There's no slowing down for the LSU Tigers' Trindon Holliday this summer

Now things really speed up for Trindon Holliday. And that's saying plenty.

Next week he's off to Eugene, Ore., to compete in the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. From there, if he runs fast enough at Hayward Field, there will be a spot for him on the Team USA squad in August at the IAAF World Championships.

And some time after that he'll have to decide -- quickly -- if he wants to turn pro and make a living on the track, or head back to LSU for another football season and maybe one last indoor track season.

"Right now it's something to think about, " Holliday said. "I'm just going to take it day by day, and after the USA Trials I'll make a decision about what I'm going to do."

All that barely left him time to celebrate becoming the fastest man in Division I track, and one of the fastest in the world. That's the crown Holliday gets to wear after dusting the field in a time of 10.00 seconds in the 100 meters at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships last week, his time tying for the second-fastest run by an American this year (behind Mike Rodgers' 9.94) and good enough, at long last, for him to become an NCAA champion.

"It was a neat feeling, after chasing that dream for three years, " Holliday said. "It was just an emotional high. It was everything I imagined it would be. Since I was young I dreamed of being a national champion in something, and I felt pretty good about myself."

He should, because everyone knows that track and field is where Holliday is going to earn his money as a professional athlete.

Sure, he has created a handful of highlights as a specialty receiver and running back at LSU, who takes handoffs and zips around the corner on reverses and is a touchdown waiting to happen as a kick and punt returner. Three times, he has been SEC Special Teams Player of the Week.

But even Coach Les Miles acknowledges where the future lies for the 5-foot-5, 164-pound speedster. Miles this spring freed Holliday, a scholarship football player, to emphasize track, and to not worry so much about spring football practice.

There's no debating the result.

"I had done about five days of practice in the spring, but they weren't letting me do much contact because they knew I had track, " Holliday said. "It allowed me to go out there and do some of those things, (then) to go back to the track and run a fast time.

"This is the first year that I can actually say I was injury-free, and I felt pretty good throughout the (track) season."

Good enough to become the national champion, a perch he had approached twice before.

Last year Holliday finished third in the 100, and in 2007 he was the national runner-up. And he advanced to the semifinals of the 100 at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials.

He was a step or two away from making Team USA for the Summer Games in Beijing, perhaps less than that of being a member of the 400-meter relay team.

But the American sprinters were embarrassed, as were the world's other 100-meter sprinters, by Jamaican world record holder Usain Bolt, who ran away from the field en route to becoming the fastest man in history. And the relay team imploded, failing even to get the baton around the track.

Holliday, meanwhile, avoided the stain of either of those results. He was playing football for the Tigers, and later capping his collegiate outdoor career with the prize he most coveted.

"We didn't win the team championship but I accomplished a big goal that I'd been trying to accomplish in three years, " he said.

But he barely has had time to savor it.

The USA outdoor championships beckon and after that, possibly a run at the World Championships. And after that, the decision of whether to join the track circuit or remain a Tiger.

"(The Trials) will be a big factor in determining what I do, " he said. "It'll determine where I see myself and where I go from there."

Whatever decision he makes, he'll have to do it fast. But then, with Holliday, we hardly can expect it any other way.