1981!
1981! 1981!
**HISTORICAL FLASHBACK SPECIAL
FEATURE!**
Photos by Don Gosney, Fine Flicks
At left, Kenny Robinson, Walter Murray,
Pete Richardson and Ulysee Walker roared around
the all-weather track at Cerritos College to smash the national
record in 3:08.94. At right, Nedrea
Rodgers, Robyne Johnson, Sharon Ware and Tanaya King smoked through
the exchange zones
to a 45.27 national record. Berkeley athletes were part of 4 of
the 5 national records that weekend!
Track
& Field Fans Were In Hog Heaven!
Standing-room-only crowd of 14,205
witnessed 5 national/12 state records in 30 hours!
By Richard
Gonzalez - Editor, DyeStatCal - re-posted from 2003
(NORWALK) -- It
was June 5th of 1981. Polyester was in, "Bette Davis Eyes"
pulsated atop the pop charts, an actor played the leading role in
the White House, AIDS was discovered (yep, on this very day) and
no one in the Southland had ever heard of Mondo track surfacing.
Oh yeah, and the most memorable hours in
prep track and field history were about to unfold.
Fast forward
22 years to 1986 to the exact same Cerritos College venue...
** ** ** **
Polyester is coming back in (well, some
wish you to believe that), bloodshot-eyed musicians top the pop
charts, 'actors' continue running the White House/government, there's
no cure for AIDS, and 'Mando' is perhaps the name of the next 'star'
about to be unveiled on "American Idol."
And over at Cerritos College, a male pair
of former state 3200-meter champions lead a depth parade of in-season
eight-lap talent never before seen in a single state. No stunning
matter, however, as they are potentially overshadowed by a talent-laden
Long Beach Wilson female arsenal that comes along once in a blue
moon. Guess what? It's a blue-and-orange moon tonight, which means
they play a supporting role to a cache of female sprint talent in
the Long Beach Poly camp that takes center stage.
Well, almost.
There's still the Allyson Felix vs. Shalonda
Solomon mano-a-mano showdown, with all the makings of a heavyweight
prizefight, although the combatants don sleek windsuits and warm
smiles rather than silly robes and intimidating glares.
The national record in the girls 4x400
relay will be pursued fiercely. National-record assaults for girls
are also forecast in the the 4x100, the 100, the high jump, the
pole vault and the discus. In short, the national and state all-time
lists could be in for a serious bruising.
"It's going to be crazy, talent spilling
all over the track," quipped one exciteable track nut. "It'll
be the best meet ever!"
Well, not quite. After
all, can "The Greatest Meet Ever" really ever be topped?
Rewind 22 years.
** **
** **
Berkeley High of the North Coast
Section was on its way to building a dynasty. Fresh off a dominating
boys performance at the state meet at UC Berkeley's Edwards Stadium
the year before, Coach Willie White's 1981 collection now flashed
jaw-dropping talent on both the boys AND girls sides, aiming to
accomplish a sweep of the team titles for the first time in California
state history.
They arrived under calm Southland
skies, but wasted little time in creating a tornado.
On Friday of state meet weekend, the Yellowjackets
swiftly delivered a crystal-clear message this would be their show,
with Sherifa Sanders opening the meet in powerful fashion in the
trials of the 100-meter hurdles. The end result: STATE
RECORD 13.71.
Soon thereafter, the dashers took
to the track and Berkeley's Sharon Ware flashed her fast-twitch
skills. In watching her motor down the backstretch at an alarming
rate during the 4x100-meter relay, the crowd rose to its feet. Two
successful baton exchanges later, the by-product was another gleaming
outcome: STATE RECORD 45.27.
Then came the boys 4x100, where
eventual state 100-meter champion Kenny Robinson spelled Sharon
Ware along the backstretch for the Yellowjackets, but the results
were identical: Berkeley. STATE RECORD 40.86.
Mind
you, all this was just in Friday's prelims!
The action hardly let up
from there, reaching a first-day crescendo when Saugus' low hurdler
Audrey Williams scampered around the Cerritos College oval with
powerful ease, turning heads and allowing all rivals to only glimpse
the back of her jersey. The result: NATIONAL
RECORD 42.26.
Then came the first of Berkeley's
four "mega-highlights" in the meet, Walter Murray's scorcher
in what was then the 300-meter low hurdles for boys: NATIONAL
RECORD 35.79.
"Before 1981, the best
state meet in history was probably 1956 in Chico," said Hal
Harkness, meet director for this weekend's California affair. "There
were great marks all around back then, but then Berkeley came along
in 1981 and rest is history."
Without doubt, the meet-opening
national records did their part in highlighting a magical day of
qualifying ... uh... qualifying you to be considered among the best
in California history, that is.
