Fall = Cross Country #2

I've been thinking about this post for a few days trying to organize it in my head; the feeling in the air today gave me the motivation I needed to find a couple of items and get it done. It is a beautiful fall day despite being a little windy. I have to force myself to not run today because I know that rest is just as important as work, particularly when you're 65 years old and not getting younger. So after feeding the horses, goats, cats and dogs and having my coffee and "Nutty Bar", I decided to mow the lawns and get some things done outside and then sit down to write this.

My first cross country post dealt with my experiences coaching the club team at UCCS in the 80's; this post is about my 1966 experience running cross country for Mt. San Antonio Junior College in Walnut, California. I mentioned in another blog that the closest thing to a "scholarship" I received was a note written on a school information brochure inviting me to join the team in the fall. While it was a note that Coach Don Ruh probably sent to every graduating cross country runner in the San Gabriel Valley it was all the motivation that I needed. I loved running and wasn't ready to give up being part of a team after high school. It was a decision that I'm glad I made and an experience that I thoroughly enjoyed for the most part.

Coach Ruh was definitely "old school" when it came to expectations of what his athletes should look like. The fact that this was during the very turbulent '60's made it tough following all of his "rules". Here is a direct quote from the "FALL 1966 - Mt. San Antonio College Track and Field News":

2. "You are part of a team! Track and Cross Country are not individual sports as some may think! We want only those men who can think in these terms with us - others just clutter a real athletic team. Individually, you work for your maximum performances, but you are representing the MSAC Team wherever you go.

And then the real zinger for the 60's:

3. Because of the above point we expect no "individual difference contest" in any area other than athletic competition. Therefore, competition for individual beauty or hair length is eliminated with the standard short side and one inch on top hair cut (parted as Ivy League is OK). Also, because of this philosophy, a variety of practice uniforms is eliminated. You will be supplied with MSAC gear - wear it and take care of it".

He went on and on about other expectations but the main idea was to eliminate individualism. From a "success" standpoint I guess you would say that it worked. While anyone who knows about cross country knows that a "team" consists of 7 runners; I was a part of the second 7 and we were actually better than a lot of first 7's from other colleges. This was evident when our "second 7" ran and finished 2nd in the Orange Coast Invitational against everyone else's "first 7".

Bottom line, we were a very good program and following the rules was a price that we were willing to pay.

Dana Anstey

Al Maples

Bill Sumner

1966 Mt. San Antonio Junior College Cross Country Team
Southern California Champions
9-0 Undefeated Dual Meet Season
4th California State Championships

Bill, Al and I were very close friends in addition to being teammates. They will both show up in multiple blog posts.  

 While we had a lot of fun and were part of a very successful program there wasn't to be a second season for any of us. Al went into the Army the next spring while Bill and I both returned to the team in the fall of 1967. So, why didn't we run in 1967? The rules just got to be to much! We showed up for practice and we had cut our hair after a summer without haircuts. When we got to practice Coach Ruh called us into his office and informed us that we needed to get haircuts. We told him that we had just had our hair cut and he informed us that it wasn't good enough. We left and actually both got second haircuts. The next day we were called back into his office at the top of the stadium and he said, "I thought I told you to get haircuts". We looked at one another like he was crazy and said that we did. His response, "Not good enough". Our response, "******" I won't publish it in something my grand kids may read some day but let's just say that we never ran for MSAC again and we were transferred out of his "Track and Field Fundamentals" class immediately. Did we make the appropriate decision? It's difficult to say but I think that Bill and I must have both learned from the experience because he and I both went on to have very successful coaching careers ourselves.

I always said that I learned everything right about coaching from my high school coach, Marshall Clark and much about how not to coach from Don Ruh.

September Fall Racing!

There is something special about fall racing! I don't know if it's because I first became a runner in the fall of 1962 or because I always enjoyed cross country more than track in high school and college or just because the weather always seems to invigorate. Whatever the reason, I love fall running.

It was a coincidence that I had two races the first weekend of fall this year. I had intended to run one on Saturday and then after running a half marathon the previous weekend I decided to take a break. Then I felt good training midweek and decided that I would run and I also decided to run a 5K on Sunday. Both races were in Modesto so there was no serious travel involved. I'm glad I decided to run because there really was fall in the air both days. On Saturday the temperature at race time was in the low 60's and on Sunday it never got over 55.

Saturday Morning

Saturday was a 2 mile fundraiser for Cancer Awareness and was held in conjunction with several road cycling events so there was a large crowd and a festival type of atmosphere. Lunch was included in the entry fee but I couldn't see hanging around for several hours for a "free" lunch. I wanted to go home and get showered and changed because I had to return to Modesto to pick up my race packet for Sunday's race.

