SUZY FAVOR HAMILTON - Basic Instinct

by Marc Bloom

For Suzy Favor Hamilton, the best or second-best female miler in the United States and maybe some day the world, the forces of sport and sexuality intersected in Monte Carlo last summer on the European track circuit. It was August 8, Hamilton's 30th birthday. She celebrated at the Herculis Zepter meet by running the 1,500 meters in 3:58.38, the first American woman under 4 minutes in 15 years, and her fastest time by five seconds. That same day, she received a call inviting her to be photographed for the 1999 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, the Olympics of the modeling game that can vault the careers of incandescent beauties like Hamilton into celebrity eden.

"It doesn't get much better than that," says Hamilton, recalling that August day, on a winter morning at her home in Madison, Wisconsin. "It was a dream come true. I thought, maybe I can get my name out there and get track back on the map."

Big-time track has not been on the national radar screen since sports writers covered a young Carl Lewis on their manual typewriters. In the 1980s, inert bureaucrats, regarding athletes as adversaries rather than assets, let track's profile plummet while other sports used dynamic sports marketing to make headlines. Meets folded, sponsorship waned, and much of the excitement shifted to events abroad.

To be sure, track has had its stars--from Lewis to Dan O'Brien to Jackie Joyner Kersee. But, stuck in an amateur time warp, track lacked glamour, or at least the impulse to create glamour for a public accustomed to it. Contrast track with women's tennis, whose "marketable sweethearts," according to a recent New York Times story, are being sold, Hollywood style, as supermodels.

Hamilton, who resembles the actress Sharon Stone and possesses her daring, could be the one athlete to elevate track's appeal at a time when performances alone are not enough. She needs no coaxing. Whether in her racing uniform or in her bikini, Hamilton's available. She's got the smile, the flair, the world-class legitimacy. And she prides herself on an unambiguous sexual identity.

"I want to wear jewelry and makeup when I run," Hamilton says with conviction. "I want to be feminine. It's part of who I am." Suzy has run in the buff in a push-the-envelope Nike commercial, and published her own calendar of provocative photos set on the beach in Hawaii.

The Sports Illustrated session was done last fall on a remote atoll in the Virgin Islands. Suzy and her husband Mark (a baseball player in college) were paired with other athletes and their spouses to contrast the fantasy aura of the supermodels. The Hamiltons, burnishing their tans in a salon before leaving Wisconsin, ran up and down the beach for the photographer.

"Maybe the next time a track meet comes on TV," says Hamilton, considering her rising profile, "someone will recognize me and watch my race."

Hamilton's already a television favorite. In last February's NBC telecast of the USA Indoor Nationals from Atlanta, the women's 1,500 meters was shown while the men's mile, usually a TV highlight, was not. Asked about the choice, an aide involved with the NBC show gave the reason in one word: "Suzy."

Suzy's not a look-but-don't touch ingenue. She's accessible. Just watch her at a meet, waving to the crowd, making eye contact, posing for pictures, hugging fans who wait for her autograph. At Monte Carlo, where her 3:58 placed her only seventh in a field of unprecedented depth, a cheering section of teenage boys followed her--not winner Gabriela Szabo of Romania--out of the stadium, and Suzy gave every one of them a kiss on the cheek. "I'm very approachable," she says.

Hamilton is gleeful to a fault, even while killing time before practice at her home near the University of Wisconsin, where she won a collegiate record nine NCAA track titles and continues to train under coach Peter Tegen. Hamilton is surrounded by high-tech comforts aimed at thrusting her into medal contention for this summer's World Track & Field Championships in Seville, Spain, and next year's Sydney Olympics.

A $10,000 Woodway treadmill, with the cushiony surface of a world-class track, sits near the kitchen for emergency use. Even with snow piled high on the streets and Madison's perpetual winter freeze, Hamilton prefers to do her distance work, like a Sunday 10-miler, outdoors. But she has a breaking point. "The other day I ran outside when the wind-chill was 12-below," she says. "I froze."

