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1987 Twenty Years Ago INSTALLMENT THREE
Twenty years ago in 1987 it was the first California State High School Cross Country Championship year, which as we earlier stated, was the greatest single occurrence for the sport within the Golden State. Excitement accelerated immediately in all corners of the state with no longer complicated compilations on paper trying to sort out who was really the best when it counted, with the great situation at Woodward Park in Fresno providing annually a great setting to settle it "out on the course." Where the sport has come to in 2007 is a part of this process, with the quality and quantity of great folks in our sport currently the result of a couple decades of building around this state meet series. Another grand fall is rolling, but let us continue a bit of our looks back to that first campaign with the state meet at the end of the schedule! MID-OCTOBER THROUGH EARLY NOVEMBER 1987 As the fall and the season made its turn into mid-October and the championship period of November, the weather cools down a tad and hopefully the rain kind of stays away and a team can gather for a big championship push. 1987 carried the promise of a season for all that went a step further, a State Championship!! Meets like the Mt. SAC Invitational carried a much more significant message with their results, and the most successful programs looked to end their seasons in Fresno in November. At Mt. SAC the Boys from McFarland crushed its Division III competition (remember only 3 divisions when state meet started) there, with South Hills, behind star Karen Hecox, taking the Girls Friday Smaller Schools Div III run. Saturday had the Arroyo Boys take Palos Verdes 79-86 in the Boys' sweeps event, with Palos Verdes the Girls Saturday Sweeps run. Kira Jorgensen (Rancho Buena Vista) took frosh star Deena Drossin of Agoura in the Girls Individual Sweeps run. Enough intro - read on as those who took part in 1987 lead us through their recollections of the season up through mid-November. State Meet week we will run a final installment by the group (which is next week, my gosh!). Coach Jim Polite of Walnut, Jaime Ortega, one of the leaders of the Arroyo HS 1987 squad, and Stacy Pando, member of the 1987 Newport Harbor team joins us for this go-round. Read on------------------about broken toes in puddle fights, coaches
who intimate that even the most successful have their moments of
wondering what directions the crew is going, what it was like to
be part of that first year of the state meet-------------------------
October was an interesting month for us. We had run extremely well in the early part to win the Stanford Invitational beating a strong Bend, Oregon, team by 66 points. This was our third year running at Stanford, and what we had learned from the previous two trips was that the travel and disruption in our normal training usually led us to run poorly the following week, so we usually planned to not race for two weeks following the Northern Cal trip; however, Gene Blakenship, the tremendous coach at Hart, was a very good friend, and he was trying to get the Los Angeles County Championships meet off the ground—it was the Saturday following Stanford. It did not fit well with our training plan, but we rested during the week and went to the College of the Canyon course with the idea of running well as a group, and, whew, did we stink up the joint. Our focus was not what it should been, and we were lucky to get out of the meet with a victory. However, in some ways, it helped us to re-focus on our seasonal goals. Up to that point, we had run well in every meet and our training was right on schedule, so what it taught us was that we needed to stay intensely focused mentally both in our training and racing if we were going to accomplish the goals we had set the previous summer. We came back the following week in the Sweepstakes race at the Mt. SAC Invitational and ran very tough, placing four runners in the top nine places in the midst of a very strong field, and it turned out we would need all of those efforts to hold off Palos Verdes, coached by Joe Kelly, one of the greatest coaches in California cross country history. Palos Verdes ran very strong over the last mile of the course and finished just nine points behind us. Our team time of 79:05 was pretty impressive, considering this was the 1987 Mt. SAC course, which at that time was pretty much consisted of a cart path on the valley loop, sand and rock going up the switch backs and even worse going up poop out—nothing compared to the super-smooth-wide-highway it has become in recent years. After Mt. SAC we knew we had a relatively easy stretch through our league meet and into the CIF-SS prelims, so after a week of relatively easy running following SAC, it allowed us to drop the volume and increase the intensity of our workouts to their highest of the season. Our repetition/interval progression had taken us to a point where in the first week of November—3 ½ weeks from the state meet--our top seniors were able to do four repeat miles under 4:50 with a rest of less than three minutes. Our league final was un-eventful, as was the CIF-SS prelims. In the CIF-Finals, we had a bit of an advantage over some of the teams we would face in the state meet. We were in Division 3A at that time (in the old classification system, Division 4A was the largest), and Palos Verdes and most of the other strong SS teams were in the 4A division-including, by the way, Dana Hills—coached by Tim Butler, and Corona Del Mar, coached by Bill Sumner (pretty impressive to realize that both Coach Butler and Coach Sumner have been producing great teams at the highest levels for more than two decades). Those teams in the 4A race had to really taper prior to the Finals and then go all out just to earn a ticket to the state meet. We did taper somewhat, but we also wanted to maintain our training intensity. We ran well winning the Division 3A title, scoring 51 points to Coach Bob Loney’s Upland squad, who also ran very well scoring 67 points. At that time, there were only thee divisions in the state meet, and that meant we would face Dana Hills, Palos Verdes and the rest of the best teams in the state in the Division 1 Championship. One other interesting note about that first state meet was that there was also a two week time gap between the SS Finals and the state meet. Our training was right on track where we wanted to be. We felt there was still some sharpening and some confidence building that we could do over those next two weeks.
