Another Mountain for Hill to Climb : She’s Been Overlooked in Bid to Make a Record-Tying Fifth Olympic Track Team

Track & Field News has taken great pride in its world-wide coverage of athletics since the middle of the century, but the self-proclaimed bible of the sport appeared to overlook Denean Hill--nee Howard--in its latest issue previewing the Olympic trials.

Hill, who won four state titles for Kennedy High between 1980 and ’82 and now lives in Newhall, will try to make a record-tying fifth U.S. Olympic team tonight when she runs in the quarterfinals of the 400 meters in the trials in Atlanta. She placed second in 52.01 seconds in her heat Saturday.

Still, Track & Field News did not list her among the athletes who have a chance to tie women’s long jumper Willye White for the most Olympic team berths.

Eight-time Olympic gold-medalist Carl Lewis was on the list, as were walkers Marco Evoniuk and Carl Schueler, and distance runner Francie Larrieu Smith, but not Hill.

“They always do that to me so it’s nothing new,” said Hill, 31.

“You’ve got to slap them across the face,” said Hill’s husband Virgil, the WBA light-heavyweight champion who knows a little about packing a punch.

Denean did exactly that in 1992 when she placed fifth in the trials 2 1/2 years after giving birth to her son, Virgil Jr.

The fifth-place finish qualified Hill for her fourth Olympic team as one of the six members of the U.S. 1,600 relay team that won a silver medal. Although only four athletes run on a 1,600 relay team during a race, Olympic rules allow each nation to use any combination of six individuals.

Hill was a bit of a surprise in ’92 because she had not raced from 1989 to 1991, but she always intended to gain a spot on the Olympic team.

“It was by design,” she said of her three-year racing hiatus. “After [the 1988 Olympics], I wanted to be a mom. I’d known that I wanted to be a mother since I was 20.”

Before becoming a mother, Hill was one of the most consistent 400 runners in the nation.

She was ranked among the country’s top nine quarter-milers eight times between 1980 and 1988, and she was ranked fifth or better seven times.

She won three consecutive Athletics Congress--now USA Track & Field Championships--titles from 1981 to 1983, but 1988 was her breakthrough year.

She cracked the 50-second barrier with a 49.87 clocking, placed sixth in the Olympic Games in Seoul and garnered her highest world ranking at eighth.

She also teamed with Diane Dixon, Valerie Brisco and Florence Griffith-Joyner on a 1,600 relay team that set an American record of 3:15.51 in finishing second to the Soviet Union in the Olympics.

“I really felt like I had reached a plateau in the open quarter in ‘88,” Hill said of the first part of the season. “I was so consistent running [in the mid to low 50s] in the open quarter, but I was running 49 splits in the relays. It seemed like I was never going to be able to connect the two.”

The discrepancy was due to the different way in which Hill approached the two races. She never held anything back in the relays, but she always tried to save something for the homestretch in the open 400.

As Virgil puts it: “Denean will kill herself in a relay. It’s the team aspect that does it.”

Denean’s devotion to the relays was more than just a team thing in high school. It was a family affair.

From 1979-81, Denean ran on seven national high school record-setting relay teams in which at least one of her sisters was also a member.

The youngest of six girls born to Eugene and Barbara Howard, freshman Denean teamed with sisters Artra, a senior, Sherri, a junior, and Tina, a sophomore, to set a national record of 3:44.1 in the mile relay for San Gorgonio High in the 1979 State championships.

After the family moved to Granada Hills that summer, the record-setting continued in 1980 at Kennedy with Eugene coaching his daughters.

Sherri, Tina, Denean and Sheryl Thompson combined to set two national records in the 400-meter relay, capped by a 45.81 in the State meet.

In the 1,600 relay, the Howard trio and Kelley Cook also set a pair of national marks, topped by a 3:37.98 clocking in the State finals.

With Sherri, the 1980 Olympic trials winner attending UCLA the following year, many experts figured Kennedy’s record-setting days were over, but Tina, Denean, Cook and Ann Johnson lowered the 1,600 record to 3:37.71 in the State championships.

Sherri and Denean placed 1-3 in the 1980 trials, and finished fourth and fifth in the 1984 trials. Sherri was instrumental in the U.S. winning the gold medal that summer in Los Angeles as she blew open the final on the second leg.

Sherri was also a member of the U.S. 1,600 relay team in 1988 and ’92 with her sister, but Denean said that their quest to make those Olympic teams never caused tension between them.

“I never looked at her as a competitor,” Hill said. “She is my sister. We both do the best we can in a race and try to finish 1-2. It’s us against the rest of the world.

“That’s the way it’s always been and that’s the way it’ll always be. I actually loved it with her being in the race because I’d know that two of the spots were me and her.”

Sherri was unable to qualify for the trials this year after being slowed by injuries, but Denean said it will not affect her performance.

“I will miss her not being there with me . . . but it has not soured me,” Hill said.

With a season best of 52.30, Hill is considered a longshot to qualify for her fifth Olympic team. Among the favorites are Jearl Miles, the 1993 World Championships gold medalist, and Maicel Malone, the seventh-ranked runner in the world last year.

Eugene Howard says the 400 is “soft” this year. No one has broken 51 seconds.

But is Hill still capable of approaching the 50-second barrier 2 1/2 years after giving birth to her daughter Alaysia?

“I feel very confident that she’s going to run very well,” Howard said. “Her times in workouts say that she’s capable of running a personal best.”

If Hill makes the team, she admits that this one will be extra special because of how hard she worked.

“I don’t want to sound conceited, but the prior Olympic teams, I knew I was going to make them.” she said.

“But this one is a little more of a challenge for me. I knew I was coming back from having two kids . . . The odds were probably against me, but I’m a person who loves challenges.”