Running in Place : Mozambique’s Mutola Is Sent to Oregon for Training, and the Reception Is Chilly

Between classes at Springfield High, three teen-age boys are angling across a courtyard toward the school office. One boy, the smallest, has a baseball bat on his shoulder, an outfielder’s glove dangling from the end.

Their discussion is animated.

“I could beat her,” he says. “Oh yeah, I mean, I could beat her, no problem.”

The other boys laugh.

“Right, uh-huh,” says the tallest. “Man, you know Maria can beat you.”

“Beat you up is more like it,” says the third, punching the smallest boy in the back.

Two paces behind them, unseen but not unseeing, is the subject of their debate. Maria de Lurdes Mutola, Springfield High’s athletic sensation and one of the world’s top-ranked 800-meter runners--she will compete for Mozambique at Barcelona--narrows her eyes in comprehension and looks down at the sidewalk.

What kind of voyage is it when you travel and travel, only to wind up in the same place? It’s the kind of trip Maria Mutola has taken. From playing soccer in the streets of Maputo, Mozambique, to racing on the all-weather tracks of North America, Mutola is still trying to find a place where she will be accepted. Her search yields cruel results. Each time she thinks she has found that place, she is betrayed by her ability.

The first time, she was 14.

Mutola’s prowess at soccer had come to the attention of some important people in Maputo, the capital of the southern African nation. After watching her play in neighborhood games with her brothers, the president of a major soccer club invited Mutola to join his team. A boys’ team.

Mutola thrived on the team, playing with her childhood friends. The team prospered with her on it. She was its star.

One day Mutola’s team played a team that, with a victory, would play for the championship. Mutola scored the tying goal, preventing the other team from advancing to the title game.

The opposing coach protested the game, saying it was against the rules for a girl to play on a boys’ team. Mozambique’s soccer federation eventually ruled that Mutola was not allowed to play on the boys’ team, even though there was no girls’ team available. In effect, she would not be able to play at all.

Mutola learned a lesson: Had she not been so good, had she not scored the tying goal, she might still be playing soccer. She learned that talent has its consequences.

Mutola went back to playing in neighborhood games, where she and her ability were welcomed. She might have gone on like that, playing with her friends for fun, but once again she was “discovered.”

Jose Craveirinha, Mozambique’s poet laureate, saw Mutola play and mentioned her strength and running ability to his son, coach of the country’s top track club.

The next day, the younger Craveirinha went to Mutola’s home to tell her about track and field--an obscure sport in Mozambique. He showed her pictures of Carl Lewis. He told her of the travel. He left a club uniform and shoes.

Craveirinha told Mutola he would be back the next day to take her to practice.

The first day was low-key--light jogging and some stretching. The second day was a jolt to Mutola, who had tremendous athletic pride. Craveirinha put her in a training session with two seasoned sprinters, who easily beat her. Mutola went home angry.

It got worse. A few days later, Mutola was introduced to a full track workout: a five-mile run, then an hour of various drills and sprinting. This time Mutola went home angry and exhausted.

“I decide after that I no come back,” she said recently, gingerly picking her way through English, which she has been speaking for only a year. Mutola’s first language is Portuguese, and she also speaks the Ronga dialect.

“After that hard work, my body was sore,” she said. “I decide to stay home. I stay home for four days. I sleep the whole time. In soccer, we are used to practice four days a week. Today practice, tomorrow a rest day. Track and field--every day. I said, ‘Oh my God!’ ”

Craveirinha came looking for Mutola and found her . . . in the street playing soccer. He talked her back onto the track and within the month she had run, and won, her first 800, in 2 minutes 9 seconds.

Three months later Mutola was carrying her country’s flag in the opening ceremonies of the 1988 Seoul Olympics. She was 15.

What do you call a place that holds the harshness of the place you left, but none of its beauty?

What good is a definition if it changes nothing?

Mutola didn’t make it out of the heats at the Olympics, but she ran a 2:04 and observers began asking, “Where did she come from?” Her physical maturity was remarkable.

“Clearly, she’s a prodigy,” said American middle distance runner Meredith Rainey. “She defies her age.”

Others thought so, too.

Mozambique, a former Portuguese colony, retains strong ties with the mother country. Craveirinha’s plan was for Mutola to live and train in Portugal, where there would be no language barrier and Mutola would have access to better facilities. She was to be plucked from her home and sent to train for the 1992 Olympic Games.

Asked if that was what she had wanted, to leave her family, Mutola shrugged.

“I was too young to make decisions,” she said.

Craveirinha’s plan quickly hit a snag, though. The Portuguese track federation said it would sponsor Mutola only if she changed her citizenship.

Portugal was ruled out.

Then Mutola came to the attention of the Olympic Solidarity Committee, an arm of the International Olympic Committee that sponsors athletes from developing nations to train abroad. It took two years of bureaucracy, but Mutola was eventually placed in this nation’s running Mecca, Eugene, Ore.