To thaw out after running, Hamilton bakes in a custom Finnish-style sauna, which she sets at 220 degrees. Every night, she crawls-- sans husband--into an Altitude Tent to get nine hours sleep at a stamina-building 9,000 feet. "The solution," Hamilton calls the contraption, which she takes on her travels. "So I don't have to move to Flagstaff."

As Hamilton speaks, her inviting, hazel eyes stay on you, penetrating, revealing a toughness. She's a cunning warrior on the track, dealing elbows, roughhousing out of a box--aggressive qualities she got from her father, a retired graphics artist who fought Golden Gloves in the navy.

But, as fiesty as she is, Hamilton has an artist's touch. She does abstract painting and stained glass and decorates her home with figurines from nations like South Africa, where, last summer, she was on the U.S. team at the World Cup. Hamilton disavows her image as an apple-cheeked, all-American farm girl by saying, "I never lived on a farm," and leaves it at that.

While Hamilton's never milked a cow, she did cultivate worms in a teenage job as a lab assistant. She enjoys challenging life's prescriptions, on or off the track, which may explain her need to let loose every once in awhile. The conversation returns to Monte Carlo, where Hamilton's sub-4:00 earned her a six-figure bonus from Nike, her chief sponsor. It was party time on the Continent. Suzy was an Olympic medal hope with a marquee modeling gig and the earnings to buy the BMW 323 that now sits between snow banks in her driveway.

"After the race," says Suzy, "Mark and I and miler Richie Boulet ran down the road to the Mediterranean. We were going to go skinny-dipping, but my coach was also with us." In a rare sampling of restraint, Suzy then expresses the first rule of big-time track: "It's not good to go skinny-dipping with your coach."

To get to the Hamiltons' home from the other side of Madison, you cut down University, the main artery through campus, take Monroe past the school sports complex, go past Crazy Legs Hirsch Drive, Mickie's Dairy Bar where the pancakes are the size of Frisbees, Eureka Joe's Coffee and Tea Company where a guitarist serenades students sipping Costa Rican decaf, and hang a left to Suzy's ice-clogged block, where the BMW license plate announces her place with the inscription: "4FLAT."

"We wanted 'Sub-4:00,'" says Suzy, "but somebody took it."

"Probably some marathoner," snips Mark.

At the door, three dogs collect at the Hamiltons' feet--a chocolate lab, yellow lab and Dee Dee, a precious eight-week-old pug the size of a premie. Suzy cups Dee Dee in her hands and squishes her face into hers. When they go out, Mark places the little thing in his jacket pocket.

Suzy shows her prized mementos, pointing out a 1992 Olympics photo collage from Barcelona, where Magic Johnson of basketball's Dream Team recognized her during the Opening Ceremonies and planted a kiss on her cheek. "I haven't washed it since," she kids.

Johnson's gesture made an impression on Hamilton, and she would adopt it as her public model. Eight years earlier, at the '84 Olympic Trials in Los Angeles, Hamilton had been stung by indifference. Still in high school, she won the 1,500 at the USA Junior meet, held in concert with the Trials. It was Hamilton's first national title and she longed to meet a women's recordholder she hoped to emulate. But the athlete blew Suzy off. "I told myself, 'If I got to that level, I'd be different,'" she says.

Hamilton is uneasy with ill will. She may shove you into lane 3 on the track, but afterwards she wants to make up. Following a loss this winter to her American rival Regina Jacobs, who'd defeated her in four straight national outdoor 1,500s until last year, Hamilton said to Jacobs, "Can I shake your hand?" She'd tried once before and Jacobs ignored her.

As the youngest of four children growing up in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, 80 miles north of Madison, Suzy did not lack for attention. She followed her older siblings into sports, almost getting killed in a sailing mishap, and winning her first track race, a grade school 400. "The instant I won, I just loved it," she says.

