DyeStatCal Female Athlete of Week September 10/07 - 10/11/02
Babey Wagnew (Helix, La Mesa) - San Diego Section

Game face on - Babey Wagnew (Helix, La Mesa) readies for the start at Stanford - Right Wagnew leads approaching the mile during his 15:03 win Stanford Div II

Babey Wagnew (Helix, La Mesa)

San Diego has had a super tradition of distance running in recent decades. From the great teams of Joe Brooks, Mike Muirhead and others that date from way back in the 1950's and 1960's there have always been special runners from the city along the coast at the state’s farther most southerly point. One of the best handful of races ever seen by this author was between Armando Valencia and Otis Martin in the Aztec Invitational in the mid-1960's, a period during which Tim Danielson (Chula Vista) ran a sub 4 minute mile as an area prep. The tradition continued with Thom Hunt (4:02.7 indoors for a mile), and others down through Foot Locker National Champ Marc Davis and recent stars. There is a good group currently racing up and down the hills in San Diego, with Troy Swier chosen as our DyeStatCal Male Athlete of the Week earlier in the season. Troy has been kept very honest in his divisional efforts the last couple of seasons with Babey Wagnew (Helix, La Mesa), an African immigrant who is one of the State’s best, and this Week’s DyeStatCal Athlete of the Week.

Babey’s season thus far was capped by one of those super divisional races in the Stanford Invite, where he took Division II at 15:03, pulling away early, and recording one of the day’s quicker times. He chased Michael Hadden (Woodbridge, Irvine) at the Woodbridge Invite the week previous, with both Hadden and he taking down the old Eleventh grade course record in that race.

A slight, thin star in the east African mode who seems to move effortlessly over the ground, Babey was at his best in the Stanford Meet, edging away from the pack after the first mile, and eventually winning by nearly 100 meters. We did have the chance to talk to him at the Stanford Meet, where he indicated that he had slightly upped his mileage between his soph and junior year, working more on his “tempo” running to build up his strength for a good finish. He felt the finishing kick was one area where he needed to fine tune his competitive abilities in the big meets. Soft-spoken and very relaxed, he did race 9:15.51 for 5th in the second level race over 3200m at Arcadia last April for his best track performance. With the Foot Locker National Finals in San Diego in December, local runners like Babey have special motivation to go for a “run in the park” close to Christmas just down the street from home at Balboa Park in the footsteps of those San Diego stars came before him in that National competition--Kira Jorgensen, Milena Glusac, Mebrathom Keflezighi, and Marc Davis, among others!

Congratulations Babey - continued best of luck

Doug Speck

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