![]() Scott signing autographs in Toronto in 1982 | |||||||||||||||
Personal information | |||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nationality | American | ||||||||||||||
Born | Upland, California | May 5, 1956||||||||||||||
Sport | |||||||||||||||
Sport | Track | ||||||||||||||
Event(s) | 1500 meters, mile | ||||||||||||||
College team | UC Irvine | ||||||||||||||
Achievements and titles | |||||||||||||||
Personal best(s) | 800m : 1:45.05 [1] 1500m : 3:31.76 [1] Mile : 3:47.69 [1] 3000m : 7:36.69 [1] 5000m : 13:30.39 [1] | ||||||||||||||
Medal record
|
Steve Scott (born May 5, 1956) is an American former track athlete and one of the greatest mile runners in American history. The silver medalist in the 1500 meters at the inaugural IAAF World Championships in Athletics in Helsinki in 1983, Scott owns the U.S. indoor record in the 2000 meters (4:58.6-1981). He held the American outdoor mile record for more than 26 years and also is the former American indoor record holder in the same event. Track & Field News ranked Scott #1 in the U.S. on 10 occasions, [2] and 11 times during his career he was ranked in the top ten in the world by T&FN. [3] Additionally, he participated for the US team at the 1984 Olympics. He finished 5th in the 1500 meter run at the 1988 Olympics held in Korea. Scott was also an Olympian on the 1980 Olympics team which was not allowed to go to Moscow. He ran the sub four-minute mile on 136 occasions in his career, more than any other runner in history.
Scott is also regarded as the founder of speed golf in 1979; on December 2, 1982, Scott set a record for the fastest round of golf played on a regulation course, completing 18 holes in 29 minutes, 33.05 seconds at Miller Golf Course in Anaheim, Calif. Using only two clubs and running from hole to hole, he posted a respectable score of 95. [4]
Scott grew up in the 1960s in Upland, California. His mother was a runner who preceded the running boom. His father was an overweight physician who smoked and did not see the value of running. Through his mother's influence and a coach's persistence, Scott ran on Upland's cross country team. The persistent coach was Robert Loney, cross country coach and math instructor at Upland High School. Steve caught track fever watching the 1972 Olympics on television, as U.S. runner Dave Wottle won the gold medal in the 800 meters. Wottle is often remembered for running the Olympic final in a golf cap, which he forgot to take off during the medal ceremony while the national anthem played. Wottle's cap inspired Scott, so he wore a cap in every race of the 1972 cross country season. In his junior year in high school, Scott made the varsity squad as the fifth runner. In track, he concentrated on the shorter distances and ran the 800 in 1:58 and the mile in 4:30. He also met Kim Votaw, a freshman runner who would eventually become his wife in 1979. [5] The couple was divorced in 1994. [6]
In his senior year, Scott became the top runner on the cross country team and improved his track times to 1:52 in the 800 and 4:15 in the mile. He finished fourth in the CIF California State Meet in the 880 yards [7] and drew several college scholarship offers. He liked coach Len Miller and joined him at the University of California, Irvine in the fall of 1974. He still holds the UCI school record in the 1500, [8] and the UC Irvine Steve Scott Invitational is named after him. [9] While at UCI, Scott won the 1977 NCAA Men's Outdoor Track and Field Championships Division-I 1500-meter title after winning the 1500 twice and the mile once at three previous NCAA Division-II meets.
Scott ran his first sub-4:00 mile indoors at the Sunkist Invitational in Los Angeles in January 1977, his junior year in college. The following year, he blossomed from an unknown college runner to an international miler, competing on both sides of the Atlantic. When he graduated with a degree in social ecology in 1978, Scott had already run 11 sub-4:00 miles.
When Sebastian Coe set a mile record of 3:48.95 in Oslo on July 17, 1979, Scott finished second with a time of 3:51.11. Because records at the time were rounded up to the nearest tenth of a second, Scott missed tying Jim Ryun's American mile record of 3:51.1 by 1/100th of a second. However, in 1981, the IAAF started to recognize records in running events longer than 400 meters to the hundredth of a second, meaning that Scott's 3:51.11 had tied Ryun's record, depending on how the times were interpreted.
Scott won the 1500 m at the 1980 U.S. Olympic Trials but did not compete at the Moscow Games due to the U.S. boycott. He received one of 461 Congressional Gold Medals created especially for the spurned athletes, [10] and won the 1500 m at the Liberty Bell Classic organised for athletes from boycotting nations. His greatest success at an Olympic or World championship came at the inaugural World Athletics Championships in Helsinki, Finland in 1983, when he won a silver medal behind Steve Cram. At the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and the 1988 Games in Seoul, he placed 10th and 5th in the 1500 m respectively.
