HURDLER TAKES HIS QUEST FOR OLYMPIC GOLD IN STRIDE.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

In his free time, he likes to announce the events and set up hurdles at College of the Canyons' track-and-field meets, and he often volunteers to help coach the Cougar hurdlers.

Where else would you expect to find a world-class athlete and Olympic silver medalist?

Mark Crear may be busy training for this summer's World Track and Field Championships in Athens, Greece, but he remains a familiar presence at the Cougar Stadium track. Sure, he works out there several days a week, but he also likes to pitch in and help the team and coaches.

Crear, 28, lives in Valencia but travels all over the world to compete in meets that draw track and field's elite athletes. In July 1996, he finished second in the 110-meter high hurdles at the Atlanta Olympics.

But the training continues because, as Crear likes to remind people, there are lots of other races to run, not just Olympic competitions every four years. Recent meets have taken him to Germany and Japan, and now his focus is on a Rio de Janeiro meet in May.

``People don't really know that track and field is a year-round sport, and an every-year sport,'' he said.

So much for post-Olympic letdown. Crear said he has no trouble motivating himself to keep training and competing, even though many athletes would head straight for retirement the minute they stepped off the Olympic victory platform.

``I just thank God for giving me that drive,'' he said one morning last week, as he stretched and tried to shake off the fatigue from packing a little too much fun into his day off. He and his wife, Keisha, had squeezed a gospel-music concert and two movies - ``The Saint'' and ``Liar Liar'' - into one day, and he was paying the price, he said.

``I went to bed about 2 a.m., so I'm a little tired,'' Crear admitted.

Good thing he brought along a couple of the neighbor kids for that added morale boost.

``I don't mind being woken up at 9 a.m.,'' he said, shooting a glance at 10-year-old Nitai ``Nick'' Ferrer, who likes to drop by Crear's house to play pool, watch his ``Space Jam'' video or goad the hurdler into getting started on his daily workout.

``Are you OK, Mark?'' Nick yelled after Crear struck the 13th hurdle and fell to the track during a drill. The Emblem Elementary School fourth-grader and his friend Eric Marcus, 11, spent their final morning of spring break scampering up and down the long-jump runway, helping the hurdler stretch his legs and watching him train.

Fueled by a candy bar and a soda, Nick raced Eric on the sidelines as Crear tried to concentrate on clearing the 15 hurdles in his path. At the end of the straightaway, Cougar hurdler Jim Phillips stood poised with Crear's video camera, filming the drill while yelling reminders to him.

``Relax!'' ``Stay focused!'' ``Be aggressive!'' Phillips, 18, shouted as Crear dashed down the track, three quick steps between the landing and takeoff for each hurdle.

Phillips ran hurdles for four years at Canyon High School, advancing to the California Interscholastic Federation finals his senior year. But since he hurt his back in a high-hurdle race, Phillips' focus shifted to the lower hurdles of the 300- and 400-meter races.

Now a distance hurdler coaches the College of the Canyons freshman, but Phillips said he still looks to Crear for pointers on competing and training techniques.

Track-and-field coach Lindie Heck said Crear has been a weekly visitor to Cougar practices and meets, when his schedule keeps him in the Santa Clarita Valley. This month, Crear helped teach some Cougar decathletes and heptathletes how to run the hurdles for a competition at Santa Barbara City College, she said.

``He's a volunteer assistant. It's just something he does to kind of give back to the community,'' Heck said. ``He attended a junior college himself - he went to Mount San Antonio College and he had success there, and that enabled him to go on to a four-year university.''

Crear graduated from USC with a degree in sociology. As a senior in 1992, he won the NCAA title in the 100-meter hurdles but failed to qualify for the Barcelona Summer Olympics. Then in 1994, Crear became national champion and the following year earned the No. 1 ranking in the world. Reebok is his corporate sponsor.

Crear's success could serve as an inspiration to teens who don't win track scholarships to big-name universities but might consider competing at College of the Canyons, Heck said. ``It's nice for high school athletes to know that junior college is an option,'' she said.

``He shares his experience (with the Cougar squad). He started out in the same position as they are, as junior-college athletes trying hurdles for the first time. If I were a hurdler and there was a silver-medalist athlete talking to me, then I'd sure listen.''

Crear said the time he spends at Cougar practices and meets takes him back to what in retrospect seems like a simpler time.

``You miss those junior-college and college days, because you didn't have that pressure,'' he said. ``It was fun because you could run more than just one thing, like the relays. At the world-class level, you really have to focus on one event.''

Which brings his thoughts back to Rio de Janeiro, where Crear might find himself competing against fellow American Allen Johnson - the Atlanta gold medalist - or Colin Jackson, the British hurdler who holds the world record of 12.91 seconds.

Crear ran 13.09 en route to his silver medal - slower than his career best of 13.02 - while Johnson streaked to gold at 12.95.

``He had about three body lengths on me,'' Crear recalled. ``I'm not particularly worried about Allen; I've got seven other people I run against every race.''

He ran in the Olympics with a hairline fracture in his left arm, suffered during a workout shortly before the Atlanta Games - and right before the July 14 birth of his daughter, Ebony. The injury didn't keep him out of the Olympics or out of the labor and delivery room at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital.

``I couldn't hold (Ebony) with my left arm, but I held her with my right,'' said Crear, who cradled his baby daughter last summer after racing to the silver. Now 9 months old, she sometimes accompanies her dad to workouts.

To qualify for the world championships, Crear has to finish among the top three at the national meet in June. That gives his training an added focus.

``I don't have any problem motivating myself,'' Crear said. ``I don't mind doing the same (workout) I did last year - but faster. I haven't won a world championship yet.''

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2 Photos

Photo: (1--ran in SAC and AV editions only--color in SAC edition only) After winning a silver medal at last year's Olympic Games in Atlanta, Valencia resident Mark Crear continues his training at College of the Canyons with the hope of competing in the 110-meter high hurdles at the 2000 Olympics.

(2) From left, coach Gene Howard, Jim Phillips, Mark Crear and Stephon Flenoy discuss hurdles during a workout at College of the Canyons.

Shaun Dyer/Special to the Daily News