Humble, With a Kick : Villa Park Longshot One Step From Olympics

Last place. Back there behind the stragglers. Ten, sometimes 20 meters behind the leader. That’s a place to stay connected. Earth and feet clapping together, pounding out a rhythm like a Sunday choir.

And back there, in last place in the 1,500-meter final at the U.S. Olympic trials, the power grows in Jim Sorensen, until it’s surging through his thighs, and he’s rushing like the wind around a turn. Gaining on the leaders from the outside lane, his head finally pokes onto television screens across the U.S.

And in their living rooms, his friends are screaming and crying. And the track experts are looking down with their binoculars and shaking their heads because they can’t explain where he came from.

And he crosses the finish line and raises his arms to celebrate. He raises his arms to honor the pain of all those days he ran, even when his mother was dying of cancer and urged him to keep going. Even when his back hurt so bad he woke up in tears in the middle of the night.

Then, the lactic acid forces him to his knees.

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Four days after placing second in the 1,500-meter final at the U.S. Olympic trials June 23 at Atlanta, Sorensen boarded a plane bound for Switzerland.

Sorensen, who ran at Villa Park High and Rancho Santiago College, will compete at the Lausanne Grand Prix meet Wednesday, with the hope of making the Olympic qualifying time.

The U.S. Olympic trials are USA Track and Field’s way of choosing its delegates for the Games, but placing among the top three at the trials simply reserves you a spot on the U.S. team. If you don’t have the necessary credentials, you don’t get to go.

In the case of the 1,500 meters, Sorensen must post the International Amateur Athletic Federation standard, 3 minutes 38 seconds, before he is eligible to compete in the Olympics.

The pace in the final at Atlanta was slow--the winner, Paul McMullen, finished in 3:43.86, Sorensen finished .02 of a second later, and third-place finisher Jason Pyrah finished in 3:44.11. McMullen had posted the Olympic qualifying mark this season and Pyrah made the mark at the Paris Grand Prix on Saturday.

Sorensen must cut 1.08 seconds off his personal best at Lausanne, a meet that was never renowned for its especially fast times until Leroy Burrell set the world record in the 100 meters there in 1994. If Sorensen doesn’t do it at Lausanne, he will try again at Hechtel, Belgium, on Saturday. If it doesn’t happen there, he may return to the United States and try to scrounge up some races before the July 16 deadline.

Delegates from the U.S. trials have failed before to make Olympic qualifying marks. In 1992, two of the top three finishers in the women’s javelin at the U.S. trials failed to do so. Paula Berry, who finished sixth, and Karin Smith, who didn’t advance to the finals at the trials because of injury, were placed on the Olympic team.

“If I don’t get it, I just want to be able to say I have done my best. The Lord has brought me this far. He can bring me further or keep me where I am,” Sorensen said.

Sorensen’s finish at the trials stunned the track and field community because he was such a longshot--some even compared it to Lindy Remigino’s upset victory in the 100 meters at the 1952 Olympics at Helsinki.

Sorensen won the 1991 NCAA Division II national championship in the 1,500 meters for Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. But that pales in comparison to the credentials of most world-class athletes in the event.

The favorite at the trials, Steve Holman, won the 1992 NCAA Division I championship for Georgetown, was a member of the 1992 U.S. Olympic team and was the top-ranked U.S. runner in the event in 1994 and 1995.

But the 1,500 is an unforgiving race--so long it requires careful strategy, yet short enough that it is impossible to recover from one mistake. Holman was in the top four throughout much of the race but faded in the end, when Sorensen delivered the powerful kick that earned him the nickname “track shark.” Holman finished 13th.

In the fashion world, 1,500-meter runners would be the runway models--tall and lean with long, smooth muscles. Sorensen, relatively stocky and 5 feet 7, wouldn’t even get an audition. Sorensen is such an unlikely-looking distance runner that Arizona Coach Dave Murray once asked him to leave the track because it was “for runners only.” As soon as Murray realized it was Sorensen, he apologized.

For years, Sorensen fueled his distinctive image by shunning the fancy team warm-ups in favor of old green sweats and a plaid shirt. Often, the outfit was topped with eyeglasses held together with tape and a paper clip.

Appearances are deceiving.

When he was 8, Sorensen ran alongside his older brothers, Roger and Jesse, with the Villa Park High varsity cross-country team. When he got to high school, Sorensen was a two-time Century League champion in the 800 meters. He also won the Southern Section Division 4-A 800-meter title and finished sixth in the event at the state meet as a senior in 1986.