Perhaps his greatest legacy was setting three American mile records. While there was uncertainty whether his 3:51.11 was at least equal to the American mile record or not, his first undisputed American record came when he ran third in another Oslo race on July 11, 1981 with a time of 3:49.68, becoming the first American to break 3:50 in the event and the fifth ever to do so. South African Sydney Maree, who was in the process of gaining his American citizenship, ran 3:48.83 on September 9, 1981, though this time was not generally seen as being an American record.
The following year Scott broke the American mile record twice, both times again at Oslo. First, he won a race on June 26, 1982 in 3:48.53, becoming history's third-fastest miler behind Coe and Steve Ovett; then 11 days later he ran 3:47.69, the second-fastest mile in history. That time would stand as the American record for a quarter century until Alan Webb ran 3:46.91 in 2007. [11]
He was the 1500 m bronze medalist at the 1987 Pan American Games.
Scott loved to race—indoors, outdoors, on the roads, and in cross country—sometimes as many as 50 competitions a year. This included three top ten finishes in the U.S. National Cross Country Championships (7th in 1979, 4th in 1980, and 6th in 1981) as well as three victories in the Carlsbad 5000 road race from 1986 to 1988. His times at Carlsbad in 1986 (13:32) and 1988 (13:30) were World Best times for a road 5K. Among his fellow middle-distance runners, he was known as one of track & field's fiercest competitors. During the decade that followed his first sub-4-minute mile, Scott lived out of a suitcase. He traveled the world and competed year-round in the United States, Canada, Jamaica, Germany, Sweden, Norway, England, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Ireland, Greece, Australia and New Zealand.
In the closing stages of a career that saw Scott race at the highest levels for nearly two decades, his attempt to run a sub-4:00 mile at age-40 in 1996 [12] was derailed by a battle with testicular cancer.
He was cured of testicular cancer and since retiring from competition he has built one of the most successful NAIA collegiate programs in the country as Head Coach of Track and Cross Country at Cal State San Marcos. At San Marcos he has led the women's team to 3 National Titles from 2009-2011, and in 2011 the men's team placed 2nd. In 2002, he was inducted into the USA Track and Field Hall of Fame. Scott has two sons, Corey and Shawn, and a daughter, Megan. He and his wife JoAnn live in Lake Kiowa, Texas.
Distance | Mark | Data | Location |
---|---|---|---|
800 m | 1:45.05 | July 4, 1982 | Byrkjelo, Norway |
1000 m | 2:16.40 | August 23, 1981 | Nice, France |
1500 m | 3:31.76 | July 16, 1985 | Nice, France |
One Mile | 3:47.69 | July 7, 1982 | Oslo, Norway |
3000 m | 7:36.69 | September 1, 1981 | Ingleheim, Germany |
5000 m | 13:30.39 | June 6, 1987 | Eugene, Oregon |
Sir John George Walker, is a former middle-distance runner from New Zealand who won the gold medal in the men's 1500 m event at the 1976 Olympics. He was also the first person to run the mile in under 3:50. In more recent years, Walker has been active in local government, as an Auckland Councillor and representing the Manurewa-Papakura ward.
Sebastian Newbold Coe, Baron Coe, often referred to as Seb Coe, is a British politician and former track and field athlete. As a middle-distance runner, Coe won four Olympic medals, including 1500 metres gold medals at the Olympic Games in 1980 and 1984. He set nine outdoor and three indoor world records in middle-distance track events – including, in 1979, setting three world records in the space of 41 days – and the world record he set in the 800 metres in 1981 remained unbroken until 1997. Coe's rivalries with fellow Britons Steve Ovett and Steve Cram dominated middle-distance racing for much of the 1980s.
Stephen Michael James Ovett, is a retired British track athlete. A middle-distance runner, he was the gold medalist in the 800 metres at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow. Ovett set five world records for 1500 metres and the mile run, and a world record at two miles. He won 45 consecutive 1500 and mile races from 1977 to 1980.
David James Wottle is an American retired middle-distance track athlete. He was the gold medalist in the 800 meter run at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich and a world record holder in the 800 meters. In 1973, Wottle also ran the 3rd fastest Mile in history. He was known for wearing a golf cap while running.
Joaquim Carvalho Cruz is a Brazilian former middle-distance runner, winner of the 800 meters at the 1984 Summer Olympics. He is one of only five men to run the 800 metres in less than 1 minute, 42 seconds.
