Moore Wants It All in Sprints

Since he first put on a pair of track spikes when he was 6, Obea Moore has been different from other kids.

When his peers went to a nearby playground, Moore locked himself in his bedroom and did push-ups and sit-ups. For fun, he made a game of running to the grocery store to pick up something for his mother. He tried to master a steep hill near his home.

Football and basketball became the sports of choice for most of his friends, but Moore stayed loyal to track and field.

Moore is 17 now, a junior at Muir High in Pasadena, but running still is his passion. And his work ethic appears unparalleled on the high school level. And despite his attempts to stay low-key and blend in with teammates and classmates, that task has becoming increasingly difficult.

Moore, who specializes in the 400 meters, has broken dozens of age-group records and is threatening to become the first male high school junior to qualify for the Olympics. He earned a spot in the Olympic trials at Atlanta in June by winning the 400 in 45.14 seconds at the World Junior Pan-American Games in Santiago, Chile, last September.

His time established a national sophomore record and was the ninth fastest in the United States in 1995. For Moore, however, it was just another day at the track.

“To do anything at the Olympics, I have to trim another second or two off my time,” he said. “Don’t worry, though, I can do it.”

His coaches caution not to take Moore’s confidence for arrogance.

“This is a kid who just can’t be told he can’t do something,” said James Robertson, who has coached Moore on the L.A. Jets club for the last 10 years. “He’s beyond his years, as far as competition goes, and I know he’d like to keep it that way for as long as he can.”

Nanette Moore, Obea’s mother, signed her son up for club track when he was 6 because he kept challenging everybody to race. By the time he was 10, Moore had a national reputation among the sport’s insiders.

In 1989, Robertson told a reporter from ESPN that he predicted Moore would qualify for the Olympics in 1996. Robertson said that drew chuckles.

Unlike many of the country’s top 400 runners, including Michael Johnson, Butch Reynolds and Quincy Watts, Moore doesn’t have defined thighs or calves. He doesn’t lift weights and, at 5 feet 11, weighs only 157 pounds.

On most days, he wears a knitted wool cap and sweats, and is difficult to pick out of his group of friends. Clyde Turner, Muir’s track coach, said Moore has gone out of his way to ensure as much normalcy in his life as possible.

“Obea is very down to earth,” Turner said. “When he’s not on the track, he’s just like every other kid here at Muir.”

On the track, though, Moore is anything but typical. He thrives on difficult practices, often running his top times in workouts. Robertson said meets are just like practice for Moore, since his intensity level never varies.

At a high school league qualifying meet last season, Moore won the 400 in 46.5 seconds, one of the best times in the nation.

“It was only a qualifying meet, yet Obea was out there running a world-class time,” said Doug Speck of Arcadia High, the meet organizer. “You knew he was going to be someone special when he’s doing something like that.”

Robertson said Moore is stronger than he appears and has tremendous speed. Those qualities and Moore’s complete lack of fear convinced Robertson that he had an athlete destined for greatness.

Since becoming a teenager, Moore has been on a regimen designed to get him to this summer’s Olympics. In alternating years, he has concentrated on the middle-distance races to build up strength and stamina.

Even though he would have been favored in the 400 at the state high school meet his freshman season, Moore stuck to his plan and ran the 800. He finished seventh, one of the worst losses of his career.

“I didn’t like losing that big, but I ran a very good time and I knew I had to look at the bigger picture,” Moore said. “My future isn’t based on one race, and that theory has been paying off.”

At the state meet last year, Moore helped Muir to its second consecutive team title by winning the 400, finishing second in the 200 and anchoring the 400 relay team to third place.

It was his performance in the 1,600 relay, however that brought the capacity crowd at Cerritos College to its feet. During the final lap of the relay, Moore made up 25 meters and brought Muir from third to first place, edging Inglewood Morningside’s anchorman at the finish line. Moore’s relay split of 45.4 was a personal best at the time and had the crowd chanting his name for several minutes afterward.

“You have to remember, Obea had just finished three other races within a couple of hours,” Turner said. “To come back and run another incredible time is one of the greatest feats I’ve ever witnessed on the track.”

Moore’s heroics have made him a celebrity among fans.

That attention is likely to increase as Moore tries to become the first male high school athlete to qualify for the Olympics since Johnny Lam Jones of Lampasas, Texas, in 1976. Jones had just graduated from high school when he won a gold medal on the 400-meter relay.

Jim Bush, a former USC track coach training Watts for the trials, said Moore won’t have an easy time.

“Obea will be excited and may go out and run too fast,” Bush said. “You have to run four races to get to the finals, so it’s important not to get burned out. A high school kid won’t know what the veterans know, and that could hurt him.”

Moore said he won’t even think about the trials until after the state meet in early June.

“People are always going to have their criticisms of me and what I’m trying to do,” said Moore, who will tune up for the outdoor season by running three relays at the National Scholastic Indoor meet in Boston this weekend. “I just listen to what I think is important and forget all of the rest.

“The Olympics has always been a goal of mine, and I know what I believe in.”