Byrne, As In Blazing

"We made mistakes at first," says Glynn. "We made a lot of predictions, and when Kevin didn't deliver, he was all upset. He kept a log, and if he missed a day of training, he would panic. There was so much pressure that I woke up mornings thinking about him instead of my own son. Last summer I decided we had to change that. I made him throw his log away. We stopped making predictions. He was to have fun running. This winter Kevin competed in nine indoor races, when he could have run in 30. It was a drastic change from what people have done with superstars in the past. The old theory was to run them as much as possible."

Last November may have been a turning point in Kevin's running career. At the state cross-country championship, Bobby Siehl, a two-miler from Morris Hills, set a very fast early pace. "It was 2:04 at the half on the way to a three-mile," says Kevin. "I couldn't handle that. I thought, 'I'm going to lose this race.' I stayed with Bobby for another quarter and dropped out. I told Coach Glynn that I had pulled a muscle."

"Bull! I don't believe you," is what Glynn said. "Tell me the truth. Think about it on the way home. If you have the courage to tell me what really happened, you can become the greatest runner in the country."

When they got to Glynn's home, Kevin had tears in his eyes. He said. "Coach, I'm in trouble." Glynn put his arms around the boy and said, "Your troubles are over." Kevin says, "He made me understand that I'm not a robot. That I'm going to lose sometimes, no matter how good I am."

Glynn would like to see his 5'9", 145-pound runner about five pounds lighter, but given Kevin's proclivity for cookies and cakes he bakes himself, Glynn may be hoping in vain. Kevin often spends an evening baby-sitting for the Glynns' two children, and rummaging through the refrigerator. "I tell him where the oranges and the apples are," says Glynn, "but my wife Lorraine stocks up with ice cream and RingDings." Glynn points out that it is no wonder he has to augment his salary by tending bar on weekends.

Kevin's family lives in Montvale, about 10 miles from Paramus Catholic. He is the second of four sons, three of whom inherited their father's vivid red hair. James Byrne is a vice-president of Burns and Row, Inc., an engineering company in Oradell, N.J. As a student at St. John's University in 1950, he won the freshman division of the IC4A cross-country championship. "I always bring my stopwatch when I watch Kevin run," says his father. "I call him splits during the race and give him instructions. But others call him splits, too, and once in a while he'll just get fed up and say to me, 'Stay home. I'll call you.' "

When Kevin was in grammar school he seemed destined to become a baseball player. He was selected by the Englewood, N.J. Little League team to pitch against a team from Syracuse, N.Y. He was All-State New Jersey at 14. But one day, when he was in the eighth grade, his older brother Brian, a 4:19 high school miler, took him along for a run. Soon afterward, Brian managed to enter Kevin in a dual meet at his brother's high school where he beat all the ninth-graders in a 2:16 half mile. When Kevin enrolled at Bergen, he still wanted to concentrate on baseball, but he ran cross-country that fall. He also ran indoors, clocking a 2:04 half in a relay. When spring came, Kevin signed up for baseball. "Then, one Monday morning," he says, "I woke up with the decision that I would go out for track instead. I don't know why."

There was never any doubt in Kevin's mind that he would become a miler, even though he was successful in four distances and also as a high jumper, flopping six feet in his freshman year. "He feels the mile is the class event," says Glynn. "The mile gets all the ink. He likes that."

" Marty Liquori was my hero," says Kevin. "He's from Jersey. I've been compared to him a lot. People say, 'Kevin ran a 4:08 indoors; Marty only did 4:13.5.' " Kevin graduates on June 3. His first big outdoor mile will come in the Golden West Invitational in Sacramento on June 11, which traditionally features the top high school runners of the country. "Liquori did 4:08 in that race as a senior." says Byrne, "and a couple of weeks later he ran a 3:59.8 in the AAU senior championship."

A B+ student in English and economics, Kevin will enter Georgetown University this fall, choosing the school from among 70 that offered him scholarships, because it has a good economics curriculum as well as a good track program. "I'm not going to be running my whole life," he says. "Besides, it will be exciting to live in Washington, D.C., where I can have a nice social life."