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Joe Hartman's Profile on |
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P A T R I O T G A M E S !
By Joe Hartman This could be a very long conversation, but what does it actually take to turn a team from being just five people wearing the same uniform to a serious group of runners that want to run with a purpose? Some of the key elements might be dedicated and enthusiastic coaching, preparation, attitude adjustment, timely diversions and the right amount of fun, and, of course, talent. If you score Beyer High on any of the above items, compared to 2004, there is some big improvement across the board. Ruben Esparza enters his second year as boys and girls coach of Beyer. Coach Esparza was a member of the ‘newsworthy’ Texas-El Paso team that won the Division 1 cross country title in 1983. (The NCAA ultimately tagged the title with an asterisk … a little more on that below.) Under Coach Esparza’s guidance, the Patriots have established themselves as a primary contender to the Modesto Bulldogs for conference glory.
Beyer finished second in the Modesto Metro Conference last year, 8 points ahead of Amanda Innes and Grace Davis HS, but 32 points behind Katie Drueen, Erica Cuellar, and the rest of the Modesto team. The Patriots did put three girls in the Top 10 at the varsity level in the league finals at Legion Park: Crystal Esparza, 3rd (19:02), Samantha Reardon, 9th (20:52), and Yvette Castillo, 10th, (20:54). Esparza went on to finish 20th at subsections and improved upon that race at Willow Hill taking 15th in Division 1 and only missing the final state individual berth by 5 spots. The Beyer girls were 11th at Subsections last year as their season ended in Frogtown, but it’s pretty obvious that they clearly want their season to last one more week this year. And with Fairfield moving to Division 2 this week, the chances of that happening just took a big leap. The Top 3 have put in good summers and we had a chance to chat with them under the shade trees in Beyer Community Park just following the first day of school. DyeStatCal: Maybe some of the people in the Sac-Joaquin Section don't know the Beyer program all that well. But that's why we're here! Tell us a little bit about yourselves... your running background and maybe some other sports you play. Samantha (junior): This is my second year of cross country at Beyer. Last year our team came in second in League and this year we feel strong and hope to do as good or better. In addition to cross country, I also play soccer at Beyer as well as Ajax Division I Soccer. Crystal (junior): I’m Crystal Esparza and I’m a junior. I started running freshman year. I play soccer with Sam (on the Modesto Ajax comp club team). Yvette (senior): Individually, I've ran since I was a freshman, quitting soccer to do so. Eitelgeorge was a really good coach and the 2004 (or was it 2003, with Tom Peterson) varsity boys team was really motivating so I feel I did well freshman year, though I miss soccer.
DyeStatCal: Modesto High has a really strong program in your conference. They lose Erin Lewis but they are still tough. In what ways to you think you need to mimic what they do and it what ways have you done that already? Can you close the gap on them this year? Crystal: Modesto is a great team, but I don’t think we really need to copy their program. They're more into really high mileage and their speed work is more ‘all out’ with full recovery. But we're more into 40-45 miles a week with speedwork at a comfortably hard pace with shorter rest time, and it seems to be working for us. We're gonna be coming for them... we race against them our first league meet. It'll be tough. Samantha: We are a dedicated team and work well together, practicing on a daily basis. We definitely feel this year that we have what it takes to give Modesto a run for their money. Yvette: I think Modesto's team is deep, running wise. Their runners seem more dedicated at times than ours do, but that could be attributed to that fact that they've kept a steadier program over the years. We have upped our mileage though and Modesto is definitely a goal for us right now. They seem to be at least in reach whereas last year they felt like they were on a completely different level. DyeStatCal: Tell us your team and individual goals for 2006. Samantha: The team goal is to be the number one team in the league and make it to state. My individual goal for 2006 is to help my team be successful and to beat my PR. Yvette: Along with closing the gap on Modesto, our girls’ team would also like to make it to sections this year. Though are team is young, we have a lot of talent coming in and girls getting in better shape so we could be competitive this year. Individually I'm just looking to cut down my times and catch the girls Ruben tells me to go after to help the team. Crystal: I this season I have some pretty high goals for the team. I think if we keep training like we are we can get top 5 in the section and for me... I'd like to make it to state.
