Farmer Is Lingering at Track Crossroads

Matt Farmer left UC Irvine this month with three Big West Conference decathlon titles, a degree in sociology and a degree of uncertainty.

What becomes of a talented decathlete’s career after college?

Farmer found a good job before graduation with little trouble. But will he continue to compete, grueling as the training schedule can be? Or will he hang up the old spikes, the old shot, the old discus, the old vaulting pole and the old javelin and settle into a working life?

There was a time when Farmer was sure he would continue training, and then, this spring, a time when he didn’t much care to go to the track at all.

“There was a time when I would have told you, ‘No, I’m not going to do this anymore,’ ” Farmer said. “Track did not put a smile on my face. It did not make me happy anymore. I had lost that drive that I wasn’t going to lose in any event.”

He knew that a job awaited him with Springco, a company based in Torrance that sells equipment for track and other sports. Farmer works as a sales consultant, taking advantage of a decathlete’s abundance of knowledge.

“People call and say, ‘My kid’s 130 pounds and slow as molasses, and he needs to pole vault. What pole do you recommend?’ ” Farmer said. “I just try to suit people’s needs.”

And though he hasn’t achieved enough status as a decathlete to reach the Olympic trials, his job has taken him to New Orleans, where the U.S. team is being selected. Farmer is there as a Springco representative.

He says now he believes he will resume training, but without such a lofty goal as reaching the Olympics.

“The Olympics? Nah, I’m realistic,” he said. “If you say you want to make the Olympics, then you’re on that bandwagon with everybody else. Sure, I’d love to make the Olympics, but that’s probably not realistic. My goals in life are to make some money and be happy.”

Because track lacks the expansive professional opportunities of such sports as baseball, basketball and football, Farmer says athletes have to search to find recognition on a level between college and say, the Olympics.

“One of the fun things to look at, is at the end of the year, they put out the U.S. list and the world list (of top annual performances),” he said. “I think I was 31st (actually 32nd on the U.S. list) last year. When you think about it, that’s something. There’s so little return when you do the decathlon. You put so much into it. It’s kind of nice to see your name in print.”

After years of rigorous training too often interrupted by injuries, Farmer had a respite in mind after college.

“My plan was, I was going to go to work, come home and watch TV and have a couple of beers,” he said. “Maybe lift weights, gain some weight.”

Last season took away some of his enjoyment in the sport. Injuries hounded him. He already had undergone surgery the year before to remove bone spurs in his foot after the 1991 NCAA championships, in which he finished 13th.

In the weeks leading up to this year’s Big West championships at Fresno in May, a hamstring injury--among others--limited Farmer’s training to swimming laps in a pool. No matter, he won the Big West title anyway, though he failed to qualify for a return trip to the NCAA championships.

“I kind of got the smile back on my face after the conference meet,” he said. “That meet is always good for me and my head--winning tends to put a smile on your face. I found myself being happy again competing. It was a feeling I hadn’t had in a long time.”

The beer-TV-and-weights plan he had concocted to help him fill out his wiry frame started to fall by the wayside.

“I think now things are starting to click, and I’ll keep training,” he said. “I’ll take the summer off, but come September I’ll be back at this again.”

Farmer’s victory at the Big West meet made him only the second person in conference history to win three decathlon titles, following Roger George of Fresno State, who won in 1972, ’73 and ’74.

Farmer joined him by swaggering his way--and occasionally staggering his way because of injuries--to the Big West title three years in a row.

Farmer is as companionable an athlete as any who has worn a UC Irvine uniform, but he turns cocky in competition, strutting past his rivals as if no one can beat him.

Over the last three Big West meets, no one did, even though it was an ordeal just to get through his final one.

Farmer prepared himself by resting his worn-down body--and by shaving his legs.

“I’d had so many injury problems and couldn’t train, I needed to do something to pick me up and get my game face on,” he said. “That did it. It made me feel fast. Even if the belief is only in your head, you’ve got the battle won.”

