July 9, 2004

In 21 seasons as the University of Missouri track coach, Rick McGuire says he has succumbed to tears over a performance only one time.

He cried in May at Missouri's Audrey Walton Combined Event, in which Mizzou and Lafayette High's Michelle Moran punctuated a grueling comeback from a career-threatening back injury with a career-best heptathlon score of 5,698. That performance qualified Moran for the U.S. Olympic track and field trials, which begin today and run through July 18 in Sacramento, Calif.

Appropriately enough, Moran's feat came only after she had suffered what could have been a devastating setback in the competition. She failed to clear 5 feet 7 in the high jump - the event in which she won three Missouri state championships, the event in which she has jumped 5-10 1/2.

On a chilly, rainy day, after months of rehabilitation and her chances of qualifying for Sacramento fast evaporating, she walked off the track crying. But amid her distress, McGuire, who holds a doctorate in sports psychology, noticed something in her demeanor that heartened him.

"It wasn't, 'Oh, poor me,' '' he said. "It was, 'Stupid!' And when she came back out (for the 200-meter race), she was transformed."

When McGuire approached her, he felt her smoldering determination and told her how proud he was of her resilience. And then he told her to "go out and run the fastest 200 of your life, right now."

And she did.

"It was absolute will," said McGuire, who was overcome as he ran across the track in the hard rain to see her time of 25.03, a personal best that won the race and propelled her to personal bests in the long jump and 800 the next day. "It was thrilling. That was how champions respond."

Moran's score was the fourth-best in the United States this year and sends her into the trials surging with the confidence she lacked in the 2000 trials.

"I was just happy to be there," said Moran, who graduated with a 3.9 grade-point average in education and is pursuing her MBA while serving as a grad assistant at Missouri. "This time I'm going in thinking, 'Absolutely anything can happen.' ''

As Moran competes today and Saturday she will have seven current and former Tigers to keep her company, including shot putter Christian Cantwell, who has the four longest throws in the world this year; 800-meter runner Derrick Peterson, who in 2000 missed qualifying for the trials finals by .02 of a second; and fellow heptathlete Fiona Asigbee.

Eight athletes with University of Illinois ties also will compete, including Perdita Felicien, who has the fastest time in the world this year in the 100-meter hurdles (12.46 seconds).

Other notable St. Louisans who will compete are Olympic veteran pole vaulters Jeff Hartwig and Kellie Suttle, each of whom attended Francis Howell High and now trains in Jonesboro, Ark.

Hartwig, 36, remains the American record holder in the event and is attempting to return to the Games for the first time since 1996; in 2000, he no-heighted at the trials because of blurry vision that he later had corrected with surgery. He could not be reached for comment in recent weeks.

Suttle, 31, competed in the Sydney Games and recovered from knee surgery to be ranked second in the United States last year. She recently set a personal record of 15-4, only to have Russian Svetlana Feofanova clear 16 feet on July 4 to set a world record.

"Unbelievable," Suttle said in a phone interview. "But as of right now, I'm not even looking that far forward. I've got to make it to the Olympics first."

She added, though, that she believes she is capable of 16 feet in the future.

"It's just a matter of figuring out the magic trick that I haven't figured out," she said.

There arguably was some magic to Moran's return from the fractured vertebrae that left her out of competition for a year and only gradually attempting to come back over the course of the last year.

"Basically, my body was screaming at me," Moran said.

It was no less shrill when she began her comeback.

"It had more steps forward than steps back," McGuire said, "but not a lot more."

Beyond the physical, patience was urgent - and in short supply, especially as Moran began to feel more capable of pushing herself.

Now, though, McGuire sees no limit to where Moran can go, something he began trying to convince her of at the 2000 trials by pointing to the competition - particularly the similarly-built Kelly Blair, who finished third to advance to the Sydney Olympics.

"I needed Michelle to see . . . that they aren't untouchable goddesses," he said. "They're really good athletes, really good athletes, but she's a really good athlete."

Although Moran enters these trials aiming to finish in the top three and make the U.S. team, she and McGuire believe she will peak in 2008. After all, Moran had competed in only two of the seven events (high jump and the 800) before coming to Mizzou and in some ways still is mastering it all.

But whether she still will be competing is uncertain, because of issues such as finances and her own shifting focus.

In fact, with her gregarious personality, intelligence and athleticism, McGuire said, "she can do about anything she decides to do."

He already has seen that with her comeback.