Peter Elliott is a former middle-distance runner from the United Kingdom. During his career, he won the gold medal in the 1500 metres at the 1990 Commonwealth Games, the silver medal in the 1500 metres at the 1988 Olympic Games, and the silver medal in the 800 metres at the 1987 World Championships.
James Calvin Spivey is a former American middle-distance runner and Olympian. Spivey took up competitive running in Illinois where he became one of the best high school runners from his state. He was the 1982 NCAA DI men's 1500-meter champion with Indiana University. Spivey enjoyed a long Olympic career, in which he participated in the Olympic Summer Games in 1984, 1992, and 1996.
Craig Steven Virgin is an American distance runner. He was born in Belleville, Illinois, and grew up near Lebanon, Illinois. While in high school, Virgin won 5 state championships as well as setting the national outdoor high school 2-mile record of 8:40.9. Additionally, Virgin held the Illinois Boys Cross Country all-time state championship record for 47 years, running a 13:50.6 in 1972, a record that stood until November 9, 2019, when Josh Methner of John Hersey High School ran a 13:49.86. Virgin was Track and Field News "High School Athlete of the Year" in 1973.
James Espir, is an English middle-distance runner, whose career spanned the late 1970s and early 1980s. Espir competed for Shaftesbury Harriers Athletics Club and for Great Britain.
Thomas Joseph Byers, Jr. is a former professional distance runner and current businessman. In 1981, when running as a designated pacemaker or 'rabbit' in the high-profile 1500 meters race at the Bislett Games in Oslo, he won against a field including Olympic champion and world record holder Steve Ovett, after the rest of the field refused to follow his early pacesetting.
The men's 1500 metres was an event at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California. The final was held on August 11, 1984. Fifty-nine athletes from 40 nations competed. The maximum number of athletes per nation had been set at 3 since the 1930 Olympic Congress. The event was won by Sebastian Coe of Great Britain, the first man to successfully defend an Olympic 1500 metres title. Steve Cram's silver made it the first time a nation had gone 1–2 in the event since Great Britain had done it in 1920. José Manuel Abascal's bronze was Spain's first medal in the event.
Lopez Lomong is a South Sudanese-born American track and field athlete. Lomong, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, came to the United States at the age of 16 and became a U.S. citizen in 2007.
Donald J. Paige is an American retired middle-distance runner.
Raymond P. Flynn is a retired middle-distance runner who works as a sports agent. Over the course of his racing career, Flynn ran a total of 89 sub-four minute miles, with his best time of 3:49.77 on 7 July 1982 in Oslo, Norway at the Bislett Games Dream Mile. He also held the Irish 1500 metres record for 41 years after running 3:33.5, in the same Oslo race.
Frances Anne "Francie" Larrieu Smith is an American track and field athlete. She was the flagbearer at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona for the United States of America. Larrieu Smith was the third female American athlete to make five American Olympic teams, behind the six of fencer Jan York-Romary and Track and Field's Willye White. The feat was later equaled by basketball player Teresa Edwards, track and field's Gail Devers, cyclist/speedskater Chris Witty and swimmer Dara Torres. After one of the longest elite careers on record, she retired from that level of competition.
Mark Fricker is a retired middle-distance track and field runner who achieved the sub-four-minute mile in the 1980s. Fricker failed to win many of the races he ran because he did not possess the fast finishing kick of his contemporaries like Steve Scott, John Walker, Eamon Coughlan, Sydney Maree, Ray Flynn and the other legends of 1980s mile racing. His only actionable strategy to win was to run hard from the beginning of the race.
Alan Webb is an American former track and field athlete and former triathlete. He held the American national record in the mile, with a time of 3 minutes 46.91 seconds, from July 2007 to September 2023. Webb represented the United States at the 2004 Summer Olympics in the men's 1500-meters race. He competed professionally for Nike until the end of 2013. He retired after the 2014 Millrose Games.
Brian L. Hyde is an American retired middle-distance runner who specialized in the 1500 meters. He represented the United States at the 1996 Summer Olympics.
Tracy Evans Smith is a former American distance runner. He was a member of the 1968 U.S. Olympic Track and Field Team, competing in the 10,000 meters. He was ranked multiple times by Track & Field News as the No. 1 U.S. 5,000- and 10,000-meter runner in the mid- to late 1960s, and was a six-time AAU National Champion from 1966 to 1973, winning outdoors in the 3-mile, 6-mile and 10,000 meters, and three times in the indoor 3-mile. He was a three-time world record holder in the indoor 3-mile.
Roscoe Divine is a retired American track and field athlete. He was known primarily as a miler but excelled in shorter distances like the 880 yard and in the steeplechase.