In March of 1991, Mutola enrolled at Springfield High, in the nearby mill town of Springfield. The idea was for her to compete for the school’s track team, then shift to international competition after the prep season was over.

It was another case of Mutola’s talent overwhelming the opposition. Rival high school coaches, who had paid no attention to Mutola’s enrollment months earlier, suddenly moved to have her ruled ineligible.

The coaches in Oregon acted as the rival soccer coach in Mozambique had, with the same result.

Mutola became a cause celebre. Still a shy teen-ager who barely spoke English, Mutola was becoming an unwilling symbol of athletics trampling academics.

Officials for the Midwestern League, acting on protests from other high schools, barred Mutola from competing, saying that because she had entered school shortly before the beginning of track season, it appeared that she was in school solely to run, not to get an education.

But Mutola had had no control over when she enrolled, that decision having been made by others. She also had nothing to gain by competing at the high school level, which she was considerably beyond. All Mutola yearned for was to be part of a team, to fit in, to be welcome. That was denied her.

Mutola’s coach, Margo Fund, said that the decision dealt a stinging blow to Mutola, at a time when she was most vulnerable.

“What I saw was a hurt girl who was trying hard to be a part of this new country where she obviously didn’t fit in, colorwise, hairwise, speechwise,” Fund said. “All of a sudden, there was one more thing setting her apart. I saw her hurt and I felt her hurt, but there was nothing I could do about it.”

Mutola responded by withdrawing. She told Fund she wanted to go back to Mozambique. She turned down the few social invitations she received from her schoolmates. She ate her lunch alone.

“The kids never openly laughed at Maria,” said Linda Wheatly, Springfield High’s teacher of English as a second language. “I think they have been intimidated. She has a presence. She doesn’t joke with the other kids. She likes to be separate.”

Lacking anything else to cling to, Mutola threw herself into her work and began training at an incredible pace. The snub probably accelerated her development by several years.

The topic for the day is AIDS. The teacher directs the attention of the class to Mutola, who has chosen to sit at a desk off to the side.

“OK, listen up people,” says the teacher, clapping her hands for attention. “We have this tape about a really serious problem, AIDS in Africa. Some people think that AIDS started in Africa. We have a student, Maria, who is from Africa. Maybe we can learn something.”

The snickering begins at the back of the class and rolls like a wave to the front.

Springfield High has an enrollment of more than 1,200. Counting Mutola, there are five black students. At 19, Mutola is also one of the oldest students in school.

Mutola’s age has always been questioned. She set the junior world record last year, but because she ran so well so young, many in the sport didn’t believe Mutola was telling the truth about her age.

“Africans just mature quicker,” said Jeff Fund, who assists his wife in coaching Mutola. “In her country, the life span for a woman is probably about 48. If you are going to die when you’re 48 and you happen to be 19, then you’re almost in midlife. The mistake Americans make is to judge her by our standards. They say, ‘She’s only 19, she’s just a child.’ She’s an African 19, and that’s not a child by any standards.”

Mutola’s maturity and, more prominently, her muscularity, have kept track and field’s rumor mill churning: “She’s really in her 30s.” “She’s on drugs.” “She’s a he .”

According to American middle-distance star PattiSue Plumer, Mutola is a hot topic among other runners.

“There is a lot of discussion about her,” Plumer said. “If the poor thing looks like that by nature, she’s certainly making the most of her genetic makeup.

“Her age is an issue in conversation. She doesn’t look that young. Maybe that’s just her upbringing. Maybe she’s had a hard life.”

Eventually, and predictably, Plumer gets around to evoking the name of Jarmila Kratochvilova, the great Czech runner of the 1970s and early 1980s who still holds the world record for 800 meters, 1:53.28. Kratochvilova was reviled by crowds and other runners for her “mannish” appearance.

“The comparison has been made,” Plumer said. I don’t know (Mutola). I’ve taken my femininity test. I assume she has. If she’s passed all the tests--the drug test, the femininity test--then she’s as feminine as I am.”

The whispers have made their way to Oregon, where the Funds have heard them. Has Mutola?

“Maria is very perceptive,” Margo Fund said. “If they are saying this, I’m sure she’s hearing some of it.”

For Jeff Fund, the gossip is predictable. If she weren’t successful, he says, no one would care when or where Mutola was born.

“We’ve heard it all before,” he said. “She’s a genetic freak. She knows she’s bigger. I’m not sure she knows why. Obviously, she’s very well built for a woman. In terms of her hormonal balance, it’s probably real close. She’s that strong. But Maria’s very feminine, she just doesn’t look it. How can you get around that?”

It’s a sign of Mutola’s awkward adjustment to the United States that others speak on her behalf on this and other issues. She has constructed a protective shell. She laughs frequently, but betrays little emotion.

Does she hear her teen-age classmates making fun of her? Does she know her competitors single her out for cruel remarks?

“I hear people say I take drugs,” Mutola said. “But I know I not do drugs. I have been in many tests about drugs. I do lots of weights. Maybe they say this because they see my muscles?”

Maybe they see the muscles, and not the person.