Recalled as Athletes, as Students, as Friends : Profiles: Two teens killed are remembered as hard-working track runners always quick with a smile.

One was a stellar student with an easy laugh who tutored his friends and was pegged by his track coach as a rising star. The other was remembered Tuesday as a quiet, hard-working student determined to become a better runner on the track team next year.

But for these 16-year-old boys, there will be no next year at Fountain Valley High School. Gregory Starr and Mike Mize died Tuesday in the back seat of their friend’s vintage Mustang as the driver sped to get Mike to his driver’s education class on time, friends said.

Coaches, friends and teachers mourned the boys Tuesday as word of the accident spread.

“We live with that invulnerability in our younger years. Sometimes it can bring great tragedy and sometimes it can bring great success,” said Bob Maimbourg, who coached both Starr and Mize in track. “To lose a couple like this, it just shakes you to the roots.”

Despite an ankle injury, Starr ran winning sprints in the “frosh-soph” track division and also ran on the winning relay team, Maimbourg said.

“I pegged him as having some outstanding potential,” he said.

Starr also played on the sophomore basketball team. But more than his athletic ability alone, friends remembered his eagerness to help others, his knack for kicking a Hacky Sack into the air at least 50 times before the soft ball hit the ground, and his 4.2 grade-point average.

He was always coaxing them to do better, in sports and schoolwork, friends said. In track, he would run ahead of fellow runner John Filakourdis, coaxing him to make that extra push, Filakourdis said.

“He always encouraged me to do my best,” he said.

While Starr wasn’t a top basketball player, he coached his teammates from the bench and helped keep their spirits up.

“If we came home from a tough loss in basketball, he’d cheer us up,” said basketball player Gary Dote, 16. “He’d make us laugh, so we didn’t take the loss that hard.”

He also helped his friends in school, not giving them answers but helping them figure out the work.

“He always would help me out with geometry and math,” Filakourdis said. “Any time I’d have problems, I’d go to the back of the class where he’d be making jokes. He helped me work through the problems.”

Ryan Clark, 16, who lived across the street from Starr, said Starr often gave him rides to basketball games, where they both played.

“He could pick people up when he was on the bench, when he wasn’t even playing, just by talking to us,” Clark said.

Mize ran on the junior varsity track and cross-country teams. While he wasn’t a stellar athlete, coaches and friends said he tackled running with a fierce determination and improved markedly over the year last year.

“He just kept getting better and kept working harder, and every time he saw a step in improvement, he just worked harder and focused more,” Maimbourg said.

“He was very quiet and he got out there and did the job. He enjoyed running. He wanted to be successful at it. When you stay with it, there is no telling what tomorrow is going to bring. That’s where we were with Mike. We thought that, given time, he was going to make it.”

One time, Mize came to practice and worked so hard he beat the entire varsity team in a practice race, recalled Filakourdis.

“He was really proud and the coach was really happy,” Filakourdis said. “There were a lot of expectations, and he just pushed harder.”

Marty Morris, who had coached Mize and his older brother, Tom, in cross-country and track at Fountain Valley, said Mize was a dedicated athlete who always went through the entire workout and came back smiling.

Mize ran the medium-distance races in track and cross-country and had a good chance of making the varsity team next year. Mize’s father, also named Tom, often volunteered at track meets and made a point to meet all of his sons’ teachers.