’Neill picked up the pace in the classroom. He has raised his grade-point average from 1.8 to 2.4 “the last time I checked,” O’Neill said.

“His teachers and counselor say that his attitude has improved greatly in the classroom,” Wester said.

O’Neill has started to run on his own, too. He put in eight miles on Memorial Day, two days after the section meet. A usual week includes about 30 miles, he said, but he plans to increase that to 70 this summer.

He said he believes that extra training, more than anything, has helped him this year. During cross-country season last fall, O’Neill finished third in the section finals, fifth in the state and qualified for the Kinney National cross-country championship at Balboa Park, where he finished 24th.

He said he couldn’t wait for track to start, and made the most of the season. Besides competing in the 800, 1,600 and 3,200, O’Neill has run the 400 and competed in the high jump--his best is 5-feet 10-inches. He even ran the 300-meter intermediate hurdles a few times.

“Those are fun,” said O’Neill, whose best hurdle time was 41.9. “I’m going to take a few hurdles home to practice over the summer. I might run those full-time next year.”

O’Neill then added that he did not plan to drop any of his other races. Where would he find the time?

At the section meet, O’Neill said he was tired after the 1,600, but didn’t consider dropping either the 800 or 3,200. He took the lead in the 800 at the 400-meter mark and held off several pushes by Senior until the final turn.

O’Neill had a chance in the 3,200 because Jason Salber of University City, the eventual winner, and Goshu Tadese, who finished third, did not go out hard. O’Neill hung with them and eventually passed Tadese.

But when Salber made his move on the final lap, O’Neill couldn’t follow; he didn’t have anything left.

“I was just trying to hang on with him as long as I could, but I was fatigued after the 800,” O’Neill said. “I had a little cold the last two weeks. Maybe that had something to do with it, too.

“For most of the (3,200), I just watched the backs of their jerseys. That helped take some of the pain away.”

So what would happen if he decided to run the hurdles as well? Even if the rules allowed him to compete in all four--they don’t--it might finally be more than O’Neill’s body could take.

“Maybe,” he said. “I haven’t done anything that was too hard yet.”