Future for Felix Has Big Upside

No one had ever invited Allyson Felix to walk the red carpet at an awards show in a designer gown before she won a silver medal in the 200 meters at the Athens Olympics, so she had the good grace to correct herself after saying her life hadn’t changed much since the Games.

“There are a few more opportunities,” said Felix, who was a vision of elegance alongside 100-meter dash gold medalist Justin Gatlin at the Emmys in September. “I was really just going with Justin. I was just tagging along.”

Felix is no one’s sidekick. She’s the main attraction, and promises to be for years to come.

The soft-spoken minister’s daughter was 18 and barely a year out of L.A. Baptist High when she overcame a slow start and finished second at Athens to Jamaica’s Veronica Campbell in 22.18 seconds, a world junior record. Now 19, with Bob Kersee her new coach, Felix is intent on learning the intricacies of the 200 -- how to fuse a swift start with smarts on the curve, and a strong finish.

With the outdoor season just beginning, Felix will run some relays before she plunges into individual races. She’s entered in the invitational 400-meter and 1,600-meter relays Sunday at the Mt. San Antonio College Relays, the same events in which she competed last weekend at UCLA’s Rafer Johnson/Jackie Joyner-Kersee Invitational and contributed to meet-record times of 44.44 seconds and 3 minutes 34.19 seconds.

“This season, I’m really looking more at technique than time, and with that will come the times and I’ll be more technically sound,” Felix said during a break between classes at USC. “I’ll run some 100s this season, but my focus is still the 200.

“It felt good last week. I’m still in the heavy part of my training, and it’s always good to get out and figure where I’m at. Everything is coming as planned. We’re on schedule.”

Her schedule is relentless. A second-year education major who hopes to follow her mother, Marlean, and become an elementary-school teacher, she’s taking a full course load. She renounced her athletic scholarship after she signed with Adidas before her freshman year, but the shoe company is paying her tuition as part of an endorsement deal that extends through the 2008 Olympics.

She also takes on speaking engagements and clinics, and participates in a mentoring program, hoping to give youngsters the same guidance she received from her parents and coaches.

“I’m definitely busy, and it’s really a challenge,” said Felix, who shares an off-campus apartment with her older brother, Wes, who will also compete at Mt. SAC. “I go straight from school to the track every day. It can get overwhelming.”

If anyone seems built to avoid the pitfalls of superstardom, it’s Felix. She’s polite, grounded in her faith and quietly confident in a talent that her agent, former 110-meter hurdles world-record holder Renaldo Nehemiah, says he believes has hardly been tapped.

Her potential “is scary good,” he said by phone from his office in Tysons Corner, Va. “And because she’s so modest, people might not realize it, but Allyson enjoys competition. That’s all she really wants to do: run. The freedom of running is most joyous for her.

“In an era where everybody is full of himself and selfish, she’s not. She’s very humble and refreshing and has an innate charisma. When you watch her run, you understand what sports are all about, what youth is all about.”

Nicknamed “Chicken Legs” in high school for legs that accounted for most of her 5-foot-6, 125-pound frame, Felix is surprisingly powerful. She blossomed under Pat Connolly, who coached 1984 Olympic gold medalist Evelyn Ashford and came out of retirement to privately coach Felix, but they split after the Olympics. Connolly lived on the East Coast, and Felix was intent on staying in Los Angeles and no longer wanted to train alone.

Last fall, she found Kersee, who’d coached his wife, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, to two Olympic heptathlon triumphs and had similar success with Gail Devers, Valerie Brisco-Hooks and Florence Griffith Joyner, among others. Felix, who competed in a few indoor meets this winter to work on her starts, is training with a group that includes Athens 100-meter hurdles gold medalist Joanna Hayes and Olympians Sheena Johnson and Michelle Perry, and is still adjusting to the changes.

“It’s just a matter of getting comfortable with who you’re with,” she said. “We have a good group of girls, and that’s good for me. It’s different training, and that’s probably the most difficult thing. We do a lot more running than I did last year.”

She’s also getting accustomed to being a star. Nehemiah said she had endorsement deals with Power Bar and Verizon and a new pact with Visa but had turned down others that would have cut into her study time.

“She’s a throwback to an era where athletes were able to just go out and express themselves athletically,” said Nehemiah, adding that all of the athletes he represents for Octagon have or are pursuing college degrees.

“She’s not about monetary gains solely,” he said. “Allyson has never asked me, ‘How much am I making at this event?’ Or said, ‘I don’t want to compete there because it’s not enough money.’ We have yet to realize the kind of money she’s going to realize when she graduates from USC.

“But even though Allyson is just 19 years old and I’m 46 -- old enough to be her father -- I share with her the idea that you can’t put a price tag on education.... The classroom gives you a better understanding of the business you’re in as an athlete and as you face life’s obstacles.”

She has overcome some disappointments, including elimination in the second round of the 200 at the 2003 World Championships and being snubbed for an Athens relay spot. The 1,600-meter relay team won gold, but the 400-meter team was disqualified after a bad handoff.

“I ran the relay camps and did handoffs, but they had their team,” she said. “It was kind of one of those things.”

She’s ready to carry the baton -- and may be asked to rebuild the honor of a sport that has been battered by doping scandals. She will share that burden with Gatlin, Shawn Crawford, Lauryn Williams, Jeremy Wariner and other youngsters who asserted themselves impressively at Athens.

“I think we do feel like there’s a little responsibility there,” she said. “Everybody is happy to have it and passionate, and the times are changing.”

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Track and Field

* What: Mt. San Antonio College Relays.

* When: Today through Sunday.

* Where: Mt. San Antonio College, Walnut.

* Highlights: The 47th running of the Mt. SAC Relays brings together top high school, university and elite talent. Today’s events are highlighted by the distance carnival, including Olympic 1,500-meter silver medalist Bernard Lagat’s first race as a U.S. citizen. The native of Kenya will run the invitational 5,000. Saturday’s events include the high school field and running events. The elites come out Sunday. Among them is five-time Sydney medalist Marion Jones, who was shut out at Athens. She’s entered in the 400 against Australia’s Jana Pittman. USC alum Felix Sanchez, the 400-meter hurdles Olympic gold medalist, will run the men’s 400. Veronica Campbell of Jamaica, Athens gold medalist in the 200 and bronze medalist in the 100, will run the 100 on Sunday. Joanna Hayes of Los Angeles, the 100-meter hurdles gold medalist, is entered in the women’s 100. Scheduled to run on a 400-meter relay are Justin Gatlin, who won gold in the 100 and bronze in the 200 at Athens, and 200-meter gold medalist Shawn Crawford.