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Wolverine heptathlete Longe leads quietly on and off the track

Tania Longe is the athlete you hate to face.

Her svelte 6-foot-1, 181-pound frame easily betrays her deliberate attempts to remain inconspicuous.

So does her performance on the track.

When that single shot punctures the eerie, pre-race silence, she explodes off the block, emerging from the cluster of competition. Fifty-five meters and 7.93 seconds later, she has captured yet another title, another distinction to stash away in a cluttered collection of trophies and medals.

"I don't look at myself as a great athlete," Longe says. "I feel I should do much better."

But how much better can she do? After her first two seasons at Michigan, the native Norwegian's resume features top 10 finishes in five Big Ten Championship events, including last year's first-place crown in the long jump with a leap of 6.18 meters. Throw in a 5,396-point performance in the heptathlon, and her humility seems questionable.

And those are just last season's statistics.

Two weeks ago in Madison at this year's conference championships, Longe set personal bests in both the long jump and triple jump. Still, she returned to Ann Arbor without an individual title. What's more, the team finished a distant third behind Illinois and Wisconsin.

Her reaction: "I guess I'm still a bit upset about it ... now I'm looking ahead to nationals."

So how can an athlete, whose warm, disarming smile comes as naturally as track and field itself, affect such hardened pragmatism? Why does a 21-year-old athlete, who has committed a decade of work to her sport, seem so dismissive about her accomplishments? What happened along the way?

"I guess I'm just different," Longe says. "Whatever happens, happens."

After a long, pensive pause, she adds slowly, "After I lost my mom and dad I had to get away."

Longe, understandably, remains reserved about the topic of her parents. Then, somewhat cautiously, she proceeds to open up a bit.

Her teammates talk of her ironclad emotions. Her coach, James Henry, has but once -- on the track -- seen a smile erupt across her face.

Now, the mild-mannered superstar, a repository of private thoughts and feelings, gradually begins to acknowledge both her emotional commitment to the sport she loves, and the tumultuous childhood responsible for her unrelenting drive toward perfection.

Longe discusses her adolescent years with caution.

How her father was once a world-class decathlete himself. How her mother figured Longe may have been the recipient of her father's genetic gift. So, at age 11, her mother enrolled her and her sister Erika in a junior Norwegian track club.

As it turns out, her mother's hunch has evolved into a prophecy fulfilled. But the year that Longe received her first taste of track and field was the same year she lost her mother.

The following year, she lost her father.

"I didn't really understand it then," Longe says. "Before they died, I was very active. (Since then) I've shut myself in. I changed. I lost a lot of confidence."

Without the guidance of her parents, Longe feared she was developing the wrong way.

"I let people control me," she says. "But I never let anyone see it. I just looked like a very determined, strong girl, but inside I was trembling."

Suddenly, her game-time "business-only" personality appears all the less mysterious, and her ever-raging battle with perfection all the more explicable.

While her on-track gains can never negate her off-track losses, that unadulterated feeling of victory clearly holds special importance for the young Wolverine.

Something happened between now and those early days when the sport offered the kind of thrill that has returned Longe time and again to the track.

"Track didn't give me pleasure the year before I came here," she says. "I thought it would be good to get new motivation."

When her uncle agreed that it was time for the then-20-year-old to get away, a number of opportunities arose. He checked to see if Longe's times and distances could qualify her for a scholarship in the United States.

Although her athletic performance would have easily earned her a free education, qualifying academically presented a whole different challenge.

As a Norwegian with English as a second language, the SATs proved problematic. For a while, the prospect of competing overseas looked remote. But it was on a visit to Canada two years ago that Longe scouted out Ann Arbor, its life-style and track program.

"While I was there I liked the coach a lot," Longe says. "He reminded me of my dad. The athletes seemed funny and nice, (but) I didn't know what to expect."

In light of this, her adjustment into the collegiate ranks here in the states has been remarkably smooth. While there are numerous cultural quirks and behaviors, especially within college life, that would puzzle any foreigner, Longe has caught on quickly. One major goal off the track, she jokes, is "just being cool like that."

But all joking aside, "being cool" is enough to baffle any emigre who finds himself or herself in the athletic spotlight. And clearly, Longe struggles to understand entirely the hype generated by one slice of society that lionizes its athletes and envisions them as some sort of cultural novelty.

"Here, being a student-athlete is so different than it is back home," she says. "It's so special (here)."

Not that Longe objects to the attention.

While track and field superstars often fail to command the same attention of say, football players, if you win enough events, exposure will invariably follow. Especially for Longe.

"I'm Norwegian, black, I'm tall, and I'm a student athlete," she says.

Tall is right.

It is only after numerous years that Longe has been able to accept her size as an asset.

"I guess before it bothered me," she says. "I was always one of the biggest. Back home, guys would compare their biceps. I started working out."

The results: "They don't mess with me. (My size) earns me respect."

Spoken like a true American student-athlete. Only, with a soft, Scandinavian accent.

So what about the less-glorious half of that student-athlete designation?

"I don't consider myself a serious student," she says. "I still haven't decided what I want to become. Now, I'm going towards Physical Therapy."

With a gentle, inviting voice, Longe has gracefully overcome the language barrier to convey her thoughts deliberately and articulately.

Maybe she isn't a "serious" student, but her quiet affability reveals a certain sophistication and class, both on and off the track. She is worldly, having traveled from Europe and the African east coast, to the Baltics and the island of Bermuda where she was born and raised for several years before heading to Norway.

On her itinerary for the near future: the 2000 Olympic Games.

"James (Henry) thinks I have a good chance of being there," she says. "I haven't thought about the details, but I'm doing what I'm supposed to do."

Yes, she is.

With her indoor pentathlon score of just over 4,100, Longe knows that on an outdoor track that score will approach the 6,000 mark. That point total may mean her ticket to Sydney four years from now.

For a self-proclaimed "realist," Longe certainly allows herself to dream.

Maybe that proves something. Maybe she's changing.

"I'm starting to open up more," she admits. "I'm reaching out more. I'm letting myself be weak."

Tania Longe is the athlete you hate to face.