In Maryland, a Fight to the Finish Line

In court this month, Maryland hopes to prove that it already has progressed in its treatment of wheelchair racing. For the first time this year, the MPSSAA will offer eight events for wheelchair racers. So far, Maryland has heard of only three athletes -- McFadden and two boys -- who want to compete, said Ned Sparks, the association's executive director.

"We have 188 schools, and to our knowledge there's only two schools that have wheelchair racing," Sparks said. "So if we award points to those two teams, how is that fair to everybody else? Even if we only award the winner one point, that could be the difference between which teams win.

"There's a lot of logic that goes into this for us. We're not bad villains. And we're certainly not going to start a publicity campaign against a handicapped 17-year-old girl. So a lot of the other side here doesn't get out."

'People Are Going to Hate You'

When McFadden told her mother last month that she wanted to file a second lawsuit, this time against the state, Deborah asked her to reconsider.

"You've already done so much," Deborah McFadden said. "Aren't you tired? You know, people are going to hate you."

"I'd rather be on the team and be hated," her daughter said, "than not be on the team at all."

Sometimes, to remind herself why she's fighting, McFadden recalls her first meet at Atholton two years ago. She raced the 400 meters in a heat filled with runners. Even though her result didn't count, she came from behind and finished before anyone else. The crowd cheered. Classmates hugged her. On the way home from the meet, McFadden called her grandparents and recounted what she called the best day of her life.

"I'd never felt that emotion of being on a school team with all my friends," McFadden said.

She's now excluded from those coveted moments of camaraderie. The Atholton team made T-shirts depicting each athlete as a different animal, but the girls never made one for McFadden because, they said, they didn't know her size. After a few awkward exchanges with Dwight Bowler, the Raiders' coach -- they never talked about his daughter's letter -- McFadden stopped practicing with Bowler's distance group and joined the Atholton sprint group.

During a recent practice, McFadden sped around the track, her eyes locked on the ground ahead. She circled alone for almost 20 minutes, whizzing by teammates whose own practices unfolded in group drills and jokes. At the end of her workout, McFadden pulled up next to six teenagers who stood near the bleachers. They stared back at her warily.

"Anybody want to come around with me?" McFadden asked.

Nobody answered.

"Fine," McFadden said. "I'll just go again by myself."

McFadden spends her free time with school friends who know nothing about track. She vents to elite wheelchair athletes, particularly Scott Hollenbeck, who fought a similar legal battle in Illinois 20 years ago.

"I tell her that this is the hardest thing she's ever going to do," Hollenbeck said. "If you think it's awkward being the kid in a wheelchair, it's way more awkward being the person who is off in the corner alone, getting those nasty glares in a locker room. But if not Tatyana, who? And if not now, when?"

Still, McFadden sometimes comes home from practice near tears. Last month, she slept "a ton because of being depressed," McFadden said.

"Sometimes, other girls are just like, 'Oh my gosh, I hate her so much and blah, blah, blah,' " said Kate Caffrey, a senior distance runner at Atholton. "I just try to avoid her and not to be mean. But we're all thinking the same thing: enough of this Tatyana controversy. We just want to move on and think about something else. It needs to end."

It might well end in the courtroom later this month. But in the track community, another theory has gained momentum: McFadden's fight has created so much vitriol, coaches and athletes said, that no judge's verdict will register with finality.

"The real resolution is going to come at the state meet," said Jaeger, the host of Mdrunning.net. "If Tatyana gets to race, some coaches have told me they'll pull their athletes right off the track. They'll protest, and Tatyana will race by herself."