Byrne, As In Blazing

There are some 140 medals, 25 trophies and six watches in Kevin's bedroom, and the walls are decorated with track pictures and clippings. A magazine cover shows Filbert Bayi running his 3:51 world-record mile at Kingston, Jamaica in 1975, and there is a cluster of clippings about John Walker, the Olympic 1,500-meter champion and current mile world-record holder. "I figured Liquori was over the hill," Kevin says, "so I had to find someone else to emulate." Over Kevin's bed, however, hangs an enlarged photograph of himself falling at the tape in the 1975 Millrose photo finish. "To remind myself that no one wins all the time," he says.