THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 24, 1994 TAG: 9406240644
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ED MILLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940624 LENGTH: VIRGINIA BEACH
He was stressed. Uptight.
{REST} ``He was a very tense person,'' says Reid's father, Charles Sr. ``He was killing himself in his races because of the intensity he was trying to maintain.''
There's a fine line between intensity and tightness, and Reid had crossed it. Carrying the weight of his own expectations was slowing Reid down.
``It used to be I was too focused,'' Reid says. ``To the point where my mind would be blocked.''
Appropriately, it was on a trip to Southern California that Reid finally learned to mellow out, man.
After he finished second at the Arcadia Foot Locker Invitational in Los Angeles, Reid and his father decided that Charles was going to relax, and actually try to enjoy hurdling.
The formerly robotic Reid started talking to competitors before races. Cracking jokes, even. Occasionally, he'd do a little dance at the starting line.
As his personal stress meter began falling, so did Reid's times. After running a 14.05 in Arcadia, Reid clocked a 13.97. Then a 13.82, a 13.69, and a wind-aided 13.52.
By the time the Group AAA state meet rolled around three weeks ago, Reid had posted the fastest time in the nation in the 110 hurdles, a distinction he still holds. He easily won the state title in the 110s, and added a title in the 300 hurdles as well.
``He's a different person,'' said Charles Reid Sr. ``Instead of being tense, he's letting it out in the race.''
``I just relax and let it flow,'' Reid says.
Reid will really need to let it flow today and Saturday, when he competes in the U.S. Junior Nationals in Tallahassee, Fla. He's coming off a disappointing performance last Sunday in the National Scholastic Track and Field Championships in Raleigh, where he finished eighth in the 110 hurdles, after posting the fastest qualifying time the day before.
``Everybody has a bad day and (Sunday) was mine,'' Reid said. ``I just never really felt comfortable.''
If Reid, who has signed a track scholarship with the University of South Carolina, can finish first or second in Tallahassee, he'll make the U.S. Junior National Team that will compete at the World Junior Championships in Portugal next month.
It's a tall order. Reid will be competing against college freshman in Tallahasee, and the hurdles will be set at the college height of 42 inches, not the 39-inch hurdles used in high school meets.
Still, Greg Kraft, the South Carolina coach, says that if any high school hurdler can do well in Tallahasee, Reid can.
``You can't predict the transition to 42-inch hurdles,'' Kraft said. ``But he's very quick in between the hurdles, and he's a very good competitor.''
Reid's been ultra-competitive since the day in seventh grade when he looked over at the hurdlers at a junior high meet and declared: ``I can beat those guys.''
Reid had been a sprinter, but took to the hurdles immediately. By his ninth-grade year, he was too good for junior high competition, and was leaving Brandon Middle School daily to run at Salem.
Reid credits Cletus Griffin, his first coach at Salem, with teaching him the technical aspects of hurdling.
``He emphasized that we all have to be students of what we're doing,'' he said. ``He taught us to learn to recognize our problems, be self-reliant and be able to coach ourselves when problems came up.''
Self-reliance helped, because Griffin left coaching after Reid's freshman year. As a sophomore, Reid finished second in the state. His time - 14.24 - started the college mail flowing.
``14.24 for a sophomore, legal, is a very quick time,'' Kraft said.
Reid had every reason to believe the state title would be his the following year. But he pulled a hamstring and missed most of the spring season.
``I hated it,'' he said. ``I hated the whole season.''
Healthy again, Reid was second at the indoor nationals. After his revelation in California, he didn't lose a race in the 110s, until stumbling last week in Raleigh.
``I'm not being cocky, but I'm completely confident in what I'm doing,'' Reid said. ``I try to push myself so hard in practice that I don't want to lose.''
Reid, at 6-foot and 168 pounds, doesn't so much run the hurdles as attack them. At the Beach District meet, he clipped one so hard that it bounced across two lanes and nearly wiped out a competitor, Greg Benhase of Bayside.
``I just like to be very, very aggressive when I'm running,'' Reid says.
Aggressive, in a relaxed kind of way.
Also competing in Tallahassee this weekend is Wilson's LaTasha Colander, who won three national titles in Raleigh. Colander will run the 100-meter hurdles, a race she's favored to win.
by CNB