My daughter
found the T-shirt (pictured at left) in the bottom of a drawer. Seeing that t-shirt
triggered memories of one of my best teams and my best years coaching. I
started coaching at SBHS as a student coach and student teacher in 1969. I then
coached at the feeder junior high school for four years and then took a year to
get my masters at Stanford. In 1974 – 75 I returned to SBHS as head girls cross
country and track coach and assistant boys track coach. In 1975 -76 I took over as head coach
of both boys and girls and combined the programs. Cross-country and track at
Santa Barbara high school at that time were special. I guess I really did not
realize how special until I started to reflect back on those years to write
this blog.
To say
there was a culture and tradition of excellence in track and field at SBHS
would be an understatement. My predecessor, Bill Crow had an amazing won loss
record of 164 wins and 24 losses and 3 ties. The team name was the Dons. There
was a Don way – a pretty simple culture. The rules were simple: Wear the
uniform and be on time. Those were the rules Bill had u
sed; I certainly was not
going to change th
at. The kids knew what it meant to put on that special
singlet. They knew that they had to honor it with their best effort. Each kid
got a handbook for cross-country and track. In the handbook were the top ten
lists, biographies of the returning letter winners and past results.
The track
was a “funny shaped” (80 yard straights that gave the illusion that the track
was almost circular) 440 yard rock hard asphalt track with a grass straightaway
inside the track for sprints and hurdles. It was a beautiful setting in a
natural bowl (Peabody Stadium) surrounded by trees. There were two shot put
rings, two long jump/triple jump pits, and two pole vaults pits that made
running meets very efficient. We had all adult officials; many of who were
teachers at the school and others retired teachers and administrators who had a
deep loyalty to the program. The dual meets started at 2:30 and ended with the
last mile relay at 5:10 PM. In the meets there was boys frosh/soph division,
boys junior varsity, boys varsity and girls JV and girls varsity – yes that’s
right five meets going on at once. It was an amazing show! Robbie Fletcher who was
a special needs student did all the set up for the meets, he dug up the pits
and got everything in place. He took tremendous pride in his work. I have often
wondered what happened to him. I used to give him an Italian submarine sandwich
from Tino’s Italian Store for his work; you would have though I paid him a
hundred dollars. My wife Melissa was the meet announcer. She did a great job of
keep the meet moving and everyone apprised of the results of each event and the
running score of each of the five concurrent meets. The clerk for the meet was
one of principals.
I coached
the hurdles, distance and long, triple and high jump. Gates Foss
coached pole vault, Gates was one the best coaches I have ever been around. He
had been the pool maintenance man at SBHS for close to forty years and had
coached the pole-vaulters all that time. He was methodical, extremely patient
and worked very hard to stay current on technique. Every year he had at least
one fourteen foot pole-vaulter and some years two. That year we had one. John
Larralde was my right hand man and number one assistant. He helped me with
cross-country and with the distance events in track. John went onto surpass me
at Carpenteria high school where he coached two California sate high school
mile champions. I like to think he learned some of those lessons at SBHS. We
had a throws Coach was quite experienced and two teachers who had little
experience to supervise the sprint workouts.
We had 120
boys and girls out for the track team. For cross-country we had 50 boys and
girls on the team. The team reflected the socio economic and cultural mix of
the school. There were rich kids, poor kids, African Americans and Mexican
Americans. Our feeder schools were La Cumbre Junior high school and Santa
Barbara Junior high school. SBHS was a three high school and the junior high
schools were three-year schools. The feeder schools had good track programs, I
had previously coached at La Cumbre Junior high and many of the seniors had
been seventh graders when I started coaching.
A part of
the tradition of SBHS track & cross-country was the tarp. The tarp was put
out in the middle of the field; it was were all the kids put their gear and
waited to warm-up. The tarp was our territory and only the Dons could sit on
that tarp, it was hallowed ground.
In 1976 Girls
Cross Country placed second in first ever California Interscholastic Federation
Southern Section (CIFSS) girl’s cross-country championship after going into the
meet as overwhelming favorites. A clear case of bad coaching, lesson learned
here was that if in doubt in the last week do less not more, that last hard
Monday workout killed us, we didn’t need it. The boys were seventh in a
tremendous team effort. One of our traditions was to run a postal two and three
mile on the track the week after CIF finals. The boys won the national team
postal three-mile tile in 1976.
We owned
the Distance Medley relay at the Arcadia invitational, in 77 the girls won it for
the third year in a row. We also broke the national record in the DMR that
spring. Both the girls and boys won Channel league team championships. The boys
had their 43 meet win streak broken. The Girls were fifth place in the CIF
southern section. We had two individuals qualify for the Sate Meet that was
held at UCLA. Tara Hobbs placed ninth in the two mile and Molly Miller placed
sixth in the 440. The girl’s mile relay placed fifth. The team was made up of
Tara Hobbs, Annie Byron, Connie Hogan and Molly Miller. They ran an incredible
race to beat several teams seated above them.
To advance
to State meet in California was a grind, a very tough process. It started with
the league meet where you had to be in the top three. Then it went to CIF
Prelims where you had to place in the top eight or nine. Then you went to CIF
Finals in your division where you had to be in the top five to go onto Masters Meet.
At the Masters Meet you had to place in the top five to go onto to state meet.
The State Meet is a two-day meet with prelims on Friday and finals on Saturday.
All our training was pointed toward this.
During the
summer we had a summer track class where the emphasis was on teaching not
training. The weight room was open several evenings a week and there were all
comer track meets on Thursday nights. The rule was that you could not do your
event during the summer. You had to do something different. I did not have a 100
mile a week club or anything approaching that with my cross-country kids. I had
excellent senior leadership they would meet and run on their own and then lift
weights. They had pride in what they were doing and wanted to have the best
team possible so they were highly motivated. I doubt that anyone ever went over
50 miles week during the summer. My philosophy was to not take the run out of
them. We trained hard when we started and it was along way from May and June
our ultimate targets. I also wanted them to develop ownership of their program,
I would guide them not lord over them. The kids did a great job of preparing that
the summer of 1976. In cross-country we had eight dual meets, usually on
Thursday and four Saturday invitational meets. In track we had dual meets on
Tuesdays or Thursday with four invitational meets spaced throughout the season.
Looking
back through the prism of time it was one my best years in coaching. We did a
lot of things right. We all had high expectations and achieved to and beyond
the level of expectations. I demanded a lot from the kids and my coaches and
even more from myself. My regret is that I never took the time to really enjoy
all that was going on around me. I was so focused on getting a college job and
being in the big time that I never allowed myself the time to enjoy the moment. 35 years latter I am enjoying writing
about this great group of kids and what they accomplished, all this spurred on
by an old t-shirt found in the bottom of a drawer. It was a special time with
special people.