Olympic Goal Just Another Hurdle for Crear : Track: After helping USC to a third-place finish in the NCAA meet, the Rowland High graduate will try to earn a spot on the U.S. team.

ROWLAND HEIGHTS — Mark Crear gets tunnel vision every time he settles methodically into the starting blocks for the start of a race.

As Crear lifts his head, he stares straight ahead through 10 hurdles staggered over 110 meters. The hurdles represent 10 challenges that must be met. Ten obstacles to overcome.

“The biggest challenge is enduring to the finish,” Crear says. “When you get to those last three hurdles--eight, nine and 10--your tendency is to float. But you have to concentrate and push it as much as you can.”

Crear, 23, has pushed himself into hurdling’s upper echelon. The 1987 Rowland High graduate won the 110-meter event at last weekend’s NCAA championships at Austin, Tex., helping USC to a third-place finish in the team standings. Next week, he will travel to New Orleans to take part in the U.S. Olympic Trials from June 19-28.

Hurdling superstars Greg Foster and Renaldo Nehemiah will be among a field at New Orleans that also will include Tony Dees, Tonie Campbell, Jack Pierce and Arthur Blake. Four hurdlers, one of whom will be an alternate, will represent the United States at the Summer Games in Barcelona.

“I’m just trying to fine-tune everything,” said Crear, who met the trials’ qualifying standard of 13.6 seconds in March. “Now, it becomes a mental workout. Believing I can run with the great ones. I have to go in with the idea that I can beat the best in the nation, which basically means the best in the world.”

The 6-foot-1, 175-pound Crear never really believed he could be the best at anything until he met Frank Gerdine at Rowland. Crear came from a broken home and had previously attended Blair High in Pasadena and Oakland Tech in Oakland before arriving at Rowland.

Gerdine, a campus police officer and assistant track coach, saw the potential in Crear.

“He reminded me a lot of myself when I was growing up,” said Gerdine, who is married and has three children. “We just clicked. He latched onto me and I latched onto him. He was a good kid who wasn’t getting a lot of attention.”

Crear vividly recalls the day he met Gerdine, who has served as a father, brother, landlord and coach during their relationship.

“One day me and a buddy were just sitting at a table and Frank came over and said, ‘Hey, you look like a hurdler,’ ” Crear said. “He said we should go out for track.

“That was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I didn’t really have a solid family base. Frank really worked with my mind. He made me see that I could be good at something.”

Crear finished fourth in the intermediate and second in the high hurdles events at the California high school state meet in 1987. He attended Mt. San Antonio College for two seasons, mixing in workouts when he was not working for the United Parcel Service. Crear ran 14.0 seconds in the 110 hurdles his sophomore year, finished second in the state and graduated with an associate of arts degree in architecture.

In 1990, Crear transferred to USC and ran under the guidance of Jim Bush, a volunteer coach at the time. Crear concentrated solely on the 110-meter event and lowered his personal best time to 13.51.

“Bush has a great technical eye and he knows his hurdles,” Crear said. “Guys like Willie Gault and Tony Campbell would be out there working out with guys in other events like Quincy Watts. The whole package and atmosphere was great. Just seeing the other guys’ dedication and their pain and sweat helped lift my performance.”

Crear finished second at the Pacific 10 Conference championships and third at the NCAA championships at Durham. N.C., despite running with a groin pull.

He redshirted in 1991 to rehabilitate and strengthen his body. During that year, he also changed his lifestyle.

“I took an interest in what I was doing when I wasn’t on the track,” Crear said. “I decided I needed to eat right, sleep right and work out right.”

This season, Crear won the Pac-10 championship in 13.50 seconds. At the NCAA championships last week, he cruised to a 13.76 in the first qualifying heat then sharpened his focus for the semifinals.

“I wanted to let the other hurdlers know that Mark Crear was for real,” he said.

Crear ran a wind-aided 13.46 in the semifinals and came back with a 13.49 in the final to win the individual title. As one of six Trojan men’s runners who competed in 33 races during the four-day championships, he helped USC finish behind Arkansas and Tennessee, the Trojans’ best performance since 1977.

“If I go down to the Olympic Trials believing I’m the best, then I have a chance to be victorious,” Crear said. “If I can make it to the finals, anything can happen.”

And while Crear is pointing his effort toward making the Olympic team, he also has plans beyond Barcelona. He recently graduated with a degree in sociology and a minor in business, and hopes to one day open a chain of day-care centers.

“I know what it’s like to lack confidence and self-esteem,” Crear said. “That’s why there is so much violence today. I want to inoculate pride and self-esteem into kids.”

Gerdine is proud of the person Crear has become. Crear, Gerdine said, is a testament to what can be achieved when people take the time to look after others.

“Mark has been a big help to me,” Gerdine said. “I’m seriously thinking about going back to school and getting my credential so I can teach and coach. It’s been a two-way street with Mark. It hasn’t just been give, give, give. He’s taught me a lot.”