Hamilton went on to win 11 state track and cross-country titles at Stevens Point High, where a life-size blowup of her hangs in the school gym. "When I would be interviewed," Hamilton recalls, "I loved the camera. Still do."

But small-town life can be suffocating, even for a track star, and Suzy would get her kicks going skinny-dipping with friends in a nearby lake. One night, they got caught. "The police ordered us out and this one guy kept his flashlight on me the whole time," says Suzy. "I finally had to get out." She folds her arms around her bosom, demonstrating how she tried to cover up. "We were laughing," she says.

Hamilton's like the prom queen who gets caught smoking in the girls' bathroom. She gives off a hint of danger, of risk. She's a ferocious athlete, running tall, elbows out, training with vengeful intensity. But her soft features and easy smile also endow her with innocence, and she possesses an irresistable intrigue: tough cookie melded with sweet babe.

And today, as the morning sun rises, throwing needed light into the Hamiltons' home, Suzy's braided debutante look is history and she sports a very untracklike new haircut. It's short, straw-blond, kind of punk, untamed, cute and wicked, like Suzy herself. "I have a wild side," she says. "I'm adventurous." When she and Mark were living in Eugene, Oregon a few years ago, they'd drive two hours into mountains near Bend to find a hot springs. "You could go totally naked," she says. "It was gorgeous."

As Suzy nuzzles Dee Dee, Mark emails track officials and meet directors. Suzy and Mark met as University students on a blind date, shot pool and married upon graduation in 1991. A lawyer, Mark does not practice but works in real estate. Until recently, he served as Suzy's agent, but now she's represented by Emanuel Hudson, known for his work with sprinters like Maurice Greene and Ato Bolden.

Packaged with Hudson's other stars, Hamilton can have more bargaining leverage in European meets. Hudson considers Hamilton a breakthrough athlete. "The fact that she is strong but feminine says a lot," says Hudson. "Young girls and women see they don't have to emulate a man to be good."

While many women use sports to liberate themselves from sexual stereotypes, Hamilton takes a reverse-P.C. stance, saying she can be anything she wants, and define athletic beauty on her own terms. "I've worked hard on my body and I'm not ashamed to show it," she says. "I want to sell myself as a great athlete first, but I see nothing wrong with being sexy."

In Wisconsin, people didn't need to be sold on Hamilton. She was their track darling. But the fanfare became oppressive and after college Hamilton fled to California and then Oregon, going through two coaches and needing to grow up a little, before returning to Madison in 1997 and being comfortable in her own skin.

"Track had been my life," she says of her college years. "I was in the newspapers constantly. Whenever I had dinner with my family and track would come up, I would cringe. I needed another identity."

Cultivating a rebellious streak, the girl from Stevens Point did not hesitate when Nike asked her to run naked in a "skin apparel" TV commercial shown during the 1998 Super Bowl. Several athletes were used, and the ad was shot in San Antonio. "It was artistic," she says. "I would do it again in a second." Her image was darkened to satisfy TV censors. That angered Suzy. "You couldn't see my muscles," she protests.

But Hamilton's muscles are disclosed in all their sculpted power at today's afternoon workout, one of her three weekly speed sessions at the University indoor facility. Instead of using the school's hard 200-meter indoor track, coach Tegen has Suzy and the Badgers' women run on the leg-friendly Astroturf of the practice football field.

Suzy, a volunteer assistant coach, leads every run in a workout that would scare a decathlete. Moving almost non-stop for two hours, she does repeated laps as a warmup, vigorous calisthenics and abdominal work, and more than 30 sprints between 100 and 300 meters at faster than mile race pace. She finishes with a routine in which she runs while pulling a sled carrying a 50-pound weight.

Suzy could pass for as a coed but, at 5'3" and 110 pounds, is more full-figured than the University women, who are scarecrow thin. Suzy runs in a bare midriff, racing-style top, revealing her six-pack abs. With each run, her cheeks grow flush, from strawberry to plum. She sprints on her toes, chest out, high back kick. Afterwards, to ice down, she stands in a tub of 15-degree water.