4th 60-69 age group; 2nd 65-69

Saturday afternoon we got a big rain and rain was a possibility for Sunday. While it didn't rain it was a much cooler morning and it felt good running in long sleeves for the first time in a long time. The event started off very disorganized, no restrooms when I arrived at 6:00 (they did finally arrive) and then the race started thirty minutes late. Other than that though it was a well run event and an important one. The race was a "Fallen Officers Memorial" to honor law enforcement officers from the county who had lost their lives in the line of duty.

Fortunately I waited around for the awards presentation, something I don't often do, because after they announced the medal winners in the 60-69 age group and all of them had times slower than me I knew there was a problem. The problem became obvious when they announced "Dana Anstey" as the winner of the women's 60-69 age division. After waiting around a while longer I received my medal without the fanfare of other winners. Oh well, I didn't need a posed picture with a police lieutenant anyway. :) My picture with "Chipper" right after the race meant more to my grand kids.

Chipper and Me!

Here are some pictures from the ceremony honoring the fallen officers.

And then the clouds blew in for the race. It was a good start to the fall running/racing season.

Fall = Cross Country #1

I have said too many times to count that fall is my favorite time of year. There are many reasons, the start of cooler weather, shorts and long sleeves, smells, leaves changing, holidays and one of my favorite reasons it was always when cross country season started. While I loved coaching track I think if I had to choose a favorite it would be cross country.

After coaching cross country for seven years in Lovington I was disappointed when I got my first teaching job in Colorado Springs at a middle school and there were no coaching openings for cross country at either of the two district high schools. I checked the classified ads every day hoping that some school somewhere would advertise for a coach and I would be able to work it into my teaching schedule. Ironically a coaching position did come open but it wasn't at a high school it was at one of the local colleges, UCCS, the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. I called, applied and was hired as the women's coach. There were times that I worked with the men as well if their coach had schedule conflicts.

The team was not a "varsity" team because the school didn't have varsity sports yet; it was officially recognized as a "club" team. The school at the time was primarily a commuter college so most team members were students who also held full time jobs in the community. To say that organized team practices were minimal to nonexistent would be an understatement. The bulk of the "real" coaching took place on meet days and even then I was never sure how many athletes would be able to make the commitment to show up for a meet and miss an opportunity to work.

If there is any doubt that I coached simply for the love of coaching look at these two pay stubs for the two seasons I coached at UCCS.

For the Love of Coaching

One of the most positive things to come from my experience at UCCS was a friendship with the Robert Spell from the men's team. He became my first assistant coach when I took the head cross country job at Sierra High School in 1987 and we are friends who share our running journeys to this day.

While we were a club team we ran against varsity teams from colleges and universities from Colorado, New Mexico and Kansas. As a matter of fact, one of my athletes from Lovington, Kelly Young, was running at Garden City Community College and ran against us at the Air Force Academy Invitational. She stayed with my family while she was in Colorado Springs. 

Without a doubt a highlight for the team was when the women won the University of Southern Colorado Invitational. There were a total of 8 teams competing. Additionally we had two individuals finish 1st and 4th. I'm not saying it was a surprise but another college from Colorado Springs made a point of mentioning that we were a "club" team when they called the results into the paper. 

UCCS Cross Country

The funniest memory I have of coaching the team was when happened in September 1985 at the Adams State Invitational Anyone who knows anything about collegiate cross country knows that Adams State is one of the premier programs in the nation year after year. At the time their men's coach and the meet director was Coach Dr. Joe Vigil, a legendary coach, especially in his own mind. As a matter of fact, Coach Vigil was my lead instructor when I took the TAC Level Two Coaching Certification course at the Olympic Training Center.

Anyway, we only had 4 men's runners show up to make the trip for the meet. Because it was a club team and I was taking a graduate course I was actually eligible to compete. I borrowed a pair of flowered shorts from one runner and a tee shirt from Aruba from another so that I could run; fortunately I had my running shoes on. I wasn't crazy about running but figured we could have a scoring team if I was the 5th runner, I actually turned out to be 4th on our team. Here's where what I always refer to as the "class" of Coach Vigil came out. He came up to me after the race where I had finished 72nd of 74 runners and began to chew me out about my lack of respect for the meet because I didn't have an official uniform. I'm laughing as I write this because he was so ridiculous. For the record we were last of the scoring teams so isn't as if we impacted the meet. The final irony is that Coach Vigil had each of his athletes accompanied and paced throughout the race by another athlete on a bike; a blatant violation of the rules. 

Coach Spell also coached track in 1987

Western Hemisphere Marathon 1966 - Delta Harvest Half 2013

As I have been mentioning in previous posts I have been going through "stuff" and among that stuff is a significant amount of running memorabilia both from my own running and from teams and athletes that I have coached. I found my original packet from the first marathon that I ever ran as an 18 year old college freshman. It was the Western Hemisphere Marathon. Even in 1966 it was the 19th running of the race that sadly no longer exists. I took some pictures of some of the things from the packet just to show how far race packets have come.

