San Jose Cindergals

The other day I was wondering how and why the San Jose Cindergals got started.
So I decided to e-mail Augie Argabright (the founder) and ask him... here is
what is response to my question was.

--- Hank

I formed the Cindergals in 1968 while working for the San Jose Recreation Department and also a college student. We had all of the sports on my playground where I was the Recreation Leader. The last sport of the year was Track & Field. After the last city wide meet there was all/comer meets at SJ City College that I would take my athletes. Many of the boys dropped out because they played little league. The girls didn't have a summer sport so I formed this track team called the Cindergals. We competed against other teams from the Bay Area. I started sending information out to the local schools and the team just took off. I coached the team from 1968 thru 1984. Two olympians and at least 20 others who competed on international teams. I guess when the team is that good people start thinking the coaching is pretty good and I was picked on five different occasions to coach the United States team in international competition. I look at the All-Time list of the CCS and it's still dominated by Cindergals from that era. Francie Larrieu was here last year to be inducted into the San Jose Hall of Fame and we talked about the success of the team. She was on the team for seven years and never missed a practice. During those years track was pretty much the only sport except for swimming. Many of those Cindergals would have been outstanding athletes in other sports such as volleyball, soccer, basketball and field hockey that the athletes can do now. I did have excellent coaches helping me with the team and some very dedicated parents bringing the girls to practice if they didn't drive. We had girls driving from Livermore everyday and also from the Oakland area. Jessica Spies and Cheri Williams are the ones that drove the most from Livermore to West Valley where I was the women's coach there. That driving would be almost impossible to do today. I was just very fortunate to have a lot of very dedicated athletes to coach. As you might know I am now the cross country coach at San Jose State and we have a very good program for schools that don't have track. We won the cross country only schools national championship in 1999 finished 3rd in 2000 and didn't go last year because of 9/11- We have both men & women teams and will be starting a track club next year so that will make it easier to recruit and also keep the runners busy during the spring.

Hank - thanks for your interest in the Cindergals

C ya


Augie Argabright


I also learned from Augie and the Saratoga News that the Cindergals plan on
having a reunion on June 16, 2002 at Vasona Park in Los Gatos.  For more info,
contact Augie @ (408) 924-1465 or e-mail at: [email protected]