Corona del Mar’s Campbell Blessed With More Than Beginner’s Luck

There are two kinds of runners in this world--those who run and those who plod. Plodders, please, do yourself a favor and skip this column. Really, it’s for your own good. Reading it might cause your ego permanent harm and we don’t want that on our conscience, do we? So go on, get out of here. Take a lap. Scoot!

That done, we now introduce Corona del Mar freshman Kelly Campbell, a girl who runs as effortlessly as Niagara falls. Bruce Springsteen might have believed he was born to run. Bruce Springsteen was kidding himself. Campbell is the natural. Her genes command her to go, go, go. She motors along like a mouse on a wheel. She expends as much energy running a couple of miles as most of us do on a single sneeze.

Consider that in only her first season of competition, Campbell already has run faster than most girls who ever set foot on an Orange County track. Her best times in the 1,600 (5 minutes 10 seconds) and 3,200 meters (11:10) were run at Corona del Mar, site of what might be the slowest, softest oval this side of Santa Anita. Campbell, 15, managed this on less than three month’s training. Her average number of miles per week? A measly 18.

Room for improvement? You bet.

So what do we do now? Pencil her in for a couple of State titles? Engrave her name on Olympic gold? Toss her up in a marketing campaign with Whosit or Whatsit or whatever is the mascot for the next Olympic Games?

Hardly. The truth is--and plodders just hate to hear this--Campbell isn’t so sure she’ll stick with the sport. For one thing, volleyball is her priority. She played on Corona del Mar’s State champion team last fall. She plays club volleyball, too. Volleyball is fun, she says. It’s team-oriented and it’s a sport . She isn’t so sure she can say the same for track.

“It is kind of weird just running in circles,” Campbell says. “It’s like, ‘OK. Only four more ovals to go!’ Then you rest a little and it’s, ‘OK. Now only eight more ovals to go!’

“I guess it’s nice to get good times and stuff, but other than that, well . . . Oh, I like the friends!”

Friends? It’s surprising Campbell has any in track this year. After all, what is more annoying to a veteran distance runner than a beginner who shows up, asks how to lace up her spikes, then steps on the track and proceeds to kick the entire team’s tush? Especially when it’s the same squad that won a State cross-country title last fall? It’s like an A-bomb to the ego. Confidence goes kaboom .

Apparently, the Sea King squad has recovered. At 7 tonight, Campbell will anchor the team’s four-by-mile relay at the Mt. SAC Relays. Some of the best distance squads in the state are expected to compete, allowing Campbell her first real brush with high school’s elite.

She says she doesn’t know what to expect; her races so far haven’t been too competitive. Her coaches tell her to stay with the leaders until the last lap, then pick it up if you’re able. She waits, makes her move and--boom--takes a 30- to 40-yard lead. She says her strongest memory of any race was the sound of the breeze.

“There was no one near me,” Campbell says of her first race, a victory in the mile against San Clemente. “All of a sudden, it was so quiet. All I could hear was the wind.”

Whether Campbell realizes this is a rarity, being a front-runner, isn’t apparent. Most middle-of-the-pack runners hear lots of gasping and clomping feet, but rarely the wind. Campbell says she realizes she has a talent, and would like to see where it might lead. She would like to break 5 minutes in the 1,600, 11 minutes in the 3,200. Other than that, she isn’t sure.

Sea King Coach Bill Sumner says he’s not pushing her. At this point, Campbell’s on cruise control. Her volleyball schedule--practices a few nights a week, tournaments on weekends--cuts into her running, and maybe that’s for the best. It isn’t uncommon for runners to burn out before their senior year. Campbell says she plans to be careful.

Not that you can’t have a little fun. Campbell came back from a training run by the Upper Back Bay recently--carrying a big bush she had picked up along the way.

“This bush was huge--like 5 feet tall,” Sumner said. “I said ‘Kelly! What do you think you’re doing?!’ She goes, ‘Oh. I need it for my biology class.’ She was carrying this bush--running with it--for over a mile .”

What did he expect? Only a clod would plod.