DyeStatCal: Tell me what you think your best race was from last year and who you think has the most potential to really give the girls’ team a boost this year - but everyone has to name someone different. Crystal: Best race was league finals where I ran 19:02. I think this season Amber Fillpot will help us out a bit, she has very good speed and her endurance is getting a lot better. Yvette: I think my best race last year was the Bronco Invitational (at Willow Hills in Folsom) because I got a lot of practice with the hills and coach was telling me how to run them better, so I got the uphill better and the downhill, too – letting go. And I think the person with the most potential for the team is Monique Hamlet because I’ve run with her before and she always tries to keep up with us and she won’t let up, so I think that will be good when it comes to a race. Samantha: I think my best race was league finals because it was my first year and I came in top ten so I thought ‘that’s pretty cool’. And my teammate Yvette pushed me through the whole thing (Note: photo of the finish is on this page). And the girl I think with the most promise is Sabrine Allen. She’s a freshman this year and every time I run next to her she’ll sprint. She has a competitive heart and I think she’ll help in the races because she’s really competitive.
DyeStatCal: Coach Ruben took over the team in August 2005. Can you tell me the biggest change that's occurred since then? And Crystal, how about a little insight into running for your father. Samantha: Coach Ruben is very dedicated and always trying to make us believe in ourselves. He is one of the biggest reasons why I run cross country. His positive attitude and knowledge of the sport helps me strive to continue to improve myself. Crystal: The biggest change in the coaching is that he actually coaches us. Our last coach just didn’t care and practice was pretty much optional. But my dad knows what he’s doing and he’s so passionate about the sport. He knows how to make the team want to do their best for him and for themselves and because of that the team has improved so much from 2004. I really like running for my dad. He’s the best coach I've had and part of that is probably because he knows how to push me, and he also knows when I’m not giving a workout all that I've got. He also knows what type of workouts work best for me. Yvette: Ruben becoming coach brought heart back into the team. My sophomore year we didn't really have a coach that had the running knowledge he did and the love he has for the sport. We can trust that he trains us properly.
On their Monday training run, we chased the Beyer team though some peach orchards in the heart of the fertile San Joaquin Valley. Two of the boys out in front were Masis Hagobian – a junior – and Max Wu – a sophomore. Every now and then, as a coach, you might get a kid that deserves Most Valuable and Most Improved in the same season. Coach Esparza may be fortunate enough to have two of those types in Masis and Max. Somewhat dissatisfied by their third place finish last season, Masis and Max are talking a good game in August, and have put the work in to deliver. DyeStatCal: Masis, last year you were 16th in the league (18:26). Tell us some of the progress you’ve made over the summer and what your goals are for this fall Masis: It’s been totally different this past summer from any other summer. We’ve constantly been training this year – me and Max, for sure have been training. We’ve taken it a lot more seriously this year. I have an understanding with Max and with Shaun that this year we are no joke. We’re going for first place actually. We’re very serious. We don’t want to train this hard and get the same result as last year. DyeStatCal: Max, you were 17th at leagues last year (18:27). What are some of your goals because Masis seems like he means business. Max: His vision is that we are the team; he’s setting the goals. We really want to accomplish it this year. Last year we did pretty good, we got third in the league, but I think everyone wants to get first. Last year we didn’t train the whole summer – we started about two weeks before school started. This year we started right off the bat. When summer started, we started training. DyeStatCal: Why don’t you explain a little bit the difference in attitude since Coach Esparza has taken over. Masis: Huge difference. Big difference. Complete turnaround actually. My first year was 2004. Cross country wasn’t a serious thing. No one looked at times, no one looked at results. It was like whatever you want to run today, you can run. Coach Esparza took the job the year after that after the previous coach left