One of the funniest things to me was that the race numbers were actually made of paper the weight of poster board.

Another thing was the hand drawn course map.

One of the interesting things from the race "instruction sheet" was the following item: "2. Pick up your packet at the Swimming Pool check in area by no later than 6:00 a.m. on Sunday, December 11th. You will immediately get into your running clothes and report to the doctors for a physical which must be satisfactorily completed before you will be allowed to run". As far as today's races go, you pay your money, you show up upright at the start line and you run. Times have really changed.

I ran the race with 6 other members of the Mt. SAC cross country team. I ran 3:15.27 and finished 58th of 211. Five of us finished and two others dropped out, one at 17 miles and one at 19 miles.

Another race that I ran with college teammates was the Rose Bowl Half Marathon. I'm not sure if it was before or after Culver City but it was sometime close. The map called it a marathon but it was only a half although a very hilly half. I also remember that it was very hot and when we ran by a convent on the course we were grateful for the Nuns who sprayed us with their garden hose. I ran 1:28.47.

Another Hand Drawn Classic

My most recent race was yesterday; I ran the Delta Harvest Half Marathon in Brentwood, California. It was a good out and back course that was flat and fortunately it was cool, 58 at the start because it was very humid 85% at the start. I'm still running them slow but I'm still running them.

Additionally it was a good day racing for my extended running "family" in Colorado. Robert and Gerald each wrapped up the championship in their age group in the "Colorado Runner" magazine racing series at the Blue Shoe 5K in Denver. In the race Gerald was the overall winner and Robert was 2nd in his age group. Here they are "carb loading" for their next race.

Colorado Runner 2013 Series Winners

And finally Joe and Walter ran the Pony Express Run, a 15 mile race around Rampart Reservoir. They each finished 3rd in the age groups and Walter was 7th overall. So between the five of us we had three 3rds, a 2nd and a 1st. Not a bad race day. It is a lot of fun keeping up with one another's racing and training.

Coaching Start - 1970's

I'm often asked how I became a coach and while there are several things that led to me becoming a coach I would say that luck and good fortune had as much to do with it as anything. Prior to coaching anything I took a 'Fundamentals of Track and Field' class at Mt. San Antonio Junior College that was taught by my track coach. I was a student of the sport in that I loved keeping up with current meets as well as the history of both track and cross country. Although there weren't nearly the books and magazines that then that there are today, I read everything that I could get my hands on. That was fine as far as knowing who was who in the track and field world but it didn't do anything as far as preparing me for either the art or the science of coaching. Because you see, coaching is both an art and a science and to be successful you have to treat it as such.

I first got involved in coaching as a part time employee of Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation. I coached and officiated multiple sports as part of my job. Next I got involved in coaching the recreation league teams that my sons Jeff and Jason played on as well as acting as a player coach on softball and volleyball teams through the park. Here are a few pictures from my first team.

My sons front middle. Jason was the bat boy!

Quite the crew. The team won the championship!

After graduating from California State University at Fullerton in the summer of 1975 we moved to Ruidoso, New Mexico. When I decided that I was going to go back to school to become a teacher I had to fight to be allowed to student teach in Ruidoso because it was about 90 miles from the school I was attending. I would go to school during the week and drive home on Fridays to see my family and work on the weekends. When the assistant girl's basketball coach heard that I would be student teaching there he asked me if I wanted to coach because he no longer wanted the job. It paid $300 and I felt the experience might be beneficial down the line so I took the job. I was head junior varsity coach and assistant varsity coach.

Did I mention that I knew absolutely nothing about basketball?

When I finished my student teaching there were no jobs to be had in Ruidoso so I took a job in Hobbs, New Mexico as a District Executive for the Boy Scouts of America. That's for a story another time. While I was working for the scouts I was also applying all over eastern New Mexico and west Texas for teaching jobs. One morning I got a call for an interview in Lovington, New Mexico, 18 miles north of Hobbs, asking if I was still interested in a teaching position. I told them I could be there for an interview as quickly as they wanted me and I was.

The job was for an 8th grade social studies teacher but they also wanted me to coach and the teaching job was pretty much conditional on me being willing to coach. I told them I would love to coach track and they said that they would see about that as a possibility in the future but they needed an 8th grade boy's basketball coach. (Remember what I said about the experience paying off)? I told them I would do it and was hired on the spot pending School Board approval. So once again I was a basketball coach and I still didn't know anything about basketball.

I bought books and paid close attention to the 9th grade coaches practices and got through two seasons of boy's basketball and then two seasons of girl's basketball at Central Junior High School. I was a wreck, the kids used to laugh at me during timeouts because my hands would shake so bad when I was trying to diagram a play. It was an interesting experience. I also coached volleyball, first as a volunteer and then as a paid coach and track, all at Central. Additionally while at Central I volunteered with the high school cross country teams. More about all of that in future posts possibly.