Of the three titles, the 1991 victory stands out. The competition went down to the final event, with darkness falling at UC Irvine’s track stadium.

“Last year, I was losing by three points to Tim Baker of Fresno State going into the 1,500,” Farmer said. “That roughly equates to one-half second. I was down 10 meters with 200 yards to go. I don’t know where it came from, but I ended up outkicking him.”

He finished with 7,435 points, a mark that has proved to be the best of his career. The automatic qualifying standard for the Olympic trials is 7,800, the provisional 7,500.

“That will probably be my best memory in track for a long time,” he said.

Farmer’s father, Dixon Farmer, a former San Diego State men’s head track coach who now lives in Minnesota, appreciates what his son has done.

“Two of those three have been with some injuries involved and there were question marks going in,” Dixon Farmer said. “I think I’m probably proudest of that fact. My wife was at last year’s conference championships at Irvine. I have had it described dozens of times from different angles. It came down to the 1,500, and it was virtually dark. I think this last one was pleasing simply because he didn’t know if he could get through.”

Farmer’s father’s experience is one reason Farmer isn’t considering coaching as a career. Dixon Farmer lost his job at San Diego State when the men’s and women’s track programs were combined; since then, the school has dropped men’s track altogether.

“My dad was at San Diego State for 10 years,” Farmer said. “He left without a job, and that was his life, coaching. It scares me.”

Irvine also decided to drop men’s track, announcing that intention in May. A fund-raising effort to preserve the program, along with men’s cross-country, is under way.

“I see the way track and field is going,” Farmer said. “It’s kind of sad. It’s steering a lot of potential coaches away.”

Matt Farmer had his occasional rough spots during college, particularly during a brief period the summer after his sophomore season. His parents had moved from San Diego to Minnesota, and Farmer had neither a job nor enough money to buy a plane ticket home. For about three weeks, he took up a secret residence in the athletic storage shed.

“I decided I’d shack up in the shed; I had a key,” he said. “I had to avoid (school officials) but I had unlimited supplies, golf balls, tennis balls, a basketball court, swimming pool. I was like a kid for three weeks.

“I had a couch I’d put in the corner during the daytime so it would like like it was being stored. At night, I’d pull my car in so I didn’t have to pay for a parking permit.”

Soon enough, it began to wear on him. Another athlete in training helped him out.

“One day, Danny Harris, the hurdler, came in and saw me sleeping,” Farmer said. “He said, ‘I’m going to Europe, why don’t you live at my house? I’ll leave checks so you can pay the bills for me, and that way you can live at my place for free.’ ”

Farmer took him up on it, and looks back on his brief period of shed life fondly.

“At Irvine, you don’t live in scummy kind of Animal-House situations like a lot of students do. I kind of got a taste of living with barely anything. It was kind of fun.”

His life is much different now, and even Farmer is curious to see where training will fit in. His current roommate is a hurdler in training, and Farmer thinks that will help.

“He works 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and then goes and and works out. He’ll be a good example for me to follow.”

Farmer’s father--who started his son on his way to track stardom when he watched him set an American record for the 50-yard waddle as a 1-year-old--thinks the training might fall by the wayside.

“He’s he been involved in track and field since he was little, rolling soup cans around kitchen, calling them by track athletes’ names to see who would win from furnace to light fixture,” Dixon Farmer said. “Both of us have seen athletes past their prime who ought to focus their energies in other areas. He would not want to be in that category.

“I think he has given it all he has to give. He wonders what he could have done injury-free. I think we all do. . . . But I think he’ll find he’ll settle into a working existence. This job will keep him involved in the loop with a little different perspective. My bet is he will not continue. It’s arduous. It’s not recreational stuff, three days a week. For him to continue would require five, six, seven days, frequently four hours a day.

“I don’t know if he’ll have time, and I don’t think he’d settle for mediocrity. I’m betting he’s all but finished.”