By day's end, two new national records
and five new state records had been claimed and the prevailing sense
in the stadium was that the best was yet to come.
"Let's put it
this way, when you had a national record and all that other stuff
on the very first day, you knew Saturday was going to be good...
rrrrreeeeal good," said Mike Kennedy, girls' prep
editor for Track & Field News. "Going into the week, people
had an idea it would be a pretty strong meet, but once that happened
on Day One, it just attracted an unbelieveable crowd for Day Two."
In fact, the turnout
in the stands on Saturday was about as awe-inspiring as the action
on the track. Published reports quoted attendance figures of 14,205
-- in a venue that only holds 11,800. CIF meet officials even went
to the drastic measures of shutting the admission gates five minutes
before the first running event started, with a burgeoning and amped
up standing-room-only crowd already in place inside.
"The crowd that
showed up for Saturday's Finals was huge, probably the biggest ever
for a State Meet," recalled longtime prep track and field expert
Doug Speck. "Having a walkie-talkie as part of meet management,
I remember shockingly early in the day the call put out to probably
need Sheriff's Department reinforcements to deal with angry fans
who already were faced with a sold-out stadium and would not be
able to gain entrance."
If the crowd came to
watch history, it only took a minute for the crowd to get it's money's
worth. Well, 45.13 seconds, to be exact. That's all that Berkeley's
King-to-Ware-to-Jackson-to-Rodgers quartet needed in toting the
aluminum cylinder around the track for not only the second state
record in the girls 4x100 relay event in 24 hours, but the national
record as well!
Total bedlam reigned
in the stands and along the rails. Record after state record then
began to tumble, with the all-time state lists and Jack Shepard's
indispensable High School Track annual (still the "high school
bible for all-time track and field stats") being referred to
and revised in alarming frequency that day!
Then the meet closed
with a real flourish.
For distance fans,
the boys' 3200-meter-run proved to be a classic. Four athletes arrived
there with personal bests below 9 minutes, a 4:30 pace per four
laps. But not on this day.
"I actually thought
it went out pretty slow," said Dave Shea, one of the top distance
entrants that day and a member of the track team at Castro Valley
High. "We came across the (1600) at 4:30 and everyone was still
there - 30 guys, one huge pack! After the mile, (Edison's Jon) Butler
and (Mission San Jose's Jay) Marden took off. It turned out to be
a really fast second mile."
Marden led the group
through splits of 64.5, 2:13.5, 3:21.7 and 4:29.9 (64.5-69.0-68.2-68.2),
with Bella Vista's Harold Kuphaldt then seizing the lead and splitting
the next two laps in 5:38.6 and 6:46.8 (68.7-68.2). From there,
Butler made his move and bolted into the lead by employing the "long
kick" approach on a 63.1 seventh lap before closing with a
56.9 last lap and a lifetime best and state-leading 8:46.78 for
the victory, not to mention a stunning 4:29.9-4:16.9 negative split
performance!
And the fun only continued.
One by one, a chain of wiry
bodies accompanied with eye-popping finish times poured across the
finish line... 8:51.64 (Marden), 8:52.11 (Independence's Jesse Torres),
8:52.80 (Northview's Mike Carlton), 8:54.79 (Kuphaldt), 8:56.11
(Palo Alto's Mike McCollum) and 8:58.49 (Shea).
"I ran a very bad seventh
lap," recalled Shea, who now lives in Camarillo. "I dropped
to about 14th place, but then I closed in 56, including the last
200 in 26. But oh what a race to be a part of."
The seven runners dipping
under 9 minutes (with 8th through 10th timed in 9:00.42, 9:00.71
and 9:01.06) were the most in national prep history, a mark that
stood for 22 years until a stunning 12 runners turned the trick
at the 2003 Arcadia Invitational.
But the depth in that one
race back in 1981 paled in comparison to the overall achievements
of the two-day meet, where an amazingly-difficult-to-fathom five
national records and 12 state records ended up smashed.
Before the 3200-meter spectacular,
Pete Richardson entertained the distance folk is the stands as he
blasted a breakneck pace in the 800-meter race, galloping his way
ahead of a superb field to set the new national
standard in 1:47.31, slicing more than half a second off
a nine-year-old record. His front-running efforts ensured a swift
tempo, resulting in official times of 1:49.30, 1:50.33, 1:50.98,
1:51.34, 1:51.46 and and 1:51.54 for the next six places, the best
for-top-seven-places average (1:50.32) in state history, and another
notch in Berkeley's belt!
