Murray’s Success Is a Hair-Raising Experience : Cross-country: Santa Margarita runner has a flashy hair style to go with his speed.

His hair is growing back now, and beginning to return to its natural shade so the effect is something like a caramel-vanilla swirl.

Michael Murray, one of the county’s top cross-country runners, sits cross-legged under a tree at Santa Margarita High, laughing at the folly of his most outrageous venture.

Murray has always been on the cutting edge of hair fashion--sporting a tail in the 1980s and a short, spiky cut more recently. He begged his parents for weeks last summer to allow him to bleach his hair before they finally caved in to his all- the- kids- are- doing- it argument.

“Our feeling is, he is a good kid and he gives us no trouble, and if this is the biggest rebellion in his life, we weren’t going to argue with it,” said Murray’s mother, Linda.

Murray showed up for cross-country practice this fall with a platinum buzz cut.

“It looked like a light bulb,” said Coach Dave Zeitler.

With his new hairdo has come an increased aptitude for winning.

Murray, a junior, won the Sea View League championship Nov. 4 in a personal-best 15 minutes 1 second at Irvine Regional Park. He won his Southern Section Division 2A preliminary heat Saturday at Mt. San Antonio College and has a good shot at winning his second Southern Section title Nov. 18.

Murray showed signs of greatness last season, but made a decisive move to the front of the pack this season, when he won all four of Santa Margarita’s league dual meets, setting course records.

Murray’s genes may have predisposed him for excellence in distance running. Murray’s father, Joe, ran distance events in high school at Evergreen Park (Ill.) Brother Rice High. Murray’s grandfather, Robert, was a distance runner at a college in Massachusetts.

Murray, who played soccer as a child, became interested in running at about age 11, when he noticed the Saddleback Valley School District was holding a race for local age-group runners. He asked his mother to buy him running shoes, but she insisted that he first prove his dedication.

“I wasn’t going to go out and buy running shoes for something that I figured was just a lark,” Linda said.

Trudging along in a pair of Linda’s high-top basketball shoes, he won the preliminary race and the final.

Afterward, one of the race organizers implored Linda, “Go get him some running shoes!”

Soon after those victories, Murray signed up with the Mission Viejo Infinity track club, where coach Vernon Smith taught him technique and form.

In 1992, Murray was scheduled to travel to Mobile, Ala., to compete in the U.S. Junior Olympics cross-country championships. He didn’t tell his parents he was feeling sick because he wanted so badly to compete. After placing poorly, however, he was diagnosed with infections in both ears and bronchitis.

The next year, fully recovered, Murray placed second in the Youth Division 3,200 meters at the U.S. Youth Athletic track and field championships in Houston.

“I was thrilled. I still have the medal in my room,” he said.

As a freshman at Santa Margarita, Murray gained a new perspective on running.

“[Zeitler] really taught me how cross-country can be a team sport and how to get on a program to peak yourself perfectly for your season,” he said.

In Murray’s freshman year, he was the Eagles’ No. 5 runner and helped them to the Southern Section Division 3AA team championship. The summer after his freshman year, Murray traveled to New Zealand with the rest of the Santa Margarita team for a two-week training camp.

“The climate and the terrain, everything was different down there,” he said. “The runs were like exploring.”

Although last season was a rebuilding year for Santa Margarita, Murray progressed steadily. After running 16:24 at the early season Mt. San Antonio Invitational, he shaved 31 seconds off that time by the end of the season to win the Southern Section Division 3AA individual title on the same course.

While that victory might have seemed portentous, Murray soon realized it would take more than luck to continue his winning ways. This summer at a training camp at Big Bear, Murray spent the first few days running indolently. Zeitler sat him down for a talk.

“I was kind of upset at myself because I knew I wanted to have a really great season but I knew I had to put in the work,” he said. “A good season isn’t going to just come to me, I’m going to have to work for it and I want it.”

The work paid off. At the Mt. San Antonio Invitational at the beginning of the season, Murray ran 15:47, shaving six seconds off the time he ran at the end of last season, when he won the Southern Section Division 3AA title on the same course.

This season, however, Santa Margarita is competing in Division 2A with larger schools. Murray’s 15:47 time in the invitational’s large-school sweepstakes team race was good for 17th place overall and second among runners from Orange County behind Edison’s Dylan Glatt, who finished four seconds ahead of Murray.

That was one of two races he lost this year--the other was at the Woodbridge Invitational on Sept. 17, when he placed second in the Division II junior class race behind David Lopez from Glendale Hoover.

Whether Murray wins the Southern Section final on Saturday, one thing is nearly certain, most of the runners will be looking at his hairdo from the back.