This isn’t a clarion call for hoodlums—Bad Boys of Triathlon Unite! We’re stating a historical fact here, as in, past tense: The Bad Boys of Triathlon Have United. (Well, it’s present tense as well, but the "unity" occurred over the past winter.)

The bad boys referred to are Scott Molina and Kerry Classen. The former in the role of coach, the latter as a barn-burning pro athlete whose pants are on fire right now. First, the barn-burner...

He started racing triathlons at the age of 11. "I will never forget the first time I met Scott Tinley," Classen said. "He signed a poster for me before the Bakersfield Bud Light triathlon. I did a relay that year. I believe it was 1983. I did the swim." So remembers Classen, whose parents are also triathletes. His ebullient mother Lois is well known and liked in Southern California tri circles. The parents split two years ago, and while both remain loving and supportive of Kerry, the split seems sadly in keeping with the wounds heaped on this star athlete—those self-inflected as well as those occasioned by accidents of life.

"Then I saw a guy who was 13 years old," said Classen, "and did the entire race. And got on TV. So I decided I would do the entire race the next year at the age of 12. I continued to race, but then they made the rule that you had to be 15 to race in triathlons of longer distances.

"Once I turned 15 I started racing again, and by this time I had learned to swim quite fast. So I became a well-known triathlete around California, and by the time I was 16 I was starting to race competitively with some of the local pros. On a trip to Hilton Head for the National Championships I met Andy Carlson, and he told me that I needed to turn pro."

Carlson was also a top Mission Viejo swimmer, a first-out-of-the-water guy for years, with wins and top placings in a variety of high-profile races. The two turned pro around the same time and were the Orange County wunderkinds.

At 17, Classen was one of several teen-age phenoms of the early ‘90s, joining Brit Spencer Smith, Aussie Miles Stewart and U.S. pro Lance Armstrong—all world-beaters by their mid- to late teens.

Classen’s breakthrough (PHOTO LEFT AND BELOW: RICH CRUSE) race came at the now-defunct Mammoth Snowcreek Triathlon, where he lined up next to Scott Molina, Brad Kearns and Andrew McNaughton. Classen exited the water first, as expected, but then commenced riding like a mad fool, extending his lead during the bike to over four minutes.

To give you an idea of just how hard Classen must have been riding, consider this: Molina was at the top of his game, only several months away from destroying a world-class field at Zofingen. McNaughton was within a few months of setting a bike course record at Wildflower that STILL stands, although Widoff, Zack, Dittrich, Legh and others have been trying to break it for a decade.

Classen predictably blew on the run and lost to Scott Molina, Andrew McNaughton and Brad Kearns, but he still finished ahead of Miles Stewart and Scott Tinley. He then finished tenth at Chicago Sun-Times, and two weeks later blew apart the field on the swim and bike again at the Sacramento Triathlon, which at the time drew a stacked field. He was run down by a hard-charging Molina but bested Greg Welch, Brad Kearns and Stephen Foster. His time at that Olympic-distance, no-drafting race? 1 hour, 46 minutes—and at 17 years old.

"Maybe that was just a little too much pressure for me at that time of my life," said Classen, "because I would start to falter from there. Sometimes I would have a great race, then a horrible one. I became inconsistent. Then I started finding out about girls and alcohol and the downhill slide began. I was more worried about the parties before and after the races than the races themselves. I dabbled in triathlon for a few years with some success, but I didn’t reach the level of success people were expecting from me. In 1993 I started quitting a lot of races, including the Ironman in Hawaii."

He decided to restart his life in a new environment. "I joined the Navy and became a SEAL. I figured that SEAL training was the hardest thing I could do to test myself, to see if I really was a quitter. I graduated with BUDS Class 205 in June of ‘95 and was stationed in Little Creek, Virginia. This was honestly one of the worst points in my life. I was trying to live up to the image and keep up with my buddies. I drank like a fish and was involved in barroom brawls whenever the chance presented itself, which was quite often. At this point I weighed 200 pounds and certainly didn't look much like a triathlete. But I would still hop into a race every now and then and do pretty well, considering my weight and the amount of alcohol I was consuming. I was out of control and building up debt from long nights in the bars. In one bar fight I broke my hand on somebody’s head, while also getting a nice scar from a broken beer bottle.

"But even with a cast I was still running 16-minute 5K races. I started to realize that I had a little bit of talent if I could still go this fast under the conditions I was putting myself under. So I decided that when I got out of the military I would start racing again. I was discharged in 1998 and moved back in with my parents in San Clemente, California. I started training and racing and felt like I would be able to kick butt in no time. Boy, did I get a rude awakening when I got spanked while racing as a pro again."

But Classen’s life was about to take a turn for the better. While in Santa Barbara to visit a friend he met Carina Chapman. "I saw her at the pool," he remembers, "and asked my friend if she was single and it turned out that she was. We met each other, and there was an immediate, mutual attraction. I knew that I wanted to marry this girl. Then she told me she had been accepted into a nursing program at Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tennessee. I knew that if I wanted this relationship to work I would have to move there. Which I did. I asked her to marry me and, amazingly, she said yes. I say amazingly because I told her everything about my past life of womanizing, drinking and fighting. She is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me."

This was only a year ago, and Classen was working 50 hours a week managing a bike shop and also racing as a pro. He raced passably well, then, in a flashback to his Mammoth race, he pulled out of the hat a fifth place at the Xterra world championship in Maui.

"My wife and I sat down and decided that 2000 would be my last year of racing as a pro if I couldn’t make a decent living," Classen recalls. "I couldn’t walk away from triathlon without knowing that I gave it my very best shot. So I quit my job, hired Scott Molina to coach me, and started training like crazy. So far it seems like the work I have done is paying off."

That would be an understatement. After a fourth-place finish in the Huatulco Half-Ironman (a good placing, considering Classen is not a long-distance specialist), he turned his attention to Xterra racing. He has won the first two races of the season—at Ruston, Louisiana, and Gallatin, Tennessee. In so doing he has beaten Michael Tobin twice (outrunning him once), and Ned Overend (outbiking him!). His results are starting to attract sponsors, including a new deal with Aquaman wetsuits.

He said he’s "...giving it my best shot and loving it. I might even live up to some of those expectations of years ago." Much of the credit is no doubt due to his coach.

Molina is no-nonsense and is not afraid of putting Classen through exactly the sort of training that will take him to the top or finish him off, one way or the other. Classen had nothing to lose and gave himself one year to turn it around. The strategy has so far worked. Elsewhere on Slowtwitch, Molina tells the story from the coach’s point of view.

These two are of a kind. Mistakenly stuck to an email I got from one of them was this note from Classen to Molina. I doubt they’ll mind if I use it: "I love racing and I will never stop, even if I am not one of the best. That is why I asked you if you would help me with my training. I also think that you are one of the only people who knew that I had a lot of potential, and you have the same kind of training ideas as me. I believe in long miles and hard work and I don’t subscribe to the new theories of quality not quantity."