FAYETTEVILLE -- Turning pro upon completion of their sophomore seasons at Arkansas as record-setting NCAA champions bonded disparate training partners last week.
Nine years separate them. So do major surgeries, a three-month worldwide suspension and a revoked Olympic bronze medal.
Triple the time and triple the impacts of those various pitfalls that have befallen Wallace Spearmon Jr. and contrast that to Omar McLeod, who along with Spearmon finished a workout last week at John McDonnell Field.
McLeod, 21, was fresh off running 12.97 seconds in the 110-meter hurdles -- a world-best time for 2015 -- and winning Jamaica's national championship, which advanced him to the World Championships.
He could have cooled down in a brisk jog, but courteously he walked.
Spearmon, gasping, stretched both hands on the back of McLeod's shoulders, an elder towed by the younger.
Spearmon was quite the kidder at Fayetteville High and during his two seasons with the Razorbacks, when he was a three-time NCAA champion in 2004 and 2005.
There was no kidding this time. He requested postponing an interview until the next day because "my eyes can't focus."
"You looked dead yesterday," he was told the next day.
"Definitely," Spearmon concurred. "It just seems every fall and every spring I am wondering to myself, 'Why am I doing this? I can't.' But every time you make a team you remind yourself this is what we are doing this for."
Spearmon made the U.S team and maybe will make money again. He clocked 20.10 for third at the U.S. Championships two weekends ago and will join U.S. teammates Justin Gatlin and Isiah Young the 200 meters at the World Championships next month in Beijing, China.
Sponsors who vanished completely after his suspension in 2014 seem interested again.
An asthmatic who has long used an inhaler, Spearmon said he didn't realize not renewing the paperwork that allowed the inhaler cost him a failed substance test.
The fact it was only a three-month suspension reflects that it was deemed an honest mistake, but Spearmon remains "embarrassed."
"It's my fault," Spearmon said. "I was under the impression that you didn't have to [renew paperwork] because asthma isn't going anywhere. I should have checked."
That and taking a bronze medalist victory lap in the 2008 Olympics just seconds before being disqualified for a lane violation mark his lows.
"That was the first time I cried at a championship," Spearmon said. "I bawled for an hour. I came in the top directly from college, and now I feel like I have seen some of the bottom."
He perseveres.
He can still overcome his starts, never quick in his prime and increasingly injury impaired, with incredible top end speed.
Spearmon set the college 200 indoor record of 20.10 and the Razorbacks' outdoor record of 19.89. He clocked a personal best outdoors time of 19.65 professionally in 2006, the seventh-fastest 200 ever. Coached by old friend Chris Johnson, Arkansas' women's sprints coach, Spearmon believes he will crack 20-flat at the World Championships because "that's what it will take to medal."
After training professionally in Texas, Spearmon craves to bring another medal home after training at home.
"He loves training at Arkansas, and Arkansas has done a really good job of supporting him," Johnson said. "That's the biggest plus for him."
Sports on 07/08/2015