Olympic Flames Still Burn in Scott’s Soul : Track: At 36 and trying to gain his fourth berth on U.S. team, he’s fighting age and injury for another chance at a gold medal.

He was a rookie in 1976, a man with no place to go in ‘80, in his own back yard in ‘84, past his prime in ‘88, and now Steve Scott is back once again.

Never mind that he’s 36, that he has been plagued by injury and self-doubt, that he has fallen from the world rankings. Scott is trying this week to win his fourth berth on the U.S. Olympic team in the 1,500-meter run.

Hey, a guy can dream can’t he?

A fixture on the world track-and-field scene for so many years, Scott refuses to concede to age, injury and lack of motivation--the factors that have sidelined so many of his contemporaries.

Indeed, with each passing year, Scott faces a new cast of characters. The world’s top-ranked 1,500-meter runner, Noureddine Morceli of Algeria, was a boy of 6 when Scott stepped to the starting line for his first Olympic trials in 1976.

Scott has accomplished so much since that day at the University of Oregon’s Hayward Field, when he was a 20-year-old sophomore from UC Irvine. He was in over his head in ‘76, and three and three-quarter laps around Oregon’s storied track proved as much.

In later years, he would emerge as the greatest 1,500-meter and mile runner in U.S. history. He was the trials champion in 1980, second at the world championships in 1983, 10th in the ’84 Olympics in Los Angeles and, surprise of surprises, fifth at Seoul in the ’88 Olympics when many figured he was well past his prime.

He has been ranked among the top 10 in the world by Track & Field News 11 times in 16 years, more than any other U.S. miler. More even than the legendary Jim Ryun, who is tied with Dyrol Burleson with seven top-10 rankings.

Scott lives in Leucadia with his wife, Kim, and their children, Corey, 10, and Megan, 8. A third child is due in August, Scott said.

“Hopefully, I’ll be in Europe,” Scott said, laughing.

The lure of another Olympics, perhaps more than anything else, is what pushes Scott out the door to train each day.

“I still have very lofty goals,” he said last week. “My whole career has been goal-oriented. I have goals of making another Olympic team. I have a goal of still running some fast times. It’s just a matter of training intelligently and being in the right situation.”

Scott took the first tentative steps toward Barcelona in the opening round of the 1,500 trials Monday night at Tad Gormley Stadium in New Orleans, advancing to the semifinals Friday. The final is at 5 p.m. Sunday.

Can he do it?

Even he has his doubts.

“In previous years--’80, ’84 and ‘88--it was a matter of going to the trials and, in my mind, it was a given,” Scott said. “I was pointing for the Olympics. That was my attitude. I didn’t do as well as possible at the trials because, in my mind, it was a given. There was no way three people in this country were going to beat me.

“Now, it’s more like, ‘Gee, I hope I make the team.’ My goal is to be in the top three.”

In its Olympic trials preview, Track & Field News picked Scott for fourth in New Orleans.

Scott’s early running gave little indication of what was to come. At Upland High, Scott was a good but not great runner. As a senior, his times nose-dived dramatically to 1 minute 52.0 seconds for 880 yards and 4:15.0 for the mile--fast enough to attract the attention of UCI Coach Len Miller.

At Irvine, Scott was the NCAA Division II mile champion, running 4:09.5 as a freshman. He qualified for the Olympic trials as a sophomore in 1976 and finished seventh. He was second in the NCAA Division I 1,500 as a junior. As a senior, he won the NCAA and The Athletics Congress 1,500 championships and was ranked seventh in the world.

And he only got better with experience.

By the early 1980s, Scott emerged as the major force on the world scene, yet he always seemed to be on the outside looking in.

It happened first in 1980 with the U.S.-led boycott of the Moscow Games and later with the rivalry between Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett, the two Britons who traded world records in the 1,500 and the mile. There wasn’t much room in the limelight for anyone else, but Scott said he remembers that time fondly.

“It was the best time to be involved,” he said. “The Coe-Ovett controversy was great. It was really exciting. People would write about it. People knew about it. It was something.”

Oslo, and cramped and noisy Bislett Stadium, was often the scene of the fastest races in the summers of the early 1980s.

“You’d run under 3:50 (for a mile) and you wouldn’t get a mention because you’d be fourth or fifth place,” Scott said. “All the Oslo races were very meaningful.”

Scott’s finest running came in the two-year period from 1982-83. In a 19-day span in 1982, he twice lowered his U.S. record in the mile and posted the fastest 1,500 in the world that year.

Coming off bests of 3:47.69 (still the American record) for the mile and 3:32.34 for 1,500 in ‘82, Scott stormed home in second place in the 1,500 at the first World Championships in Helsinki, Finland, in ’83.

As great as those years were, 1984 gave a hint that Scott was on the decline. At the trials in Los Angeles, he was a well-beaten second. In the Olympic final, Scott seemed intent on forcing the issue, sprinting into the lead in the early going. But he faded badly on the final lap and finished 10th.

Although he was still top-ranked in the United States following the ’84 Games, he dropped from No. 2 in the world to No. 8. In ‘87, he could only finish 12th at the World Championships in Rome, and it seemed as if he was through. But Scott fooled the experts at the Seoul Games a year later with a fifth-place finish.

Four years of inconsistent running have followed, but Scott has pressed on undeterred.

“Obviously, you miss those days when you were running at your best,” he said. “I’d love to have them back. The feeling of going out and, in your mind, knowing you’re going to win. It may not happen, but at least you felt it. You felt like you’re going to win.

“That’s a hard adjustment. Now, you step to the line and hope you’ll have a great day.”

Scott has more than mere hope on his side this week in New Orleans, however.

There are lessons that only 16 years of international racing can teach a runner, and Scott knows this well. When you come right down to it, age and experience are indeed worth something. The question is whether he is fit enough and strong enough to make his fourth Olympic team in five tries.

An injury first thought to be in his Achilles’ tendon but later determined to be in his calf all but halted his training from February until April. Given the circumstances, he said he’s in the best shape he could possibly hope for.

“I’m fighting an uphill battle,” he said. “I’m trying to get in all the work I need. At my age, recovery from a workout is a problem. If I were 26 it would be no problem, but being 36 it’s a factor.”

But old dreams die hard. Scott has replayed his dream almost nightly since he was in high school.

A crowd roars, a runner’s heart and legs respond, a man drapes a gold medal around the runner’s neck, the crowd stands at attention, and the runner’s national anthem is played.

“I’ll probably still have that dream when I’m 50,” Scott said. “A dreamer lives forever. As long as you’re competing at that (high) level anything can happen.”