Shawn Crawford saw a Phantom of the Opera mask at a party and decided it would be a good idea to wear one like it while running the 200 meters at an international track meet in Italy two years ago.
The mask slipped, covered his eyes and led to his disqualification for running out of his lane.
A few months later, Crawford signed up for 100-meter races against a zebra and a giraffe on a made-for-TV reality show. He beat the giraffe, then lost to the zebra but demanded another shot because the zebra had false-started. Crawford lost the rematch as well.
“Shawn is a person that likes all kinds of weird stuff,” said his coach, Trevor Graham.
It seemed too weird for the no-nonsense coach when Crawford’s agent, Kimberly Trammell, called Graham last November to see if he would work with the talented but erratic runner. Graham said no, no and no.
“I heard about all the crazy stuff,” Graham said. “He didn’t seem like a person who was sane.”
Trammell wouldn’t take no for an answer. She called again. And again. And again.
“She finally convinced me he was ready to be coached,” Graham said.
The evidence is Crawford’s world-leading times in the 100 and 200 meters this year. He has become the Olympic favorite in the 200 and a strong title contender in the 100, which begins Saturday with the first two rounds.
But that doesn’t mean the 26-year-old runner and his coach always are on the same page.
“He just wants to prove everyone wrong, including his coach,” Graham said. “He’s got an idea on everything.”
The difference in their ideas may be clear if Crawford decides to run the rounds the way he did at the U.S. Olympic trials, where he won the 200 and was third in the 100. Rather than save energy for the finals, as the coach advised, Crawford ran fast every one of the eight races, winning seven.
“That’s how I figure you’ve got a real stellar, elite athlete, someone who is able to go out there and hit it time and time again and still come out on top,” Crawford said. “That’s a gladiator of the sport to me, and that’s what I want to become. I want to give it to you every time I’m out there.”
Isn’t that a dangerous way to run?
“I’m a dangerous guy,” he said.
By the end of 2003, his career seemed endangered. The stunts were getting Crawford a lot more attention than his hit-or-miss performances. It wasn’t until he hooked up with Trammell that Crawford finally realized his attraction as a sideshow was running out.
She told him to get a professional coach. He wanted to stay with a guy he called “sort of a personal coach” in South Carolina. Crawford figured that his gold medal in the 200 at the 2001 indoor worlds and his bronze at the 2001 outdoor worlds were enough.
“I was having an inconsistent career but I was satisfied with it,” he said.
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Crawford eventually gave in, but only if Graham would take him. He had seen the coach’s results with Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery before both left Graham in late 2002.
“I think he’s the greatest sprint coach in my day and age,” Crawford said.
Graham already was coaching Justin Gatlin, who also made this Olympic team in the 100 and 200, and LaTasha Colander, who won the women’s 100 at the U.S. trials and advanced without pressing through Friday’s first two rounds to Saturday’s semifinal of the Olympic 100. She finished a comfortable third in her quarterfinal.
“Shawn is Shawn, and ‘Tasha is ‘Tasha,” Colander said when asked if Crawford’s determination to win every round seemed crazy. “If he wants to run that way, that’s Shawn, that’s Shawn’s motivation.”
“I definitely don’t agree with Shawn Crawford’s philosophy,” Graham said.
Maybe it comes from Crawford’s wanting to prove he has learned something from Graham after years of running fast from time to time without knowing how he did it.
“Now he will come to me and say, “I know why I did that,”‘ Graham said.
Crawford never liked to listen in the past. He won two NCAA titles for Clemson in the 200 but also was twice thrown off the team.
That is why Graham wanted to be sure he had not made a mistake by believing Trammell’s claim that Crawford had changed. She told the coach he could immediately send Crawford back at the first sign of trouble.
Crawford moved from Charlotte to Raleigh, N.C., where Graham works.
The first day of their relationship, Graham told him there would be no missed practices, no late arrivals, no skipping the weight room–and that meant six days a week.
A week went by, and Crawford followed the rules. A month passed, and he kept it up.
“I’m happy I took him,” Graham said. “Not taking Shawn Crawford would have been one of the biggest mistakes of my coaching life.”
It doesn’t even bother Graham that there is talk of another race with the zebra.
“If they pay him, he should go for it,” Graham said.
The coach figures at least one of the contestants has changed his stripes.