Phenomenal how we treat phenoms. Your wildest schizophrenic seems ranging closer to relative norms than the praise and damnation we heap - sometimes simultaneously - on those we herald possessing extraordinary athletic gifts.

This phenomenal thought occurred during Saturday's long day journey into night covering University of Arkansas football and track.

Junior wide receiver London Crawford and junior sprinter J-Mee Samuels - phenoms constantly built up and torn apart - both excelled this particular Saturday.

Last week Crawford was a phenom called out more than a phenom talked up.

Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino didn't call Crawford out individually, but as the most touted receiver among the wideouts Petrino criticized collectively, the junior likely took note of the coach explaining his team's defensive backs can't be prepared in spring practice for the speed of the SEC come fall.

" I do see us getting in some bad habits, simply because some of our defensive backs are faster than our receivers, " Petrino said.

Ouch.

Well, Crawford responded in last Saturday morning's scrimmage catching 9 Casey Dick passes for 111 yards with 2 touchdowns.

It was a good day. Not the greatest day because there were a couple dropped that maybe should have been caught. But a good day, particularly if taken into context.

Crawford isn't apt ever entirely to live up some of those unreal expectations coming out of high school. Some fans in 2006 practically projected veteran star Marcus Monk riding pine for all the Razorback receivers in that freshman class.

Monk has graduated, but Crawford is not the best receiver on this Razorback field. Versatile sophomore tight end / Hback D. J. Williams fills that bill, but Crawford can be a vital, even essential Arkansas cog.

" We need him to be a player for us, " Petrino said. " He's a guy we've got to rely on to make the big play. Of our receivers, he runs with the ball best after the catch. He's real strong and has got good hands so you come up and press him, he's got a chance to win. "

Allow these phenoms some breathing room without phenomenal expectations, and they often will give you a chance to win.

Some even develop phenomenally.

J-Mee Samuels is Exhibit A.

If track and field received the same recruiting attention as football, J-Mee Samuels would have arrived at Arkansas with the fanfare of Darren McFadden and Mitch Mustain.

Samuels was the nation's leading sprinter in 2005 while at Tabor High School in Winston-Salem, N. C.

Turned out he arrived at the wrong time in the wrong shape.

Wallace Spearmon, the just departed Razorback sprint superstar before Samuels, was a lanky, loosey-goosey nationally unheralded hometown hero from Fayetteville who blossomed into a world-class runner.

Samuels arrived with world-class pressure on a 5-7 frame with no room to grow.

Too much feasting his first Christmas break home undid him. Only super models rival sprinters fearing weight gain. Samuels was still too heavy in January, 2006, his first college race.

A Baylor sprinter smoked him.

Seemed that smoked his confidence, too. And his attitude.

When you don't run as fast in college as you do in high school, blame games are inevitable.

Samuels starting coming around at last year's John McDonnell Invitational meet, the same meet he starred in last Saturday night.

Last Saturday Samuels blistered 100 meter and 200-meter dash victories in 10. 12 and 20. 55, both his collegiate outdoor bests and in between took the Hogs from fifth to second on his anchor leg of the 4 x 100 relay.

Samuels started running well enough last summer to be selected as an alternate on the U. S. World Championship team, but learned a lesson, there, too, Arkansas coach John McDonnell said.

" He made it on the World Championship team and then missed two practices and they never ran him, " McDonnell said. " It showed him in that real world outside, you make a mistake, you pay for it. "

McDonnell and sprints coach Kyle White and Samuels rode some rocky roads together, even early this indoor season, but they stayed with it.

It paid off. Last March Samuels ran four personal records in two days to become a two-time NCAA Indoor All-American in the 60 and the 200.

Now he approaches world class in an Olympic year.

" The thing I like about J-Mee right now, " McDonnell said, " he's running with a passion. "

Phenomenal what a little patience can do.

Nate Allen covers the Razorbacks for the Northwest Arkansas Times.