When Parker Pruett graduated from Dartmouth College in the spring after a stellar track and field career, he made the same decision many star runners make.

He wasn’t ready to stop competing.

Pruett, a Gouldsboro native who starred at Sumner Memorial High, has parlayed that desire – and the proven ability to run fast – into a roster spot on a high profile unit: the Nike Farm Team.

“Right now the Farm Team is the pre-eminent organization in the United States for training middle distance and distance runners, so people gravitate here,” Pruett said.

“Here” is East Palo Alto, Calif., where Pruett shares an apartment with three other runners.

In all, 70 men and women make up the Nike Farm Team stable of talent.

Among his new teammates: former Old Town High School and University of Maine star Dereck Treadwell and ex-Yarmouth High and William & Mary All-American Matt Lane.

Pruett said he initially got in contact with a member of the Farm Team and expressed an interest, then met with Stanford coach and Nike Farm Team director Vin Lananna at the Maine Distance Festival.

“He was very positive and said, ‘We’d like to have you,'” Pruett said.

The team’s goal, Pruett said, is to develop runners for the Olympics. For now, he is supplied with a limited amount of equipment, along with coaching, access to sports medicine, and travel funding.

“There’s a standard: You have to qualify for the USA Track & Field nationals, and if you do that, you get more pairs of shoes, and a massage once a week,” Pruett said. “It’s an incentive-based system.”

It’s also not a full-time occupation, Pruett points out.

“I’m still trying to find a job. I’m not having much success right now,” Pruett said. “The dot-com industry was what was supporting Silicon Valley, and that dot-com bubble burst last year.”

That has the Dartmouth English major just scraping by for the moment.

“Times are a little tough out here in Palo Alto,” he said with a chuckle. “I’m going to end up at Starbucks or some photo place. Not the greatest job, but it will pay the rent.”

Pruett will embark on his first competitive challenge this week, as he leaves for Japan as a member of a non-Nike team that will participate in the Ekiden Relay.

He’ll join seven other former Ivy Leaguers on a team that was determined by a Sept. 16 5-kilometer race in Providence, R.I.

“Usually [the Ivy League team] doesn’t do very well as a whole because we’re recent college graduates, and we’re going up against Japan’s best, from what I hear,” Pruett said.