Tegen, in his 25th year of coaching the Wisconsin women, has the fervor of a guru. His words command hypnotic attention. As a young coach, he traveled throughout Africa and in 1968 talked his way into the Olympic Village in Mexico City under the pretense of produce deliveryman.

Tegen calls his system, "Dynamic running--systematic surge training." He explains, "I want to make sure athletes are always ready to surge, or kick, and not get left in the dust. That's how racing is."

So far, internationally, Hamilton has tasted dust. She could not get beyond the qualifying heats in the 1992 Olympic 1,500 or 1996 Olympic 800. Likewise, she could not make the finals in three World Championship 1,500s. Tegen concentrates on Hamilton's kick, which needs more of a sprinter's drive and mechanics. He also preps her on race tactics, which can be vicious abroad.

"We have 'Triple P' training," says Tegen. "Pacing, passing and pushing. I always say, 'There are no boxes on the track.'"

On the track, however, there's American Tough and European Tough. European Tough is more brazen, the rules be damned. Last July, Hamilton's cultural niceness cost her a shot at defeating the '96 Olympic champion, Russian Svetlana Masterkova, at the Bislett Games in Oslo. Masterkova was leading when Hamilton, feeling fitter than ever, came charging up on her shoulder with 300 meters to go. Masterkova, a strapping 5'8", walloped Hamilton out of her space. Hamilton stumbled, lost ground, regained chase, grazed Masterkova's heel, fell splattered to the track and did not get up.

"If I'm going to beat Masterkova," says Suzy. "I'm going to have to swing wide. I was angry, but she apologized." But first Hamilton will have to beat Regina Jacobs, who also takes no prisoners and finds no need to apologize.

At the 1999 Chase Millrose Games in New York, Madison Square Garden buzzes over the icy relationship between Hamilton and Jacobs, headliners in the mile. The women do not hide their dislike for one another. The reasons are vague. They cite being close competitors with the same goals, like Mary Slaney's American outdoor 1,500 record, 3:57.12. But their enmity goes deeper and revolves around image. While Jacobs, 35, is more accomplished, with a 1997 World Championship silver medal and 1995 World Indoor gold medal--and is ravishing in her own right--Hamilton gets more attention.

"Sometimes," says Hamilton, "People say I get this or that because I'm a pretty face. That's always bothered me."

When the milers are introduced, Suzy is showered with whistles and men in business suits in the best seats move closer to the rail. The pace dawdles as Hamilton and Jacobs, marking each other, run on eggshells. Hamilton blinks first. She moves to the lead midway, allowing Jacobs to sit back like a predator. Sure enough, with two laps to go, Jacobs bolts ahead, startling Hamilton, who, off-balance, tries vainly to push her opponent away. Jacobs races to victory with Hamilton second.

"She cut in too soon and broke my stride," says Hamilton. Then Suzy faults herself. "Regina controlled the race from behind. I should have sat back."

The two women, arm-in-arm, take a victory lap together. They're a great couple: savvy crowd-pleasers who know a photo op when they see one. It makes you wonder why some promoter doesn't bring Masterkova to the U.S. for a big-money match race with Hamilton and Jacobs, and let the elbows fly.

After the race, in the Garden corridors, Suzy's mobbed by fans who wants autographs, pictures, a touch of her glow. She's as pliable as Bill Rodgers at a marathon expo. A hug? Sure.

Hamilton needs a hug herself after being notified that Sports Illustrated ran out of space and her photos did not make the final swimsuit cut. Maybe if track was a bigger deal, she would have been chosen over someone like golf champion Tom Lehman, shown rather blandly in the magazine relaxing with his wife in a hammock.

Trying to rationalize the decision, Hamilton says, "I can't compete with golf. Who do most people know, Tom Lehman or Suzy Hamilton?"

The answer would be obvious in Monte Carlo.

Postscript: Hamilton has continued her world-class running and, in 2005, at 36, was pregnant with her first child.

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