Steve Scott

Scott signing autographs in Toronto in 1982
Personal information
Nationality	American
Born	(1956-05-05)May 5, 1956 (age 69) Upland, California
Height	186 cm (6 ft 1 in)
Weight	73 kg (161 lb)
Sport
Sport	Athletics
Event(s)	1500 meters,mile
College team	UC Irvine
Club	Tiger Track Club
Achievements and titles
Personalbest(s)	800m: 1:45.05[1] 1500m: 3:31.76[1] Mile: 3:47.69[1] 3000m: 7:36.69[1] 5000m: 13:30.39[1]
Medal record Men'sathletics Representing United States World Championships 1983 Helsinki 1500 m

Steve Scott (born May 5, 1956) is an American formertrack athlete who competed at the1984 Summer Olympics and the1988 Summer Olympics.^[2]Track & Field News ranked Scott #1 in the U.S. on ten occasions,^[3] and eleven times during his career he was ranked in the top ten in the world by T&FN.^[4] Scott is also regarded as the founder ofspeed golf in 1979.^[5]

Scott grew up in the 1960s inUpland, California. His mother was a runner who preceded the running boom and through his mother's influence and Robert Loney's persistence (his coach), Scott ran onUpland's cross country team.^{[citation needed]} RunnerDave Wottle inspired Scott to wear a cap in every race of the 1972cross country season.^{[citation needed]} In his junior year in high school, Scott made the varsity squad as the fifth runner. In track, he concentrated on the shorter distances and ran the 800 in 1:58 and the mile in 4:30.^{[citation needed]} He also met Kim Votaw, a freshman runner who would eventually become his wife in 1979.^[6]

In his senior year, Scott became the top runner on the cross country team and improved his track times to 1:52 in the 800 and 4:15 in the mile. He finished fourth in theCIF California State Meet in the 880 yards^[7] and drew several college scholarship offers. He joined coach Len Miller at theUniversity of California, Irvine in the fall of 1974 and still holds the UCI school record in the 1500,^[8] and the UC Irvine Steve Scott Invitational is named after him.^[9] While at UCI, Scott won the 1977NCAA Men's Outdoor Track and Field Championships Division-I 1500-meter title after winning the 1500 twice and the mile once at three previous NCAA Division-II meets.^{[citation needed]}

Scott ran his first sub-4:00 mile indoors at theSunkist Invitational in Los Angeles in January 1977.^{[citation needed]} The following year, he became an international miler, competing on both sides of the Atlantic. When he graduated with a degree in social ecology in 1978, Scott had already run 11 sub-4:00 miles.^{[citation needed]}

WhenSebastian Coe set amile record of 3:48.95 inOslo on July 17, 1979, Scott finished second with a time of 3:51.11. Because records at the time were rounded up to the nearest tenth of a second, Scott missed tyingJim Ryun's American mile record of 3:51.1 by 1/100 of a second. However, in 1981, theIAAF started to recognize records in running events longer than 400 meters to the hundredth of a second, meaning that Scott's 3:51.11 had tied Ryun's record, depending on how the times were interpreted.^{[citation needed]}

Scott won the BritishAAA Championships title in the 800 metres event at the1979 AAA Championships^[10][11] and won the 1500 m at the1980 U.S. Olympic Trials but did not competeat the Moscow Games due to theU.S. boycott. He received one of 461Congressional Gold Medals created especially for the spurned athletes,^[12] and won the 1500 m at theLiberty Bell Classic organised for athletes from boycotting nations.

His first undisputed American record came when he ran third in another Oslo race on July 11, 1981 with a time of 3:49.68, becoming the first American to break 3:50 in the event and the fifth ever to do so.^{[citation needed]} He also set theU.S. indoor record ovrr the 2000 meters in 1981.^{[citation needed]}

The following year Scott broke the American mile record twice, both times again at Oslo. First, he won a race on June 26, 1982 in 3:48.53, becoming history's third-fastest miler behind Coe andSteve Ovett; then 11 days later he ran 3:47.69, the second-fastest mile in history. That time would stand for 25 years untilAlan Webb ran 3:46.91 in 2007.^[13]

Scott won the silver medal behindSteve Cram in the1500 meters at the first officialIAAF World Championships in Athletics in Helsinki, Finland, in 1983 and pariticpated in his first Olympic Games at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, where he placed 10th.^[2] He was the 1500 m bronze medalist at the1987 Pan American Games and at the 1988 Games in Seoul he finished 5th in the 1500 metres.^[2]

Scott raced indoors, outdoors, on the road and in cross country, competing in as many as 50 competitions a year.^{[citation needed]} This included three top ten finishes in the U.S. National Cross Country Championships (7th in 1979, 4th in 1980, and 6th in 1981) as well as three victories in theCarlsbad 5000 road race from 1986 to 1988. His times at Carlsbad in 1986 (13:32) and 1988 (13:30) were world best times for a road 5K.^{[citation needed]}

In the closing stages of a career, Scott attemptep to run a sub-4:00 mile at age-40 in 1996^[14] but was derailed by a battle withtesticular cancer.^{[citation needed]}

He was cured of testicular cancer^[when?] and since retiring from competition he built a successfulNAIA collegiate program as Head Coach of track and cross country atCal State San Marcos.^{[citation needed]} At San Marcos he has led the women's team to 3 National Titles from 2009 to 2011, and in 2011 the men's team placed 2nd.^{[citation needed]}

In 2002, he was inducted into theUSA Track and Field Hall of Fame. Scott and his wife JoAnn live inLake Kiowa, Texas. They have two sons and a daughter.^{[citation needed]}

• Steve Scott & Marc Bloom,Steve Scott the Miler Macmillan (1997)ISBN 978-0-02-861677-3

• Steve Scott atWorld Athletics
• USA Track and Field Hall of Fame

• Flotrack Videos of Steve Scott

• USA Indoor Track and Field Championships winners
• 1956 births
• Living people
• Sportspeople from Upland, California
• Track and field athletes from San Bernardino County, California
• American men middle-distance runners
• Olympic track and field athletes for the United States
• Athletes (track and field) at the 1984 Summer Olympics
• Athletes (track and field) at the 1988 Summer Olympics
• World Athletics Championships athletes for the United States
• World Athletics Championships medalists
• UC Irvine Anteaters men's track and field athletes
• Congressional Gold Medal recipients
• Competitors at the 1986 Goodwill Games
• Goodwill Games medalists in athletics
• Athletes (track and field) at the 1987 Pan American Games
• Medalists at the 1987 Pan American Games
• Pan American Games bronze medalists for the United States in athletics (track and field)
• Upland High School alumni
• American masters athletes
• NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships winners
• 20th-century American sportsmen

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