"I met Pete Richardson
years later and he said the gamblers in the stands were stuffing
money into the hands (of those betting on Berkeley athletes),"
recalled Sieg Lindstrom, Managing Editor for Track & Field News,
reminding of the waging that typically took place between spectators
piling up and down the aisles.
Berkeley closed down
the State Finals just as it had started it - with a national record.
This time, Walker-to-Richardson-to-Murray-to Robinson provided the
fireworks, shearing well over a full second off the national record.
Five NATIONAL records in 30 hours - FOUR by
Berkeley alone!
The longevity of Berkeley's
weekend dominance might best be summed up by this: A sweep of the
state-meet team titles while setting meet-scoring records (58 points
for the boys, 64 for the girls) that still stand to this day.
"The whole
meet was crazy," Shea added. "Berkeley was incredible
that year and what they did early on in that meet set the tone for
all the events that weekend."
Fast forward 22 years.
These days, Long Beach
Poly's girls carry that same aura of invincibility in the speed
events, even on a year when across-the-board female sprint talent
within the Golden State is at an all-time high. In addition, hurdlers
for J.W. North High have already set their own national record this
year and a modest cast of field eventers have repeatedly been threatening
the all-time national standards this spring.
"If it plays out
as well as it looks on paper, this could really be something,"
added Kennedy, who'll sit in the press box this weekend with trigger
fingers anxiously ready on a stopwatch, one eye on the track and
the other on the all-time lists strewn before him. "Let's put
it this way. It's a better 'setup' than the 1981 meet, with the
type and amount of talent we have out there. I don't think it will
end up being better than the 1981 meet, but I could be wrong. Once
again, it sure sets as up being better, but we'd have to be a little
lucky to have it all fall into place."
Who knows ...
maybe we will be that lucky.
Where will you be this weekend?
Special thanks extended to Mike Kennedy,
Doug Speck, Jack Shepard and 2003 state meet director Hal Harkness,
whose separate discussions on this topic helped spark the motivation
for researching and writing this story.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1981 California State Meet Finals
Events featuring national records are shown
in blue (note: records occurred in the prelims in some cases.)
BOYS EVENTS
100 METERS
200 METERS
400
METERS
Robinson (Berkeley) 10.60
Willhite (Rancho Cord.) 20.81
Timmons (Oakland) 47.09
Graham (Centennial-SS) 47.09
800 METERS
1600 METERS
3200 METERS
Richardson (Berkeley) 1:47.31 Scott (El
Camino-Sac) 4:10.06 Butler (Edison-HB)
8:46.78
Cox (Wilson-SS) 1:49.30
Morales (Camarillo) 4:10.43
Marden (Mission-SJ)
8:51.64
Davis (Compton) 1:50.33
Gonzales (Clovis) 4:10.52
Torres (Independ.) 8:52.11
110M HIGH HURDLES
300M
LOW HURDLES
4X100 RELAY
Ashford (West Covina) 13.67
Murray (Berkeley) 36.25
Berkeley 40.86
4X400 RELAY
HIGH JUMP
POLE VAULT
Berkeley 3:08.94
Caire (Pius X)
7-1
Wicks (W. Bakersf.) 15-2
LONG JUMP
TRIPLE JUMP
SHOT
PUT
Tave (Muir) 25-0.5
Frazier (Mission-SF) 50-10.75
Frazier (Antelope Valle) 63-8
DISCUS____________________________________________________________________________
Dobbins (Burroughs/R.) 180-10
GIRLS EVENTS
100 METERS
200 METERS
400 METERS
Ware (Berkeley) 11.66
Howard (Kennedy) 23.73
McGraw (Ganesha) 54.14
800 METERS
1600 METERS
3200 METERS
Curtis (Culver City) 2:06.08
Plummer (University) 4:42.43
Cook (Alemany) 10:21.31
Spies (Livermore) 2:07.36
Weber (Lynbrook)
4:44.76?
Durand (Laguna Beach) 2:07.39
Davis (Miramonte) 4:46.86
100M LOW HURDLES
300M LOWEST HURDLES
4X100 RELAY
Sanders (Berkeley) 13.74
Williams
(Saugus) 42.26
Berkeley 45.13
Hunter (Dorsey) 13.80
Johnson (Berkeley) 13.88
4X400 RELAY
HIGH JUMP
POLE VAULT
Kennedy-Gran Hills 3:37.71
Johnson (Marshall
Fund) 5-10 Not contested until 1995
LONG JUMP
TRIPLE JUMP
SHOT PUT
Mose (El Cajon) 18-10.25
Not contested until 1982.
Kaaiawahia (Fuller.) 51-8.5
DISCUS
Kaaiawahia (Fullerton) 162-10
Message
board! Message board!
