Back on track but still focused on the future.

Byline: Ron Bellamy / The Register-Guard

Terry Ellis has a 3-year-old son, and a part-time job, and an internship working with kids who have been in trouble, and a commitment to graduating from Oregon next month, and a goal of becoming a social worker.

You wonder how he has time for all that, let alone the time to compete in the hurdles for the Oregon track team, and the fact is that he decided last fall that he didn't.

After three straight years as a scorer in the 110-meter hurdles in the Pac-10 meet - he placed higher and ran faster each year, and ranks in the top 10 of all-time Oregon hurdlers with a personal best of 14.04 seconds - Ellis decided to walk away from track as a senior.

"When you run, or with any sport, you kind of have to put it first," he said. "I did that for a while. I put my son on the back burner. I took classes that I didn't want to take because they fit into my practice schedule. I just felt that in my senior year, I couldn't afford to do that.

"I needed to spend more time with Jaden. I needed to take the classes that I want. I needed to get my internship going. I needed to make sure I was going to graduate.

"The decisions I make today are going to affect my future, and my future isn't on the track."

And so the 22-year-old Ethnic Studies major from Los Angeles didn't train in the fall, or over the winter. He was done with the sport, or so he thought until early spring, when coach Martin Smith offered him a singlet, and a lane. Graduation in sight, Ellis accepted.

"I'm glad they asked me to come back out," he said. "They didn't want me to finish my college career without finishing my senior year. If I could come back and help the team at Pac-10s, I definitely wanted to do that. We came so close last year to winning it all. There was no way I could back down from that."

In his first meet back, the Pepsi Team Invitational, Ellis qualified for Pac-10s. Last weekend, he qualified for NCAA regionals.

Saturday evening, he'll compete in the Oregon Twilight Meet at Hayward Field and seek to lower a season best of a wind-aided 14.31, and as he moves smoothly over the hurdles, you'll figure that, well, he's used to moving swiftly from one responsibility to the next.

"I have to work," he said. "That's going to happen. I have to take care of Jaden. That's going to happen. I have to go to school.

"I'm going to fit it all."

On a typical school day, Ellis works from 8 a.m. to almost 1 p.m. as a publications assistant; he's a walk-on, and has been throughout his career, and the job pays for school. Then he's got class at 1, and class at 2, and practice at 3, and somewhere in there, he gets Jaden from day care.

Jaden's mother is also a college student in Eugene, and though the parents don't live together, they are both involved in rearing their son.

"If you want it to work, it can work," Ellis said. "My first year here, I brought Jaden to practice with me every day. He was too young to go to day care, and I couldn't afford it. ... He's a team favorite. Everyone loves Jaden."

Since last fall, Ellis has also had an internship as a mentor for the Bolder Options running program for teen-agers who have been in trouble with the law, one of three mentoring programs of Committed Partners for Youth. There are early-morning workouts, and informal visits for sports and games in the evening twice a week.

"A lot of the kids are going through counseling and foster care and have been bouncing around the system their whole life," said Susie Walsh, director of the organization, who credits Ellis with opening doors to other athletes as mentors.

"He has the potential to be an amazing role model. ... He's had experiences in his life where he felt he could relate to these kids."

It's a role that Ellis sought, and has embraced. These are kids with adult problems, Ellis said, adding, "I think if you get a kid young enough, you can help them."

Which is where Ellis sees his future, as a social worker. He's been as focused on that goal as he is on the next hurdle in a race.

This year, even more so.