Frank Fredericks does not look like a sprinter. Sprinters look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in spikes. Fredericks would need to line up next to the Radio City Hall Rockettes to stand out.
Five years ago, when he enrolled at Brigham Young University for the 1987 fall semester, he reported to the office of Willard Hirschi, the Cougars' sprint coach, and Hirschi, not seeing the usually bulky muscles sprinters carry as calling cards, almost sent him off with the marathon runners. When he found out this was one of the new sprinters he had recruited sight-unseen from Africa, he wondered what he'd gotten himself into.Sight-unseen isn't entirely true.
Pat Shane, the women's distance coach at BYU and the Cougars' director of international recruiting, had seen Fredericks run the year before while in South Africa. He told Hirschi he was worth room, board, books, and then some, and gave him his name and address.
So that's how it started, and now, five years later, Hirschi is staked out low in the stands of Estadi Olimpic, the 65,000-seat track & field stadium of the Barcelona Olympic Games, and Fredericks - still lean, still looking like he should be off eating dinner somewhere, asking for seconds - is running stride for stride with the fastest men in the world.
Last Saturday night in Estadi Olimpic he finished second to Britain's Linford Christie in the Olympic 100-meter run and Thursday night he'll be another medal favorite in the 200-meter run. If he wins the gold medal no one will be surprised, least of all Hirschi.
"He's got the kind of talent coaches dream about," Hirschi says.
When Fredericks completed his four years of eligibility at BYU a year ago - with a bachelor's degree in computer science and the 100-meter and 200-meter national collegiate championships - he asked Hirschi if he'd continue to coach him and Hirschi set a world record in saying "yes." The first thing he asked Fredericks was if he had his passport ready. He was sure they were going places fast.
Even while he was coaching him to the top of the NCAA ranks, Hirschi wondered what would happen if Fredericks ever got serious about sprinting - as serious as he was about his schoolwork. The coach tried not to take it personal, but Fredericks hadn't elected to attend BYU because of its track program. It was the school's high academic standing that first got him to Provo.
It was an odd pairing to begin with. Here was Fredericks, a native of Namibia - a country that, in 1987, was still under South African rule - and a sprinter, reporting to a school that traditionally had few Namibians or sprinters, either one.
On top of that he was a Catholic.
He did speak English, however - the predominant language of his youth in South African-run Namibia. And he was an excellent student. Rossing, the British mining conglomerate, had recognized Fredericks as one of Namibia's top high school scholars. Apart from his athletic credentials, he had the academic qualifications to get into BYU as well.
He was initially also interested in some other American colleges that were also interested in him - Penn and Iowa State, to name two. But in the end he chose BYU on a gamble - sight-unseen.
He never wavered on his choice. While other African runners came and went (and some came again), Fredericks was true Cougar blue from the day he arrived in Provo.
"Frank never even thought about leaving," says Hirshi. "He never went through any of that. He was more serious about getting his education than he was about track anyway. Track was just the way he was paying for school."
The deal turned out to be a bargain for both parties. Fredericks, who will begin MBA school at BYU in about three weeks, got his bachelor's degree. He got his training, he got his coach, and, for good measure, while he was away at school Namibia got its independence.
For its part, BYU got a national champion, an athletic honor roll graduate (with a GPA of 3.3), and a worldwide running ambassador.
"Things couldn't have turned out much better," says Hirschi, who thought Fredericks was on his way to a gold medal last Saturday night when he took the silver in the 100 ("he relaxed at the end") and has equally high hopes for the 200.
"The 200 has always been his best race," says his coach. "He can run as fast as anyone in the world."
Even if he doesn't exactly look like it. He's the little guy. The one that doesn't look like a linebacker. If he does win a gold medal Thursday night, no one's going to accuse him of using steroids.