Steve Scott: my greatest race

The US record-holder was on a promise to become the first runner to break the 4min mile at one of the United States’ most historic meetings and he proved to be a man of his word

70^th Drake Relays, Des Moines, Iowa, April 27, 1979 – Invitational Mile, 1^st place, 3:55.26 (MR)

The Drake Relays goes back over 100 years. When I was a senior in college at UC-Irvine, the meet director asked my coach, Len Miller, if they could fly me out and try to break the four-minute mile for the first time in Drake history. He said: “Sure, we’ll bring out a couple of my other athletes and we’ll do it.”

But the morning that we were flying out, I came down with a fever. I flew out anyway, hoping that if I had a day’s rest, and the fever broke, that I I’d be fine. But I was sick, and I had a temperature of 120°F.

The director asked if I would come out on to the track, even though I was feeling really miserable, and at least say hi to the crowd. Because they’d been advertising it all for weeks, it was just to show that I was actually there.

So I go out there. I don’t know if you ever watch baseball movies but I think it was Babe Ruth who pointed out that he was going to hit a home run the next pitch. I guaranteed the crowd that I would come back the next year and I guaranteed that I’d break the four- minute mile.

Des Moines is a small country town. University of Drake is a small college, a very tight-knit community and very supportive of track. At that point, I hadn’t really been exposed to too many so-called track towns. So the next year came along and I flew out there in great shape.

I’d already graduated from college and brought out a team-mate of mine, Ralph Serna, to be my rabbit for the race. The day before was beautiful weather: calm and sunny. On the day that I was attempting to break the four-minute mile, it was cold and blustery. The winds were like 10-15 miles an hour. Just horrible conditions.

So the gun goes off, my team-mate takes off and barely gets under 60 seconds for the first quarter. I think he only made it 600m and was even slowing down so I had to take over the lead.

That Drake Relays crowd was packed. The stadium was full. The crowd realised the weather was not good and that I’d lost my rabbit – and they literally pulled me through that race. They were just screaming and whistling and clapping around the track. It reminds me of Oslo [the Bislett Games] in that they really care and they lifted…