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GREENSBORO — One entered the program "a local legend," in her coach's words, the other a novice whose assessment of his freshman season was something like "I wasn't very good."

Four years later, Breanna Alston and Deji Adeneye are now the faces of Southeast Guilford's resurgent track and field team, which is undefeated this season and won both sides of last week's All-Guilford County Meet. On Thursday, the two cleared the way for their next chapter together, signing letters of intent to compete for Southern Conference power Appalachian State.

"For this program, they've been huge," Southeast head coach Alton Tyre said. "We're not where we want to be, and we're not where the kids want to be, but we've made a huge leap the last four years. They're on the ground floor."

By the time Alston arrived at Southeast to run for now-Andrews assistant principal Joe Stone, she was an accomplished middle school and summer circuit runner who had won the Fastest Kid In Greensboro race at the Nike Outdoor Nationals when she was 12.

("I felt like I really accomplished something for myself," she said, "but I look back now and see that I ran it in 13.8 (seconds), and I'm like, 'Wow, I was really excited?'")

That was also Tyre's first season at Southeast after a long run at Southern Nash, which he led to the back-to-back state titles in 1998-99. Southeast's track program had fallen off from a run of mid-90s dominance, and "what kids expected of themselves wasn't very high," Tyre said.

Alston's approach — "as an athlete, she's an absolute warrior," Tyre said — quickly helped restore the culture. The program now has 34 female athletes.

"That's a very tough thing," Tyre said. "She's lived up to every expectation I've had for here and even more."

Alston, who plans to study pre-med, is the reigning 3-A state champion in the 400 meters, an event she loves to hate. It is the most grueling of the sprint events — just short enough that there's no time to jog, but just long enough that there's no hope of flooring the pedal the whole way. Alston long resisted Tyre's suggestion to accelerate quickly out of the gate, thinking she wouldn't have enough gas, but now she approaches the event with clock-like precision — sprint for the first 100 meters, stride for the next 100, accelerate for the third and go full speed for the final stretch. When she broke 58 seconds for the first time using that strategy, she looked back at the clock in disbelief. She won the state title in 57.6 seconds.

"Crossing the line first," she said, "is the best feeling ever."

Adeneye (it's DAY-jee ADD-en-ay) never turned down a race his freshman year, but he might not have won one, either.

"I kept getting burnt and burnt and burnt," he said. "It was disappointing, but I knew everything would play out in time."

His break came at an indoor meet his sophomore year, when Tyre came over to watch another Falcon try the triple jump and Adeneye, having never tried it before, picked up the motion by sight and flew 41 feet for an audience of open jaws.

"Dumb me," Tyre said. "Sometimes athletes are smarter than coaches."

Adeneye was ranked as high as eighth in the nation in the triple jump this season, and after jumping a school record 47 feet, 21/2 inches at the Durham Striders Invitational in January,

"He was on everybody's radar," Tyre said.

"I really think he's just scratched the surface," Tyre said. "He's good at the event, and he loves it. Fifty feet is right around the corner for him."

Adeneye was in church when Appalachian jumps coach Damion McLean called with a scholarship offer, and Adeneye excused himself from the preaching just long enough to say yes and sneak back in to a row of silent congratulations. He plans to study computer information systems.

"His accomplishments are a testament to hard work. He made himself," Tyre said.

He smiles.

"There's nothing better," he says, "than seeing a kid rewarded for their hard work."

Contact Tom Keller at 373-7034 or tom.keller@news-record.com