http://www.courier-journal.com/cjsports/news2003/02/17/sp021703s367746.htm
we wont be asked this question anymore…
CHEK THAT OUT!!! WATCH OUT MAURICE GREENE JOHN CAPEL AND JUSTIN GATLIN! LOL!
WHATS EVERYONE THINK!
just for everyones viewing pleasures…
clemson… i was thinkin the same thing… this kids like the eminem of the sprints… lol.
QUIKAZHELL
Thanks for the link to the article-
Glad to hear Casey is making a go of it.
Here is the full article:
What’s up with. . . Casey Combest?
Speedster to give it another try
“I know in my heart that I was born to run.”
By Brian Bennett
bbennett@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
Combest, once a top-notch sprinter at Owensboro High, is planning a comeback at the Mason-Dixon Games.
KEITH WILLIAMS, THE C-J
This space usually is reserved for stories about once-great and now-graying athletes, reflecting on their glorious pasts. Casey Combest is not supposed to be here.
Combest is only 22. He’s much too young to be washed up, to have already squandered his world-class sprinter’s talent, to have resigned himself to working in a factory while people who follow track and field continually ask, ‘‘Whatever happened to Casey Combest?’’
And yet . . .
‘‘I’m a young man, but I’m an old man, too,’’ he said. ‘‘I’ve been around and seen a lot of stuff.’’
But perhaps these are not the final words in Combest’s story. Maybe it’s merely a new beginning. The former national-record holder from Henderson, Ky., is attempting a comeback, and on Saturday at the Mason-Dixon Games in Broadbent Arena he will race for the first time in nearly two years. After that, who knows?
‘‘Since he’s so young, he’s still got a great chance to get back into it,’’ said Bob O’Brien, his former coach at Owensboro High School. ‘‘If he dedicates himself to what he has to do, the sky’s the limit.’’
Many thought Combest would be competing on the pro circuit or possibly training for the 2004 Summer Olympics by now. In 1999 he set the national high school indoor record in the 60-meter dash – 6.57 seconds. That’s only .05 slower than Maurice Greene’s winning time two weeks ago at the Boston Indoor Games.
At 18, Combest owned five state titles, three national records and a scholarship offer from the University of Kentucky. But everything was not as rosy as it seemed.
‘‘I kind of knew back then that it wasn’t going to go any further,’’ he said. ‘‘I was smart enough to see it but not smart enough to change it.’’
He said he grew tired of the demands and pressures. He was expected to win every race. And he hated the national attention he drew as a skinny white kid starring in an event dominated by African-Americans.
‘‘It seemed like he didn’t really want it,’’ O’Brien said. ‘‘There was a lot of pressure on him, and he couldn’t just enjoy a meet.’’
Things deteriorated quickly. Combest suffered an injured hamstring and missed his final state track and field meet. He flunked an English class and failed to qualify academically at UK. He enrolled at Wallace State Community College in Alabama but, homesick, left after one day.
Even worse, Combest – who grew up in low-income housing in Henderson and moved back there at the beginning of his senior year in high school – succumbed to the lure of street life. Not long after he returned from junior college he was arrested for selling marijuana.
‘‘I was lost in the city, man,’’ he said. ‘‘You know, you’re young and you’re dumb. You’re on the bottom, but you think you’re on top.’’
Combest, who attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in high school, insisted he did not have problems with drugs.
‘‘Yeah, I smoked my share of weed in high school, but I wasn’t no drughead,’’ he said. ‘‘More or less, I just wanted to make some money.’’
Instead, he got 2 1/2 years’ probation and 30 days in jail. As part of his probation, he had to agree to return to school. So he headed back to Wallace State, where he became the national junior-college champion and record holder in the 60-meter dash.
‘‘He is one of the best I’ve ever worked with,’’ said Wallace State track coach Stan Narewski, who has tutored almost 250 All-Americans and a dozen Olympians in his 30-year career. ‘‘I felt like if he stayed here two years he would be on the pro circuit making some serious money.’’
One year of college proved enough for Combest, however. Although he credits his time there for getting his priorities in order, he had little interest in pursuing the academic life.
‘‘College isn’t for everybody,’’ he said. ‘‘It was time for me to get a job, just be a regular Joe. Nobody was going to look out for me except for me.’’
So he moved in with his father and went to work for Accuride, a Henderson company that makes wheel rims for school buses and tractor-trailers. He gets up every morning at 5:30 and strips paint off wheels for eight hours.
It’s hard work, but Combest said he was happy. He had a steady income, drove a Cadillac and had few worries. He gave up running and rarely thought about it for more than a year.
The story seemed finished – until early last month. Frank Miklavcic, one of the Mason-Dixon Games organizers, came up with the idea of a 55-meter invitational for former track stars. The reason, he said, was to get Combest to compete.
‘‘Every time I go to a national convention, people ask me what he’s doing,’’ Miklavcic said. ‘‘With that type of talent, he needs an opportunity to do something with it.’’
Miklavcic called O’Brien to offer the invitation. Combest declined. But it must have stirred some interest, because a few days later Combest tagged along with a friend to a tryout camp for a new arena football team in Evansville, Ind. Without training or much of a warmup, he ran the 40yard dash in an eye-popping 4.27 seconds.
‘‘The coach came up to me and said he’d been coaching 25 years and had never seen anybody run that fast,’’ Combest said. ''I shocked myself because I hadn’t run for so long. I was like, ‘Man, I’ve got to get back into this.’ ‘’
The arena team’s coaches called him every day, begging him to play for them. Combest had another call to make.
‘‘Are you still doing that invitational?’’ he asked Miklavcic, who immediately revived his plans.
Since then Combest has been training every day after work. He lost 11 pounds in the first couple of weeks. He has dealt with aching hamstrings, quadriceps and toes that had grown unaccustomed to the pounding.
When asked about this comeback, Combest offers contradictory notes. One minute he says he’s taking it slow, approaching this ‘‘almost like a hobby.’’ The next minute he confesses he dreams about being back in the national spotlight, dueling with Greene and the world’s fastest men.
‘‘I’m back at a crossroads now,’’ he said.
Those who have followed Combest’s career are thrilled by the prospect of seeing him back in the starting blocks. Miklavcic said if Combest posts a good time Saturday he could qualify for the USA Masters Indoor Championships on March 28 in Boston. And he hopes the high school runners at the Mason-Dixon Games take a long look at the prodigal star.
‘‘I hope this shows kids that there is life in track after high school, if they’re interested,’’ Miklavcic said.
Narewski, a former coach at Murray State University, said it’s not too late for Combest to realize his vast potential.
‘‘The law of averages says that every day you are away from it, the lower your chances are,’’ he said. ‘‘But Casey has a real gift. I don’t think he will have a problem recapturing what a lot of people probably believe he’s lost. It’s up to Casey Combest and whether he wants to work hard and focus. I hope he does because it would be a tragedy if he didn’t.’’
Combest doesn’t want the story to end that way. Not a day goes by in Henderson when someone doesn’t ask him what happened to his track career, why he never made it big. Perhaps he’s ready to give them an answer.
‘‘People can say, ‘He blew his chance,’ but I believe you make your own chances,’’ he said. ‘‘I thought I lost mine for a while. But I know in my heart that I was born to run.’’
guys… if possible tho click the link …it has a photo of this kid… you will be able to see why everyone makes such a big deal about how fast he went… he was a skinny white kid 5’7 136 pounds according to his profile on the world list…however i belive he was 140 someting pounds but still! have a look at the picture… i have no clue how this little kid ran so fast.:o