With scant attention from Division I coaches, Sorensen headed to Rancho Santiago College, where his mother, Myrna, was a teacher. Sorensen won Orange Empire Conference Championships in the 800 and 1,500 meters as well as in the 1,600-meter relay in 1988 and earned a scholarship to Cal Poly.

Sorensen made an eccentric first impression on his Mustang teammates, causing a fiasco at a Carl’s Jr. restaurant in Kettleman City while the team was on its way to training camp. The restaurant’s manager detained the team, insisting one of the plastic, numbered placards was missing.

Sorensen soon anted up.

“I remember thinking, ‘What a nerd! We’ve been waiting here for 20 minutes,’ ” said Eric Axtell, a former Mustang teammate. “It’s kind of weird, isn’t it? He used to collect Carl’s Jr. numbers. He got the number he wanted.”

Axtell soon saw humor in Sorensen’s antics and discovered many more eccentricities. When they were roommates, for example, Sorensen would clean everybody’s room in their three-bedroom, San Luis Obispo apartment, do all the laundry and ironing. Paradoxically, in 1992, Sorensen wore the wrong color socks when he was best man in Axtell’s wedding.

“My mom is still mad at him for that,” Axtell said with a laugh.

At Cal Poly, Sorensen finally began to move into the longer distances that seemed to suit him. In 1990, however, after his senior cross-country season, Sorensen began to have back problems.

Some nights, the pain was so intense he would sleep on the floor because the hard surface eased the discomfort. One night, he woke up in tears.

“This doesn’t hurt so bad,” he said over and over.

But his tears told the truth and in February, he stopped running and spent the 1990 track season as a redshirt. Doctors diagnosed a problem with Sorensen’s sciatic nerve. For the next 15 weeks, Sorensen’s life outside of school consisted of deep massages, physical therapy and patience.

In June of that year, Sorensen took his first, tentative lap around a track. By fall, he was up to 45 miles a week. And in June, 1991, he was in the NCAA Division II final, making that strong kick from behind and listening to the announcer call him the wrong name even after he won the championship.

“It’s the Lord’s way of keeping me humble,” he later told friends.

Over the next four years, Sorensen consistently chopped away at his personal best.

But in 1994, Myrna fell ill. He traveled often from San Luis Obispo to his parents’ home to see her, but she urged him to keep training. Heading into the Olympic Festival in St. Louis that year, he had a lot on his mind.

“I wanted to do really well for her,” he said. “I figured she wasn’t going to see me get married and she wasn’t going to see me graduate, so I wanted her to see me win a prestigious race.”

Sorensen finished a disappointing eighth. Upon his return, his grandparents picked him up at the airport and brought him to the hospital. He said goodbye and his mother died the next day.

Sorensen stayed at home that summer, helping his family, including his father, Jim, through the loss.

By fall, he was back in San Luis Obispo, hammering away at those few seconds that stood between him and a national final. At the 1995 U.S. Championships at Sacramento, Sorensen felt he was ready. In his heat, however, he got boxed in and didn’t make the final.

“It was frustrating, but I thank God for that race because I learned how to be a better and smarter runner,” he said.

John Rembao, assistant coach at University of Arizona and also Sorensen’s personal coach, said Sorensen’s faith carried him through that frustration, and he doesn’t expect that faith to fail him now.

“He has to make this mark and if he doesn’t get it, I think he knows it wasn’t meant to be,” Rembao said. “Making the [U.S. Olympic] team was important, but it wasn’t the ultimate thing in his life, and that makes it easier. It’s not an out, it’s just that’s the way he feels.”

Although few were aware of him, Sorensen, the ninth-ranked American in the event, was confident heading into the final at the trials. Sorensen’s father was sick with anticipation.

“About Sunday morning, it started building up and I thought, ‘He could make this thing!’ ” his father said.

Axtell watched on television as his friend fell behind.

“He’s going to do it again,” Axtell told his wife, Stacey. “He’s going to stress us out about this.”

And sure enough, with 500 meters remaining, Sorensen began his kick.

“I just went after [the leaders] as hard as I could because I was certain there were people behind me going after me as hard as they could,” he said.

Sorensen pushed the pace to a blistering 53 seconds on the final lap before collapsing, vomiting and cramping, and being taken to the medical tent. He missed his victory lap and the awards ceremony.

But that’s OK with Sorensen, he says, just the Lord’s way of keeping him humble.