Hurdler Knows About Obstacles

It doesn’t seem fair.

After years of injuries and misfortune, Dominique Arnold had gotten his life and his career together. The Compton native and Long Beach Wilson High graduate was so happy to set an American record in the 110-meter hurdles July 11, he didn’t mind that his 12.90-second performance was second to a world-record 12.88 by China’s Liu Xiang, as both beat the previous mark of 12.91.

Arnold, who will turn 33 Thursday, felt rewarded for the work he had done the last few years. He’d benefited from the tactical insights and friendship of his coach, Larry Wade, and the spiritual guidance offered by the father he’d met only in 2000, a self-described reformed sinner turned pastor of the Lord’s Place church in Diamond Bar.

Arnold was eager to prove he could maintain that excellence this weekend at the World Cup meet in Athens, but misfortune has returned to haunt him.

A chiropractor who was manipulating Arnold’s back accidentally threw it out of whack, he said, leaving him with a muscle strain and no choice but to withdraw from the Athens competition.

“My training had been going extremely well, and I was really excited,” Arnold said Monday. “I was really ready.

“Now, I’ve just got to get ready for next season.”

Arnold has had plenty of practice at rebounding from setbacks.

At Wilson, where he was “the smallest tight end in our league,” he was told he wasn’t fast enough to be a sprinter. He tried the long jump, high jump and triple jump but wasn’t comfortable.

“I got shin splints so bad, you know what, I’m quitting,” he recalled saying.

His older brother, Quincy, a pole vaulter and hurdler, urged him to try the hurdles in his junior year.

“I said, ‘I can’t jump over those big old things,’ but he said come on, and I’d do anything on a dare,” Arnold said.

A coach who saw him thought he had potential and asked whether he’d like to become serious about the event.

“I said, ‘Well, my shins don’t hurt as much on the hurdles so yeah, I’ll do the hurdles,’ ” Arnold said.

He lost a tense 300-meter race to his brother when he fell at the last hurdle, but wasn’t daunted.

“I’ve still got a scar,” he said, “but it was cool. It became fun for me.”

He went to Long Beach City College before transferring to Washington State, where he won the NCAA outdoor title in 1996. But he missed the 1997 season because of an injury, missed the finals at the 1998 U.S. championships and didn’t finish at the 2000 Olympic trials. He ranked seventh in the world in 2001 but missed the 2002 season because of hernia surgery. He went through a divorce and hit bottom in 2004.

“I’d decided I didn’t want to do this anymore,” he said.

Wade urged him not to give up, and Arnold listened. He followed Wade to Texas to train, but they moved to California so Arnold could work with former sprinter John Smith and the HSI group.

Wade’s hurdles expertise was a revelation for Arnold.

“I always felt that Dominique was talented when I’d run against him,” said Wade, who recently finished serving a two-year steroid ban and hasn’t decided whether he will continue to coach or resume competing. “It was a matter of rebuilding his confidence and teaching him about the event.”

Wade steered Arnold away from strength training and encouraged him to go all-out in what he called “the drop zone,” the third hurdle through the eighth. Wade also helped him develop a personal mantra. “Stay in it” became Arnold’s overriding philosophy, and he’d like to use it as the name of a program that would teach high school kids about perseverance.

“I thought about what ‘Stay in it’ meant,” said Arnold, who was third at this year’s world indoor championships and won the U.S. outdoor title. “Hold the best position where you are, and that will allow you to do the best thing for yourself, to run as fast as you can, to be as successful as you can possibly be at that point in time.

“That goes for life as well. With me, because of my trials and tribulations, my injuries, my divorce, my problems on and off the track, it almost is a testament. I want to tell kids, don’t be discouraged by what’s going on in this sport or in their lives.”

Dominique’s father, Keith B. Arnold, understands that message too.

Keith was 18 when he fathered Dominique in a one-time liaison. He knew nothing about his son, beyond a picture he received of his then-9-year-old son in an envelope that bore no return address. Dominique later traced him and called him. When they met at Montclair Plaza, they recognized each other instantly.

“My mother didn’t want him to be involved,” Dominique said. “I never knew he didn’t know and that kind of made me angry growing up, but it was a blessing for me in 2000 when I found him. We started a beautiful relationship, which didn’t take much, because it felt like we always knew each other.”

Keith Arnold said he did “a lot of emotional work” with his eldest son.

“I think life humbled Dominique,” Keith Arnold said. “When he came and understood that you don’t have to fight your case so much, he relaxed....

“He showed up on my doorstop one day after Christmas and said, ‘I want to be a champion.’ I told him the principles of life, the principles Jesus actually lived by. The word of God was truly the word. He began to check out the word and that’s why he’s become successful. What you sow is what you reap. He was like a sponge, soaking it all up. Get away from bickering, cussing. Get away from all those things.”

Dominique moved in with Keith last year and slept on a sofa. “We have a joke that this is a 13.01 couch,” Dominique said. “After 2005 we bought a futon, and now it’s a 12.9 futon. We’re putting an addition onto his house and it’s the 12.80 room.

“My father, between him and Larry, they’re the greatest things that happened to me.”

Wade returned the compliment. “It’s a blessing that I’m able to be in this position with Dominique,” Wade said. “He’s a positive person.”

As long as Dominique Arnold maintains that attitude, there’s hope for him -- and for track and field.