The 1987 cross country season was rather intriguing. As I look back (20 years WOW!) I find it amazing at the depth that we had on our team. We went through league dual meets and some invitational without having anywhere between four to seven of our top runners competing and were still able to defeat the competition. During the middle and later parts of the season the focus in training changed to getting in quality and intense workouts, thus the reason why we wouldn't compete in all the races and rather save it for the competitive ones such as Mt. Sac Invitational and league finals, so that we may peak at the right time. In late October at the Mt. Sac Invitational the time and effort we invested in the workouts commenced to pay dividends as we had one of our best races of the season in the Varsity Sweepstakes race. We placed four runners in the top 15; Gerardo Puentes 11th (15:46), Jeff Gilkey 10th (15:45), Derrick Powers 3rd (15:34) and myself in 2nd (15:28). Our team time of 79:05 ranked in the top ten at Mt. Sac and the 5th fastest ever by a CIF Southern Section school at that time. We were able to defeat power houses such as Palos Verdes, Corona Del Mar, Vacaville, Upland, Hart, and Walnut. Five days later we had the Mission Valley League Finals which were held at Bonelli Park in San Dimas. That week we had heavy rain which altered the regular course (dirt, grass and hills) and a rain course was created hours before the races. The new course consisted of asphalt and tough hills with an estimated distance of 3.5 miles (all the runners think it was more in the range of 3.75...it sure felt like it!!). Our varsity team was able to place its seven runners in the top 12. Mike Deitch 8th and Doug Jones 11th earned all league second team while Gerardo puentes 4th 19:29, Jeff Gilkey 3rd 19:22, Derrick Powers 2nd 19:17, and Jaime Ortega 1st 19:00 (Mission Valley League Runner of the Year) earned all league first team. Once again, the depth of our entire squad was demonstrated as the league awarded 30 medals in the three divisions combined (Varsity, Junior Varsity, and Frosh/Soph) and Arroyo took home 23 out of the 30 medals. The pieces of the puzzle were starting to fall in place and the future looked promising as we took the first step towards the first ever California State Cross Country Championships by qualifying for the CIF Prelims
1987 Cross Country Season – From 1987 to 2000, the Bellarmine cross country team was fortunate
to participate in the California State Cross Country Championships.
Prior to that, the last meet of the season for the team was the
CIF Northern California Championships. This was billed as the State
Championship. Bellarmine was fortunate enough to place 1st, 5th,
3rd, and 5th again in its 4 appearances. After participating in
this meet for 4 years, it became clear to many of us up north that
a true meet should include the entire state. The representatives
of the different sections of the state voted and 1987 became the
real first state meet. The Bellarmine team was excited and hoped
to do well in their section qualifying and be able to participate
in this inaugural meet. The beginning of the season go off to a
fast start, the middle of the season was a mixed bag of good runs,
academic testing and injuries. When November loomed on the horizon,
the team was ready to compete. November became with the West
Catholic Athletic League Cross Country Finals. The team was undefeated and
the finals were being held on the Crystal Springs Cross Country
Course in Belmont, California. This is the same course that would
be used for the section finals. The Bells won the team title for
the eighth consecutive time and were primed for the CIF/CCS Subsection.
