Smith eyes big finish at NCAA indoor meet

Last year at this time, Miles Smith was an unknown in national track circles.

Not any longer. Southeast Missouri State's junior 400-meter standout enters today's preliminaries of the NCAA indoor championships in Fayetteville, Ark., as a marked man.

"People know about him now, so it's a little different situation," Southeast coach Joey Haines said. "It puts a lot more pressure on him."

Which is fine with Smith, who says he welcomes the added pressure and doesn't feel burdened by it. He believes his personality helps; the outgoing Smith always seems to wear a smile, and Haines said he gets along with virtually everybody.

"It puts more pressure on me, but I still respond to it the same way," Smith said. "I think my personality helps. I'm never nervous. One thing everybody will tell you is I never get nervous before I run."

Smith's meteoric career rise over the last year has been nothing short of remarkable.

After not experiencing particularly notable success during his high school days at Riverview Gardens in St. Louis County, Smith came to Southeast without much fanfare.

But Haines believed all along Smith's potential outweighed what he had accomplished to that point.

"I'd be lying if I told you I expected Miles to do everything that he's done," Haines said. "But I expected him to be really good."

After a strong freshman season at Southeast, Smith virtually went off the charts as a sophomore last year.

First, he qualified for the NCAA indoor nationals and finished 11th. Then he placed fifth at the NCAA outdoor nationals to earn All-American honors, and his time of 45.16 seconds was the 14th-best in the world for 2005.

That qualified Smith for the national track and field championships -- and he stunned the field by finishing sixth to earn a spot on the U.S. 1,600-meter relay team for the world championships in Finland.

Smith ran in the preliminaries at last summer's world championships, and he earned a gold medal when the USA relay squad won in the finals.

"It's pretty remarkable what Miles has done," Haines said. "And we think he's still going to get a lot better."

Smith agrees, and he believes he is running better now than he was at the same time last year.

"I know I'm a lot stronger, and that's helped," he said.

Smith, Southeast's only national qualifier, enters today's preliminaries -- the finals are Saturday -- with the 10th-fastest time of 46.67 seconds.

Xavier Carter of LSU has the fastest time (45.89), with Ricardo Chambers of Florida State close behind (45.93).

The times for the rest of the 15-man field are closely bunched, ranging from 46.20 to 46.72.

"It's really tight between a lot of people," Haines said.

Haines said runners in the Midwest are generally at a disadvantage for the indoor nationals because of the weather.

"Some of those people in the South, they're able to train on an outdoor track for a long time, where you can really go fast. They've got a pretty good advantage," Haines said.

Even though Haines has high hopes for Smith today and Saturday, he knows Smith's real success will continue to come outdoors.

"You talk to Miles and he thinks he can win it. My goal is for him to be in the top five," Haines said. "He's where he was last year. He was 11th, and he's ranked 10th now. If he finishes 10th, we won't think the world is falling apart.

"He's right on schedule. No matter what happens, he's still primed for a really big outdoor season."

Smith agrees with Haines that the outdoor campaign is where he figures to truly shine again -- "That's when the big stuff happens. That's my time," he said -- but he's confident enough to think he can make plenty of noise indoors.

Smith said he would at least like to be among the top eight American-born finishers -- which would mean All-American honors -- but he's not ruling out plenty more.

"My goal is to win," he said. "Making All-American would be nice, but winning would be nicer."