Molway’s Legs Move About as Fast as Her Mind

Holiday Molway is a young woman who knows what she wants.

“I want to be superintendent of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District,” she says. “High schools need to change. We need to focus on the students more.

“If you have academic problems, you’re just left by the wayside. I work with these drop-outs and it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ These kids have so many emotional problems and problems at home. They’re in so much pain, it’s no wonder they have no incentive to succeed academically.”

Molway, a junior psychology major at UC Irvine, teaches a self-esteem class at the Alternative Education School in Newport Beach. Then she invites her students home to dinner, where they probably get another dose of optimistic inspiration. Molway’s father, grandfather and uncle are ministers.

It may seem as if Molway has her life all carefully planned out, but don’t be surprised if she wants to be a baker, banker or cowgirl by this time next week. She has been known to change her mind.

Molway has the fastest time in the Big West in the 800 and 1,500 meters going into Saturday’s Steve Scott Invitational at Irvine, but when she graduated from Irvine’s University High in 1992, she went to Seattle Pacific on a full volleyball scholarship.

“I loved Seattle, I had a really good time there and made some really great friends, but it was kind of strange,” she said. “I went up there three months before school started to practice and almost everyone on the team was from Washington. They all went home on the weekends and I was like the only person in the dorms, the only person on campus.”

Her infectious smile and good-natured enthusiasm captivated her teammates and soon Molway was spending the weekends at their homes. That took an edge off the homesickness, but after volleyball season, she began to miss running track.

“I had signed early with Seattle Pacific,” she said. “Then I had a really good senior season [in track], but by then it was too late.”

The coaches at Seattle Pacific wanted her to concentrate on volleyball, so Molway transferred to UC Davis.

“I called a bunch of places and they were the first ones to call me back,” she said.

Ah, another well-thought-out decision.

Molway made new friends, fell in love with the campus, and “everything was really super,” but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was too far from home.

“My heart was down here,” she said. “Working with teenagers is my real passion and this is where I want to do it.”

Running track has become a close second recently. The mandatory redshirt year after the transfer from Davis to Irvine wasn’t much fun for Molway--not one to thrive on the sidelines--but it proved valuable, physically and mentally.

“I could feel myself getting stronger,” she said, “and during the cross-country season last year, I started to develop the focus you need to run the longer races.”

Ten days ago, Molway turned in the eighth-fastest 800 time (2 minutes 10.96 seconds) in school history. And her personal best in the 1,500 (4:33.57), set March 16 at the Long Beach Collegiate Classic, is 3 1/2 seconds faster than Long Beach State’s Christa Ayuso, who has the second-fastest time in the event in the Big West this year.

So Molway has high hopes for the conference championships May 15-17 in Logan, Utah.

“In the past couple of weeks, I’ve dropped more than three seconds off my time in the 800 and my 1,500 has continued to drop, too,” she said. “Things are going really, really great right now.”

For Molway, the glass is never even just half full. Cheerfulness is forever spilling over the brim. Everything is “really, really great,” or “super,” or “awesome.”

Is there anything she dislikes?

“I hate honking,” she said. “It’s like some little old lady doesn’t stomp on the gas fast enough when the light changes and somebody honks. I always feel so sorry for them.”

Forget that superintendent of schools gig and think about Secretary of Transportation. Then she could ban honking in the U.S.

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Name game: If you’re wondering where she got her name, keep wondering.

“I was supposed to be Kelly, than my mom saw me and I guess I looked like a Holiday.”

Uh, OK.

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Smooth sailing: The women’s sailing team qualified for the national championships last weekend with a second-place finish in the Pacific Coast Championships off Long Beach.

The Anteaters had 71 points. Stanford won the event with 56 and Cal was third (97). All three teams qualify for the Intercollegiate Yacht Racing Assn. National Championships June 5-7 in Madison, Wis.

Skipper Fiona McLean and crew Carrie Linskey scored 39 points for Irvine and skipper Danielle Hill and crew Melissa Cutler scored 32.

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Anteater Notes

Ruth Wysocki, a 1984 Olympian who is attempting to make the 1996 U.S. team at age 39, will compete in the Steve Scott Invitational Saturday at the UCI Track Stadium. . . . The men’s soccer team will host the Colorado Foxes, the 1992 A League national champions, in an exhibition game at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Anteater Soccer Stadium. . . . The women’s tennis team’s 10th-place finish in the Big West Championships last week was the worst in school history. The men’s team’s third-place finish was the worst since 1980.