the team and the school as well. We didn’t know him but he told us what his background was in running and we were actually impressed to have him coach so it was a privilege. So to have such a big turnaround, it’s going to show that we’ve gotten some great leadership. Last year’s lack of leadership from our seniors was also one of our problems. So third place was our result last year but…. Coach Esparza has opened us up to a lot of invitationals, getting us out of town and out of Stanislaus County. We have a race down south and one in Sacramento and one in San Francisco as well. I actually never got to get out of town and compete against other kids my age, so to have him come out and get us familiar with other towns and other routes, getting us familiar with hills and all of that is great. DyeStatCal: How about you Max? How has coach helped you and the team and has your enthusiasm for running been elevated? Max: Well from what I heard the previous seasons were not serious, but Coach Ruben last year, he really brought the standards up for us. He really believes in us and he really thinks we can go all the way. He’s one of those coaches that’s disciplined but he’s also a really fun coach. He takes a lot of time and effort to take us to all of these places. DyeStatCal: What meet are you looking forward to the most? Max: Mt. SAC. It’s supposed to be pretty awesome. Masis: Southern California, that’s the one I’m looking forward to. Can’t wait for that one. I’m just looking to place at every invitational. I’m hungry this year. DyeStatCal: Tell us more about your summer. Max: I think we were hitting about 40 miles, he’s getting us up there. He wants us to train now on speed. We got us up to 8 miles and 9 miles and he said he was ramping us up every weekend one mile up, but he wants to work on our speed so we’re doing speed workouts now. Masis: Right after track I’m going to maybe estimate probably a two-week gap from track being over to us practicing again. We’d communicate often with coach and I let him know that I was going down south to LA and I picked up a (running) journal. Every morning you’d see me at five or six o’clock in the morning out running in Santa Clarita. DyeStatCal: A few hills there. Hard to find a flat spot? Masis: Hills. All hills. I was out there running hills every day. My physical aspects - and mental - everything has turned around for me. I’m actually confident going into the season and opening the season with a bang. People probably aren’t looking at us as a threat, but they just don’t know what’s coming. DyeStatCal: Let’s do a thumbnail sketch on some of the other runners on the team, one at a time Masis: First guy right we’d point out is Shaun Dobbs. We kind of lost him around the summertime, but after talking with him a few times and with Coach talking to him, that he’s actually understood that this isn’t a joking kind of sport anymore. It’s competitive. Coming into the season, he didn’t look at it as a team effort, that it was singles – Masis over here, Max over here – and there wasn’t any motivation or anything. Motivating Shaun - to tell him we want you up here because it all matters about points – he understood that and he’s thinking it up to challenge himself and push himself. All our routine runs that we do every week - he’s up there and sprinting past us sometimes and we’re coming right back at him. Coming into the season, he looked at me and Max as a faraway challenge. But after motivating him, it’s been a turnaround for him, as well. Max: Fourth guy would be Andrew Fromuth. Last year he was a good runner. I don’t think he believes in himself that much. He thinks he’s not that good of a runner but really he has a lot of potential to be up there. I think he’s getting the point. I talked to him a couple weeks ago and talked to him how he needs to step it up and we really need for him. His attitude’s changed. He’s been getting into the runs lately. We were having morning practices in the summer, but it’s just hard for him to get up. Masis: Fifth runner, Jeff Chui, a sophomore. He joined us during summer. He was good in the hurdles, but ever since cross country started he’s been up there with us. He wants to run just as far as we do from the very beginning. He did it – he got in some trouble (doing the distance) – but he got through it. We’ll reach the ending spot on a run and on the way back, when Jeff comes back we’ll just say “Turn around with us”, but Jeff will just look at us and say “No, no – I want to turn around where you guys turned at”. And we’ll say “ OK Jeff, we turned around at that tree way over there.” What’s funny about the 2-3-4-5 is that they there all sophomores.
