Cabada has an amazing story. He is a distance runner at a little NAIA school called Virginia Intermont College who grew up in Fresno as the only-child (at the time) of a single mom on welfare. He was a runt of a kid, whose father was in and out of jail. He got into trouble, did some drugs, broke some laws, the usual stuff when you grow up in rough parts of town.

But around his junior year at Buchanan High School, he grew into a tall, talented distance runner and went to Arkansas on a scholarship. He didn't do much at Arkansas, then got homesick and transferred to Fresno State, then went back to Arkansas, dropped out, worked construction for eight months, then enrolled at an NAIA school in North Dakota -- he was running out of NCAA eligibility, after all -- then followed Scott Simmons, the coach there, to Virginia Intermont.

Whatever happened to Cabada in Virginia it worked, because he won seven individual cross country and track national titles there. Granted, that was NAIA. It was an accomplishment, but nothing that would ever make SportsCenter. Of all the runners at little private church schools, he was the best, for whatever that's worth.

This spring, though, he posted times that moved him into the big leagues. What kind of jump are we talking? At the Mt. SAC Relays, on April 13, he ran a 13:34 in the 5,000 meters. That is still the sixth fastest time any American has run in 2006. College. Pro. Whatever. If they held the Olympic Trials right now, Fernando Cabada would be ranked sixth in the 5k. A couple years ago, his best time was 14:26, so he's improved, to understate it dramatically.

Then, on April 21, he passed two NCAA champions like they were dragging snow plows the last mile of the Oregon Invitational 10k. He won in 28:25, which is still the eighth-fastest of any American this year. One of those NCAA champions, Arizona's Robert Cheseret, a Kenyan, is featured in the latest Sports Illustrated because he just won the 1,500, the 5,000 AND the 10,000 at the Pac-10 championships. That's the guy Cabada beat by 20 seconds in Oregon.

Point is, the guy is good, and he is good at many distances. A week after Oregon he set a course record, 1:04.57, at the Country Music Half Marathon in Nashville, Tenn., and won by seven minutes.

On May 13, he left behind a field of professional Kenyans, ran 1:14.21, and set the American record at the 25k national championships in Grand Rapids, Mich. (That's 4 minute, 48 second pace for 15 consecutive miles, in case you weren't feeling out of shape at this point.) The 25k might not be a popular distance in the U.S., but the record had stood since 1991 and was set by Ed Eyestone, a former Olympian. Cabada beat it by 17 seconds and the fastest Kenyan by nearly a minute.

Listen to Cabada's quote from the Grand Rapids Press after the race: "I have the attitude. I'm not afraid of anybody. I tried to break (the Kenyans). I looked at their faces. I thought they were weak, so I pushed them, tested them, messed with them. Then, one by one, I ran away from them."

When was the last time you heard a quote like that from a distance runner? The guy has confidence.

But even though Cabada was running all these national events, he was still a member of the Virginia Intermont team and was going to run in his last NAIA championships, which this year just so happen to be at Fresno Pacific, in Fresno, where Cabada grew up, where his mother and family still live. The coaches at Buchanan made up shirts for everyone to wear at the meet Thursday, when Cabada would be winning the 10k.

See what I mean about the feel-good story? It was all there. Overcoming adversity. The kid from the wrong side of Fresno at a small, no-name school. The superior athletic achievement. And the happy homecoming. My article ran in Thursday's Fresno Bee.

But on May 15, Cabada signed with an agent, Ray Flynn, who represents Alan Webb. He told a reporter about it in this article, which was posted last week. Someone read it and alerted the NAIA, which said Cabada had forfeited his amateur status because of this NAIA rule:

Article 7, Section D, #7: "Entering into an agreement of any kind to compete in professional athletics, with either a professional sports organization or with any individual or group of individuals authorized to represent the athlete with a professional sports organization."

These aren't interpretations the NAIA usually has to make because its athletes don't usually need agents. Either way, it was a silly move by Cabada. He wanted to sign a deal with Nike or Reebok as soon as his college career was over -- he's been borrowing money from his coach to go to national meets -- and he needed an agent to negotiate it. Hard to blame him for being eager. (He had $45 to his name at the 25k championships.) Not running at the NAIA championships doesn't mean anything at this point, but he really wanted to show off for the hometown crowd.

The NAIA told Cabada and his coach he could run on Thursday morning. Simmons didn't know he'd signed with an agent, but he still didn't think it fell under that rule because it wasn't a contract to compete, it's a contract to negotiate a contract to run. "If he never wanted to run, his agent couldn't make him," Simmons said Thursday night as the 10k was going on.

True. But it didn't ease the disappointment. Cabada stood next to him watching the race. The crowd wondered what happened to the guy they'd come to see.