By Brian MacPherson
"Gazette"student assistant

Dennis Craddock isn't one to brag.

In a way, it's too bad, because he'd have some great stories to tell.

But the decorated track and field coach at Carolina prefers to let the accomplishments of his student-athletes speak for themselves.

Even when he proves his doubters wrong, even when he achieves individual goals, he's still not one to tell anyone he told them so.

TRACKING CHAMPIONS Track and field coach Dennis Craddock, pictured at Belk Track, makes it a practice to stand in the long shadows that his student-athletes cast.

For example, after a stint in high school during which, he admits, he didn't set the right priorities for his life, his teachers told him not to bother going to college, that he'd be wasting his time.

But after graduating from Ferrum Junior College in 1965 and Lynchburg College in 1967, he went back to that same high school -- as a teacher.

"That was my big goal, to go back to my hometown and sit in those faculty meetings with the teachers who told me I couldn't do it," he said. "I never said anything to them because I'm not that type, either, but they knew what they had said four years earlier."

Since then, Craddock's career has gone nowhere but up. Under his tutelage, the Tar Heels have won 27 ACC women's titles and six ACC men's titles since 1987, and his teams consistently compete with the nation's best teams.

And every four years, Carolina athletes continue to make an impact in the Olympic Games. Eleven current or former Tar Heels competed in track and field events in Athens this year -- including eight for the United States.

It made for quite a group sporting the red, white, and Carolina blue.

"To see someone do that that you've personally coached, whether it's two years, four years or five years, it's the biggest thrill in the world because you know they've been training for this for umpteen years," Craddock said.

He saw his first former student-athlete reach the Olympics in1992, when Sharon Couch-Seagrave finished sixth in the long jump.

Four years later, he watched in Atlanta as Carolina graduate Allen Johnson won the gold medal in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 12.97 seconds.

Johnson wasn't exactly a world-beater when he arrived at North Carolina. He was a highly recruited hurdler and long jumper, and Craddock even thought Johnson might have potential as a decathlete. But Johnson's body needed time to develop, and he struggled to overcome several injuries during his freshman season.

"Some young people, when they get beat like that in a learning situation, they don't look at it as a learning situation -- `Hey, I've got to pay my dues,'" Craddock said. "They look at it as, `Gosh, I'm not as good as I thought I would be, the training's all wrong for me, I didn't eat the right breakfast.'"

But Johnson understood the need for his body to mature, and he responded to his setbacks the right way, Craddock said. By 1993, Johnson was a two-time ACC indoor champion in the long jump and a two-time All-American in both the indoor 55-meter hurdles and the outdoor 110-meter hurdles.

Two years later, Johnson broke the world record in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 13.34 seconds at the World Championships in Sweden, and he won his Olympic gold medal in 1996.

"He's a great, great representative of the University of North Carolina because he's truly the good guy of track and field," Craddock said. "You have the showboats and you have all these other things, but he doesn't do any of those things. He goes out there and does his thing and smiles."

Four years after Johnson's triumph in Atlanta, another former Craddock pupil exploded onto the international scene. Marion Jones, who also played basketball while at North Carolina, won five medals at Sydney, including gold medals in the 100-meter dash, 200-meter dash and 1,600-meter relay.

Craddock quickly refuses to take any credit for Jones' success.

"She was pretty much developed when I got her," he said.

Jones, in fact, placed fourth in the 200-meter event at the 1992 U.S. Olympic Trials -- as a 16-year-old high school junior. She was a key contributor to the Carolina women's basketball team's NCAA championship run during her freshman season of 1994, and she handled the transition to track well enough to win three ACC titles in that year's outdoor campaign.

Her best 100-meter time that season (11.40), in fact, still stands as the second-best time in that event in school history.

"Marion was one of those I call a born leader," Craddock said.

"She helped lead the basketball team as a freshman, and she certainly helped our track team as a freshman and sophomore.

"She's just got one of those great abilities to lead."

But Jones didn't really display her full potential on the track until she left Carolina and concentrated on running full-time.

"She never got to train in the fall to prepare for the indoor and outdoor seasons," Craddock said. "When she got out as a professional athlete and left basketball, she trains year-round, and that certainly helps anyone as an athlete."

Jones wasn't the only one of Craddock's former student-athletes to find success in Sydney, though. Eleven Tar Heels competed, and two others struck gold -- LaTasha Colander-Richardson and Monique Hennagan teamed with Jones to win the 1,600-meter relay.

As this year's Olympics drew near, it became clear that Carolina's contribution wouldn't just involve its former stars. Along with athletes like Jones and Johnson, who each participated in the games, three current Tar Heels performed well enough at the Olympic Trials to earn a trip to Athens.

Rising seniors Laura Gerraughty and Vikas Gowda, both shot put stars at Carolina, and graduating senior Shalane Flanagan, perhaps the best distance runner in the history of the school, all qualified for the 2004 Games. Gerraughty and Flanagan competed for the United States, and Gowda competed for India.

Craddock believes his current athletes benefited from his program's philosophy of encouraging its best athletes to shoot for national and international stardom without sacrificing their academic and social lives.

"In our sport, the biggest thing is not to sign a major-league baseball contract or football or basketball and those millions of dollars -- it's really to get to the Olympic Games," he said. "I think a collegiate athlete, when they see that they have a real ability to do that, they get that confidence in themselves and I think they put in a little more time and dedication."

And even as he tells the stories of those athletes, you'll never hear him take the opportunity to brag about himself -- even if he's immensely proud of the accomplishments of the many athletes who have run, jumped and thrown for the Tar Heels in his years at the University.

"You get so involved with these young people that you're so happy for them because you know what they've been through," he said.

"After you think about it and you start doing resumes for different things, you can always write those things down, but I really and truly don't think, as a coach, 'Gosh, I did it.'

"You had a part of it, but the athlete did it."