Masis went on to point out that he’s gone so far as to head to the Beyer track – on the last Saturday night before school no less – to make sure he got his daily run in that his job almost cost him. We next had an insightful interview with Coach Esparza that left little doubt about the momentum of this team in the immediate future. DyeStatCal: Coach tell us a little bit about how you came to be the coach, how long you want to stay, and the philosophy you’re bringing to the team. Coach Esparza: I don’t know how long I want to stay yet – at least until my daughter graduates. How I came about being the coach is they had a coaches’ meeting where the coaches meet the parents and vice versa and there was no coach and the athletic director called me that evening and asked me to take over the job and I said, “Yeah, I’d be happy to do it”, because I’ve been running track my entire life. So that’s how I became the coach. DyeStatCal: What was your best event? Coach Esparza: 800 meters, just like my daughter. DyeStatCal: Exactly. She started off with a 2:29 her freshman year. Coach Esparza: Yes, I ran 1:49 my freshman year at UTEP. DyeStatCal: How did you end up there? Coach Esparza: I ran for El Modena High School in Orange County. I ran a 4:10 at Arcadia and ended up getting a scholarship down there. We got in trouble my freshman year. That’s a whole ‘nother story. We got in a lot of trouble there. DyeStatCal: For recruiting Ruben Esparza? Coach Esparza: (Laughs) No, no, that wasn’t it. We had me, two Kenyans, two Tanzanians, a South African, and a Norwegian. They were basically all professionals and here comes this stupid freshman. They were making a lot of money. Xerox paid one of our guys like $25,000 to wear their uniform at the New York Marathon. I had no idea this stuff was going on and I’m sitting in my room one night and I hear “Coach Heidebrecht has left the country”. And I said, “My coach has left the country?” Next thing the NCAA comes in here - guys in suits asking us a bunch of questions. But we won nationals (cross country) in 1983 before we got in trouble. DyeStatCal: Well back to your philosophy. It already seems like there’s been improvement with these kids, especially upstairs. Coach Esparza: That was kind of the main thing, to get them to enjoy running first. A lot of them didn’t have a big running background and getting kids to like running is kind of hard. People flock to football and soccer and basketball and the other sports. To make running enjoyable is a main priority. Then we started on a base, kind of like Jack Daniels’ formula. And one of my friends Mark Ochoa ran for Coach Vigil at Adams State and I got a lot of advice from him. So my philosophy is high mileage. The Kenyans – they put in over a hundred miles a week. The Tanzanians did (too). And it wasn’t just garbage miles. It was high quality miles. And then I learned a lot from these kids (at Beyer) and Coach Fillpot because I come from a background of huge base and lots of miles and you hammer. And you get here and you’ve got high school kids – and I’ve never coached high school kids before – and you really have to back down. And so I learned a lot from them. Like Masis and these guys, they can hammer. But you get these new kids in here and (I heard) “Hey Coach, you’re going to chase these kids away. Maybe you ought to do something different for them.” So we have different groups. But my philosophy is heavy mileage early, work towards a peak. Last year 36 of our 38 people PR’d at league. I like the way it worked out. We get a lot of support here so it’s not like I’m by myself here. The principal actually went with us to Half Dome. We just took off at 5:30 in the morning, got there, hiked Half Dome (photo on this page), and came back. DyeStatCal: Give us a reason for some of the meets you’ve chosen. Coach Esparza: Lodi first, I know the coach over there so we talked over the summer and he wanted us to go there. And then I saw the (DyeStatCal) article on Woodcreek and I looked at some of the times and I said “You know, that would be a good test for us”. And then Lowell, my old high school (El Modena) runs (at) that meet and they win it so I thought, “Hey, we’re going to go up there.” And Mt SAC – it’s tradition-rich. 37,000 runners were there last year. I’m really trying to introduce running to these kids and I couldn’t think of a better place to go than Mt. SAC. DyeStatCal: What are your girls and boys varsity teams capable of this year? Coach Esparza: The girls are looking to take Modesto this year. That’s the goal. It’ll be tough but they have the talent and potential to do it. The guys finished the year strong last year – 3rd in league. And we would like to improve on that – maybe take second place and move on to sections. The girls are going for Top 5 in the section this year. We’re actually having our goal-setting meeting later this week. I have my goals in my head, but it doesn’t matter what I believe in. They need to believe in it so they’re going to sit down, have some pizza, and come up with some goals.
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