Here are my first two basketball teams at Central. Remember that you only play five in basketball and most teams usually keep a maximum of 12. Look at the size of these teams and we didn't cut, a practice I continued through my entire 29 year career as a paid coach.

Here are pictures of some of my other Central teams.

I'm sure as I continue to look through boxes, bins and trunks I'll find some more pictures from Central that I may want to share in a future post but if not there is a quick overview of how I became a coach. There will be many more posts in the future sharing experiences from the many years that I spent coaching.

Running Beginnings

I've spent a few days thinking about this post and probably the most important realization I made is that "every post doesn't have to have some type of message" sometimes a post is just a post! Anyone following this blog knows that it is meant to share who I am with anyone interested in the future. A big part of who I am is pretty obvious in the titles of both of my blogs to date so I thought why not share a few pictures from the running journey that has been and continues to be such a large part of my life.

I've gone through a lot of memorabilia and the best picture that I could find that might explain why I decided to become a runner is the following.

That is the 8th grade "B" football team picture and that is me on the front right. Now a person might ask why this might be a motivation to eventually become a runner and the answer might be in a close up of my picture.

Yes, sadly, even though it looked as though coach pulled every available uniform shirt from multiple seasons out of the closet, I had no shirt. Probably a pretty good indication football might not be in my future. I did have to laugh at the consolation I was given, a football to lean on. Anyway, did that have anything to do with me becoming a runner? I don't know but that and my size probably had a lot to do with me not becoming a football player.

I honestly don't know why or even when I decided to run but I'm sure glad that I did and I'm even more glad that I had a great Coach who continued to encourage me no matter how poorly I ran. And believe me when I first started as a member of the Cross Country and Track teams I was a very poor runner. As a matter of fact, I didn't even earn a freshman/sophomore letter in Cross Country or a C-team letter in track my freshman year. The good news is that despite that I was encouraged by my Coach to keep running and be on the team as a sophomore.

Freshman Cross Country - Fall 1962

Freshman Track - Spring 1963

Fortunately because of support from my Dad and encouragement from my Coach as well as friends that I made on the teams I decided to stay with the sport and it has given me a lifetime of memories. The next year I was named team captain, earned my Frosh-Soph letter in Cross Country and my Cee team letter in track. My junior year I letter Junior Varisty Cross Country and Bee team track and finally my senior year I was a letter winner on both the Varsity Cross Country and Track teams. I learned a lot about persistence and not giving up through that four year experience.

Senior Year Cross Country - Fall 1965

Varsity Cross Country Team - Turnbull Canyon Road
Fall 1965

My senior year when other athletes were getting scholarship offers I received a flyer from Mt. San Antonio Junior College and the Cross Country Coach wrote a note on the front, "I hope you'll join us in the fall". I really didn't think of myself as a college runner but a good friend, Al Maples and I decided to go out for the team. While I wasn't a top runner once again I was good enough for the "B" team and because our B team was good enough to beat many varsity teams from other schools I earned letters in Cross Country and Track my freshman year at Mt. SAC. My sophomore season is another story for another time but relates directly to my next team running experience.

Mt. SAC - Second 7 - Fall 1966

Mt. SAC Cross Country - Fall 1966

Just as my high school coach had a tremendous positive impact on my running and my staying with running my College Coach had a tremendous impact on my deciding to stop running on the Mt. SAC team my sophomore season. That decision led to dropping out of Mt. SAC after my 1967 fall semester and enlisting in the Navy shortly after that. While in the Navy I found that I had not lost my love of running and joined the Navy team at Naval Air Technical Training Center (NATTC) in Millington, Tennessee. While we were a team we only trained for and competed in one meet, the Navy-Marine track meet at NATTC.

Interestingly another Coach provided a negative experience that I was fortunate enough to turn into a positive. I was scheduled to compete in the 880 or half mile with two other sailors, Newton and Washington, against the Marines. Prior to the race, the coach came up and this is basically what he said, "OK Newton, they have one really good runner but I know that if you stay right on him you have a good chance to win. Washington, just let Newton set with the pace and run right with him, you'll do fine". With that he turned to walk away. Then he turned back and said to me, "Oh, good luck". It wasn't funny then but it served a very good purpose because when I became a coach I always tried to never discount an athlete no matter their ability. Here are two pictures from that day in 1968.

1st - Marine 2nd - Anstey 3rd - Newton 4th Washington
I stayed with Newton and Washington until the last curve and almost ran down the Marine.
"Oh, Good luck" Indeed!

The 2nd place trophy I received.

Those are a few of my early running experiences and every one of them had some influence on the type of coach I became when I started coaching in the 1970's. But that's a story for another post.