`Runt' Combest Not Your Typical Sprinter

OWENSBORO, Ky. - Casey Combest is ready to run, which means the world around him has halted.

The women working the admission gate at the Daviess County High School Invitational have stopped taking tickets. The high jumpers have stopped stretching and started staring. The public-address man providing the charming soundtrack to this Everyplace USA track meet - "Could I have one of the Daviess County boys remove the dog from the track, please?" - has gone silent.

When Casey runs, Everyplace USA becomes a unique place. The world's fastest white kid - a distinction Combest says he detests - is here to burn up a track.

In March, he set the national high school indoor record in the 60-meter dash, running it in 6.57 seconds - the 10th-fastest time in the world at that point in 1999, and only 0.17 off the world record. Two weeks later, the winning time at the NCAA championships was 6.58.

He has run an automatically timed 10.34-second 100 meters and a hand-timed 10.1 relay leg in the 1998 world junior championships. He also has won five state titles and is a landslide favorite Saturday to win Nos. 6 and 7 in Lexington.

Reputation aside, the Owensboro High School senior arrives at his lane assignment looking nothing like an elite sprinter.

He's a burrheaded runt at 5-foot-7 and 130 pounds. He hasn't lifted weights in his life. He bears no resemblance to the ripped specimens who dominate the dashes.

But when he's called to the blocks, Casey offers a sneak preview of the power in those little legs - the power that allows him to dunk a basketball. He steps forward and jumps off both feet, rocketing nearly four feet into the air.

"Oh, my," whispers one of the ticket takers.

Combest settles into the blocks. The starter holds the runners in place a tick longer than normal, then fires the pistol.

The race is over before the gunfire has ceased reverberating.

Combest has launched himself so quickly from a crouch to full locomotion that he is noticeably in front after one stride.

After that comes an exercise in fluidity, like watching a swift, quiet stream. While competitors strain, wobble and bobble, his black Michael Johnson Nikes skim across the Daviess County track.

His fingers are spread wide, something he picked up from watching tapes of Ben Johnson.

His form - once called "fundamentally perfect" by Leroy Burrell - defies nitpicking. One could place a Dixie Cup of water on his head and still have a sip left when he hits the finish line nearly a second ahead of the runnerup.

It's an electrifying performance.

Three hand-held timers have clocked him between 10.25 and 10.34 for the 100 meters - all of which would be among the fastest high school times in the nation this year. When the Daviess County automatic timer, alleged to be slow, announces a 10.77, Combest cocks his head and says, "Whaaat?"

His races last just a few seconds, but they will reverberate around these parts for years. He is the biggest thing to come out of Owensboro since basketball hero Rex Chapman.

Chapman was a white hero in a black man's game, a small-town kid who played with an urban flair.

Combest is a white hero in what is even more of a black man's game. The United States has produced one world-class white sprinter since the 1950s. Sprints have become terra incognita to the white man - rarer than in a National Football League defensive backfield, the heavyweight boxing ranks or pro basketball.

"He says he's not a freak, but I say he is," said 45-year-old Donald "Boodle" Brown of Henderson, a self-employed concrete construction worker who is a guiding light in Combest's life. "There's nothing else like him anywhere."

Combest isn't just a white star in a black-dominated sport. He comports himself with a complete black ethos.

"He even puts Afro-Sheen on his hair," Brown said.

He is a rap fan whose speech is spiced with hip-hop parlance. His favorite artist is Master P, which hardly distinguishes him from much of teen-age white America today. But this is no suburban wannabe; he grew up in low-income housing in Henderson and says he has spent his entire life in the company - and friendship - of blacks. He has a black girlfriend.

"I'm not racist anti-white," he said. "I just prefer black people. Product of your environment."

But nature might have as much to do with his speed as nurture.

Combest's mother, Shannon Bugg - whom he lives with in Henderson, having moved back from Owensboro last August - was a record-setting runner in Evansville, Ind. His father Keith Combest was a two-time state champion quarter-miler.

His grandfather, Jackie Bugg, was a sprinter.

"Says he ran a 21-second 200 in a football suit," Casey said, folding his arms and raising a skeptical eyebrow. "I don't know. That's kind of fast."

Combest has a full ride waiting at the University of Kentucky - his signing was a major coup for the Wildcats - but there's a chance that his shaky academic standing could alter his course, catapulting him straight into professional track.

The Combest anomaly has drawn national attention.

It is that stereotype-shattering potential that has the major shoe and apparel companies already eyeing him eagerly. If he continues to improve and hits the national and international stages, Big Money is waiting for its chance to market the World's Fastest White Man.

That is not exactly the title Combest is looking for. He'd rather talk racing than talk race.

"I want to be known as just a runner," he said. "I know they're going to say that, but I think they need to leave that out and let me be Casey. (Boxer) Tommy Morrison, it seems they wrote him up just because he's a white guy. He wasn't even that good."

So far, Combest is that good.

Now he has to keep from blowing it.

Boodle Brown is a recovering alcoholic with five years of sobriety under his belt and many lessons to dispense.

"He's been there," Combest said of his mentor. "He knows what the streets are like. He don't want me to go down that road."

Brown recollects that he met Combest about 18 months ago. Brown is known to hang out along the fence at high school football games, and he struck up a conversation with the local athletic hero.

A friendship ensued. Combest eats dinner with Brown at least three nights a week, and they spend hours talking about track, school and life.

Brown's feedback is welcomed by Keith Combest. Casey speaks positively of his parents, but there are times for every teen-ager when the last adult you want to listen to is your mother or father.

"He's 18," Keith Combest said. "He don't eat right, he don't sleep right. Everyone goes through it to a certain extent, a little bit of rebelliousness. He started running with the wrong crowd.

"(Brown) understands Casey. He's been a big help. They have a great relationship."

Last December, Brown asked Combest to take a drive with him around Henderson. He pointed his pickup for the projects, then asked his young charge a pointed question.

"I asked him how many Division I athletes he saw over there who were in college," Brown recalled. "He said he didn't see any. I said, `You won't be one, either, if you keep hanging out over here."'

"I had to change the guys I was running with," Combest said. "They're good guys, but they didn't have anything on the ball. Boodle Brown said, `Casey, they're going to bring you down.' I had to change my lifestyle. Do something positive. Make a name."

Around that time, Combest began attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings with Brown. Combest will not say he has had problems with drugs or alcohol, but he'll acknowledge that he was generally making some bad decisions for a while.

"I could've gone down that road," he said, eyes averted. "I was out there.

At the AA meetings the name is simply Casey, not Casey Combest, Great White Sprinter.

"I raise my hand and say, `I'm Casey and I'm here to learn,"' he said.