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Fitting time with the 2004 Athens Olympics starting that the Amateur Athletic Foundation, the group charged with using some of the profits from the 1984 Olympics, was a sponsor, along with VS Athletics, of the 8/14 Cross Country Clinic in Southern California. As one who answered the call during that summer 1984 (my how time flies, seems like just a couple of years ago), and put in work at the Olympic Trials, and a couple of weeks of up at 5 am and home at 11 pm for the actual Olympics, good to see the money going to a great cause. Given the charge of being responsible for the Field Event equipment for the games of 1984 spent most of my time picking up trash, stopping umbrellas from blowing away on the Coliseum Floor, and picking up cigarette butts from the French Pole Vaulters (boy, they could smoke a lot during a single field event, conceal it from the crowd, and leave those butts under the umbrellas). Great memories of spending time in a shed at the top of the Olympic Coliseum tunnel with some trips each day down to the "twilight zone," (Coliseum floor during the games). Interesting fact in the 1984 Games - we were lucky the Russians boycotted, as their hammer throwers with the width of the Coliseum floor would have landed the implements somewhere around lane 3 on the other side of the facility. Fortunately with the rest of the world back about 20-30 feet behind the Russians at that time in the event, the actual competitors' huge implements landed only somewhere around the Long Jump runway on the entire other side of the Coliseum facility from the ring. (I was the "official hammer catcher of the Olympics" for a time day of the finals until that joke became serious when one hammer nearly clobbered one of the Swiss Timing computer set-ups, which I am sure ran more than a few thousand dollars back at that time). Hammer implements do not do good things to items like Pole Vault Runways, as one got away and landed on the north Pole Vault Runway, definitely leaving a flattened spot there!

Anyway, enough reminiscing, congrats to Jacqueline Hanson and Tim O'Rourke and crowd for another super effort with AAF's funds, and helping to lead us into another fun Fall season!! - Doug Speck

01 Bill Tokay Ventura Jacqueline Hanson AAF.jpg	02 Chuck Woolridge College Park Key Speaker.jpg
03 C Woolridge College Park Training Info.jpg	04 VS Athletics - Venue and Springo Event Sponsors.jpg
05 VS Athletics - Event Sponsors Tremendous Range of Products.jpg	06 Jim Tracy University San Francisco Coach.jpg
07 Jon Zimmerman Orange Lutheran Coach.jpg	08 Ken Reeves Ventura County Coach.jpg
09 Jacqueline Hanson AAF and Jim Tracy Univ SF.jpg	10 Sharon Zimmerman Nutrition and Female Running.jpg
11 Clinic Sign Ups for the big crowd.jpg	12 Clinic Organizer Tim ORourke.jpg
13 West HS of Torrance Group at Clinic.jpg