Billy Orman looks forward to dramatic culture change at Harvard

Think contrast: Hot and cold. Black and white. Short and tall. Tuba City, Ariz., and Cambridge, Mass.

Tuba City and Cambridge?

Tuba City off Highway 160 in Arizona on the border between the Navajo and Hopi nations and Cambridge, home of Harvard University near Interstate 93 just outside the Cradle of Liberty, Boston. There simply could not be two more contrasting cultures, which is the clash distance running standout Billy Orman will experience in the fall after deciding to head east.

The Tuba City (Ariz.) senior, who captured the Foot Locker Western Regional at Mt. San Antonio College and finished sixth in the National Cross Country Championships a week later in San Diego, is both excited and more than a little anxious about the near-future change of scenery.



Having moved to the tiny town with two stoplights when he was 6 months old after his father took a job as a pediatrician at the local hospital where the native Americans from the two nations get care, Orman has only known the wide-open, hilly, high-desert community at 5,000 feet in the middle of nowhere.

Just as he didn't plan to attend Harvard as a youngster, he also never had aspirations to be a national-level runner.

"In the seventh grade, Billy would come home from school around 2:30 and we wouldn't get home until 5, so he'd sit in front of the TV set," said his father, Bill. "I was sick of it. I didn't really push him to run, but it was either that or football."

Billy picks up the story although the start was so uneventful — and painful — he claims selective memory loss of the particulars.

"He told me to go out for this thing called cross country," Billy recalls. "I had no idea what he was talking about. I didn't think a lot about it but the first day the weather was hot, in the high 90s, and very dry (as usual).

"We ran something like three miles and I walked most of it. When I finished I said to myself, 'No way, I'm not going to do this.' I was miserable. But my dad said not to quit quite yet, that if in a few weeks if I felt the same way, I could do something else."



His father wasn't pushing him into sports.

"No, but there aren't any after-school clubs like at some schools," said Bill. "I just wanted him to get out and do something. I just wanted him away from the television."

Billy did stick with it and noticed that after a while he was able to stay up with his teammates and he remembers something else.

"I made friends and we had something in common — running," he recalls. "Then in my first meet, I finished in second place to a teammate. I wasn't thinking anything at the time, but I kept with it. I don't know, it was sort of something to do. I was just a dumb kid then — still am."

Not quite.

Running provided an outlet and his grades improved almost as dramatically as his times. By the end of the season, he was the Arizona eighth grade champion, winning the 2-mile race in the big city, Phoenix.



You won't hear Billy complain much about Tuba City but getting in shape wasn't easy. First there is the altitude. Then there is the terrain — sandy soil that taxes the strongest of runners, especially in the nearby sand dunes.

When he gets to Cambridge, he'll have rivers and lakes. In Tuba City there is the town reservoir. In Cambridge he can run in the woods, even test the Freedom Trail. In Tuba City there are a few cottonwood trees planted by the Mormons a long time ago.

Asked about how he liked the famous ivy-covered walls at the university, Billy laughs and says, "there aren't any ivy-covered walls in Tuba City. There isn't any ivy."

Continue reading{PAGEBREAK}Once in high school, he started to thrive in cross country until he qualified for the Foot Locker Nationals for the first time as a junior. He placed 34th out of 40 runners.

His English teacher, Phil Giorsetti, knew all that would do is inspire Billy to train that much harder to return a year later to improve.

"He's the one who always steps up to a challenge," says Giorsetti. "He has dedication, discipline and curiosity. He's always into learning, always reading. Everyone knows Billy because he's the one out running before 7 a.m. every day.



"It does carry over from the classroom to running. He knows he'll be able to succeed because he's done it and he's one of the brightest students I've seen in a long, long time."

By now you may be wondering how fast is he on the track? You won't find his name among the national leaders in the 800 meters, the 1,600 or the 3200. He has run good times of 1 minute, 57 seconds, 4:19 and 9:04, times that make you wonder why the 6-foot-1, bushy-haired senior would be wooed by Stanford, Brown, Columbia and, of course, Harvard.

Those schools were attracted by his 4.3 GPA and 2,110 SAT score. They also looked at the conditions under which Orman runs when he competes in most of his meets.

"We have an all-weather track at Tuba City," says Billy, "but in the spring the wind is always blowing and it kicks up sand. I'm the connoisseur of dirt. There isn't a lot of competition, either."

Asked to run three events in miserable conditions, at altitude no less, Orman runs to win. Not wanting to embarrass his opponents and teammates, he leaves out that he often leaves the field so far behind he's catching them as he finishes. And that's in the 1,600.

He will run a few times in Phoenix and can't wait for the Arcadia Invitational in California, where he was second last year. Not in the invitational, but the seeded race. Bet he's in the invitational this time.



As for Harvard, that mixture of anticipation and concern — just like the contrast of Tuba City and Cambridge — is constantly there.

"I'm going for academics," says Billy, who hasn't decided on his major. "It'll be nice to be on a good team, to contribute my freshman year. I definitely like the longer distance (10K in college compared to 5K in high school) but really good grades are more important than really good times.

"The thing is, I'm in the top five of my class academically here but I'll just be just another guy there."

His father is a little less reluctant than Billy to point out that Tuba City High, which has a rich history of success in running, isn't among the higher achieving academic schools in the state. Quite the contrary.

"The educational background he has here isn't remotely close to some of the prep schools where many of the Harvard students come from," says Bill. "He knows that but he likes a challenge."

Orman says being one of maybe 10 anglos in a school that is 90 percent Native American has never been a problem, especially since his mother, Theresa, a Tuba City High Spanish teacher, is Puerto Rican.



And he says there is culture in Tuba City, just not the kind in Cambridge.

"The Hopi cultural dances, you can't see those anywhere else," says the 18-year-old. "It's just different. I'm looking forward to those differences."