The daily workouts seemed to be getting easier, more speed was
emphasized and diet and rest were taking center stage. College
testing was over, everyone was healthy, and it felt as if the season
was on the up swing. (Thanks Hank Lawson with your great history stuff to help here - Doug Speck)
After a very impressive performance at Mt. Sac the team started to realize its possibilities for both winning CIF and placing high at the State Meet. What really impressed me at this point is the total confidence of our young athletes. I think a coach can do a lot to motivate their athletes, yet it amazed me what affect the young leadership brought to a group of returning athletes. Everybody was caught up in the highly positive, hard working attitude of athletes like Deena Drossin, Tiffany York, and Bryan Dameworth. On the boys side, Peter Oviatt had been a very strong role model for the team. When Bryan arrived the previous year it gave Pete someone to really work hard with and support the attitude I was trying to instill in this program. Now it seemed that everyone was caught up in it. I have to say as a coach it couldn’t have been much easier. What really stands out from those years past is how much fun these individuals found in the team, the workouts and especially the competition. Shortly after Mt. Sac this fun took a freshman-like direction. Upon arriving back at school from a rain soaked workout, Deena and Tiffany got into a splash fight in a large water puddle. The result ended up with two broken toes as their feet collided while kicking water on each other. A quick examination in the training room found that both had a rapidly swollen middle toe. That horrible feeling in my stomach, I can still remember! Again, these two individuals showed their stuff. The next day they had been to their doctors, gotten the ok to tape the toes to the adjoining toe, and never missed a beat. They did feel pain but never once considered not running. From this highly positive and enjoyable attitude I found a mantra that we used in our team huddle until the end of my career at Agoura; “Have pride in yourself, pride in your team and pride in Agoura High.” This ended each of our team huddles from that point on. Another message I found to be very important to this and all our following teams was, “ I run best when I’m confident and relaxed,” and this team seemed to be the very meaning of that statement. We now were in our peaking mode as league finals approached. As the volume dropped, the quality was amazing. I’m not one to drop the mileage a lot. I think major changes can shock the system too much. We did cut the long run down quite a bit and changed up some of our medium days. One of my favorite medium day workouts was a grass workout on the football field. We would do a mile warm up, drills and strides. It would then be followed by a 3 mile run at an increasing pace, the same warm up routine as we did on our hard days. When we got back to the track they would do 20 minutes of easy, medium, hard. This workout involved jogging the width of the end zone on the football field and running 120 yards down the sidelines alternating 3 different paces. Easy was defined as the pace one would do a 6 mile aerobic run at. Medium was run at 3 mile race pace and Hard was run at mile race pace. The end zone jogs served as the recovery. Throughout the year we ran our strides barefoot. So at this point if the athlete wanted, they could do this workout barefoot. Our hard days were mostly focused on doing 400’s with 1:30 recovery. I wasn’t one to control my athletes a lot. They ran these efforts pretty fast. The rule I put on them was that they couldn’t get ugly. They had to maintain smooth quality form throughout. League finals would only see one team (the always strong Nordhoff High teams led by Ken Reeves) as a real challenge. The girls had a relatively easy outing. The boys had to handle a strong challenge. Both came out with titles and now the sights were set for CIF and State.
During the summer of ’87 the team and I set our goals for the season: win league, win CIF for the 2nd time, and win the first state meet in Division II. I didn’t say much about these throughout the season; however, I would overhear the boys reminding themselves of their objectives, especially when things weren’t going smoothly or we would lose to certain teams in the big invitationals. In mid October approximately six weeks until State, we began to add speed into the workouts. After about three weeks of this there usually is a flat period and it hit around the Mt SAC Inv. We didn’t do well there – 6th place. CDM, the main opposition for the State title in Div II at least in the South, was still beating us along with other squads we had been competing with the past two years. However , things began to improve rapidly. They had a good league finals – 5th man 16:25 and an 81:00 team time at MtSAC. All of the top 7 were showing good or at least consistent progress At CIF Prelims we didn’t need an all out effort, but they were pretty sharp anyway and well grouped – 80:50. At this point I felt pretty good about how it was going until I found out that Darren Walker, one of our top 5, had come down with the flu. Stacy Pando (Newport Harbor) Winning Girls Div II Squad
writes about the start of the season for her team back in 1987 1987 was an awesome season I think for all of us involved on Coach
Tweit's cross country team. He was a very involved and positive
role model for many young people, and most people liked to be around
him. He would run almost all workouts with us and give us a run
for our money. Coach Bob VanSickle (aka "popsicle" by
all of us girls), was our assistant coach at the time, and he too
was just an awesome guy (always uplifting and funny as heck). The
group of girls is also what made it an incredible experience. Every
one of them was a nice person to be around (at practice and at
a social level). We honestly could not have had more fun and laughs
together. But coach Tweit also expected a lot out of us, because
he knew what we were capable of. We respected him, so we always
worked and pushed ourselves very hard. In the four years that I
ran cross country at Newport, I can't honestly think of a single
incidence in which one of us got in a tiff or argument with one
another (pretty good for a bunch of hormonal girls ha?) The only
time we got irritated was when Maggie Steinhauser would forget
one of her shoes for the third time in one season. Doug Speck |
