THE COLLEGES : Scobie Back on Track 4 Years After Auto Accident

Doctors told Heather Scobie she might not walk again.

Then they changed their minds.

She probably would walk but never run. The pain would be too great.

So Scobie wondered: Which would hurt more--trying to run, or never running again?

Running was her lifeblood and she was an up-and-coming star in the ranks of women distance racers. At least until Oct. 31, 1987.

It was on that Halloween afternoon that Scobie, a 17-year-old junior, and Shauna Bird, her best friend and teammate on the Saugus High cross-country team, were passengers in an automobile that was struck by a car heading the opposite direction that had hydroplaned on a rain-slick road and crossed the center line.

Both girls survived with broken vertebrae and numerous serious internal injuries. Bird also suffered a broken collarbone and a broken left arm.

Two days earlier, Scobie had won her third consecutive Golden League cross-country title. Now, she and her best friend were bedridden and in body casts.

And the experts were pessimistic.

Four years later, Scobie is running for Cal State Stanislaus, a Division II school that competes in the nonscholarship Northern California Athletic Conference.

Two weeks ago, she placed seventh in the NCAC cross-country championships in a time that was significantly slower than those she used to clock as a gangly teen-ager at Saugus High.

Scobie does not know what her time was. Nor does she care.

Her reaction: “I was so blown-away happy. I thought, ‘Wow! Did you see me? I can run again! I can run!’ ”

In Scobie’s own mind, there was rarely a doubt. This is, after all, the same person who turned hospital harrier on her first excursion after surgery.

Challenged to walk the length of the corridor outside her hospital room, Scobie charted her own course down an adjacent hallway and was headed for a flight of stairs before she was corralled and returned to her quarters.

A few months later, when she finally was allowed out to walk on the track at Saugus, Scobie would sneak a peek to make sure no one was watching, then try to jog.

Never mind the body cast that she was wearing. “That hurt so bad,” she said by telephone from Stanislaus this week. “I wasn’t even supposed to be doing that.”

Of course, she was never supposed to compete again, either. But she is. And she is having the time, if not times, of her life.

“I’ve always had fun running, but now, it’s strange, I get more pleasure out of it,” Scobie said. “I’m just so happy I’m here. So happy I can do this. . . .

“Nobody really has any expectations for me and that’s kind of nice. And if they do, I don’t listen to them. I just go out and have fun with it.”

Even with the pain. Three weeks ago, while driving a few blocks from school, Scobie was in what she described as a “fender-bender.” The accident was so minor, she didn’t even bother to see a doctor.

Then, a few days later, her back started hurting. It still does.

But she knows she will have to live with such aches, which serve as a constant reminder of a more serious accident and what might have been.

“Once in a while I think about what I might have done if that accident never happened and I get depressed,” said Scobie, a sophomore who will run in the Division II regionals today at Sonoma State. “But then I turn it around and think positively. There is nothing stopping me now.”

Indeed, someday she hopes to be out in front again, although she is careful to keep a perspective.

“I try not to put expectations on myself,” she said. “If I don’t reach the ultimate goal, I still want to be happy with what I have accomplished.”

That ultimate goal is to compete in the Olympics--a wish Scobie says she “hasn’t really said too much about.” She knows she is the longest of longshots.

Now if only somebody would try telling her it just can’t happen.

Add misfortune: Shauna Bird, Scobie’s best friend from Saugus, also attends Stanislaus, where she competed last season in track and field.

And although Bird no longer is close to Scobie, they still have a lot in common. More than Bird wishes, in fact.

Bird also was involved in a second car accident--only hers was more serious.

Last May, two miles from home on a highway in Turlock, Bird’s automobile struck a car that cut in front of her while making a sudden left turn from the right-hand lane.

The accident left her with a sprained back, a sprained neck and an increasingly skeptical attitude toward other drivers.

“It was just so stupid,” Bird said.

Bird is redshirting this year’s cross-country and track seasons, but she has not ruled out competing in the future.

“I enjoy running even more now and if the pain would go away maybe I could learn to like competing again,” Bird said.

Although she was not the prospect Scobie was in high school, Bird also wonders what might have been.

“I think back at what we did that day and I wonder,” she said. “I pull out a record I bought that day and I think, ‘If only I hadn’t stopped to buy this. . . .’ ”

Kyman’s return: The Cal State Northridge men’s volleyball team, which finished last season ranked third in the nation, will play exhibitions against a group of former collegiate standouts tonight at 6:15 at Highland High in Palmdale.

The squad opposing CSUN will include former Matadors Mike Bird, Jeff Campbell, Neil Coffman and Raphael Tulino, as well as Hawaii’s John Ribarich and Pepperdine’s Jerritt Elliott.

Coley Kyman, an All-American middle blocker, is among the players who should see action for the Matadors. Kyman sustained a broken left clavicle Sept. 14 while playing quarterback for the Northridge football team.

Kyman has been practicing volleyball for the past week and Coach John Price said he might play as a reserve on the back row where he could hit and play defense without having to block.

The match is a benefit for the Highland High team, which is coached by Bird.

Unwitting outlaw: Matt Unger, starting setter for the Northridge volleyball team last season, will not play tonight. He is temporarily ineligible because of his participation in a beach volleyball tournament in September.

Unger, and several other college performers from such schools as USC, Cal State Long Beach and Pepperdine, unwittingly took part in the tournament based on last year’s NCAA rule that allowed such participation outside a 26-week period that was considered “in season.”

That rule was changed this year to prohibit participation during the school’s academic year--much to the surprise of the rather large contingent of players.

Northridge has reported Unger’s infraction to the NCAA. Long Beach did the same with regard to several of the 49er players and already has received word on its penalty.

Each Long Beach player who took part in the tournament will have to sit out one match. Northridge, which should hear from the NCAA next week, expects Unger to receive a similar wrist slap.