Sir Francis Drake has last home meet on Thursday

last home meet for senior track and field athletes on Thursday

Drake 2011 track and field teams

Your coaches will be feeling your events with you on Thursday. This is one of the great rewards of coaching, we get to compete again. But it is through YOU, and it is YOU who are executing the event, putting yourself into a competition where there are winners and losers.

As my friend who died recently of cancer said last November to the Drake undefeated cross country teams when I asked him if he had anything to say to them, the famous Wes Santee struggled with his weak, damaged voice and offered -

"just win".

When I ran with Wes in 1955/56, he was the hottest track name in the country. Along with having held the world 1500 meter record, Wes at one time had run 3 of the 4 fastest "one mile" times in the history of the event.

So, let's see if we can hear the great one again -

"Just win"

And as Richie Boulet (Sir Francis Drake HS, San Anselmo; Cal), another sub-4 minute miler (3:53.26 3R1 Prefontaine Classic, Eugene, Oregon, May 31, 1998) told the Drake cross country team before the state finals last November, "the fun isn't a party, the fun is the race".

Bravo

Bill Taylor (LA Valley JC 1953; USC 1955)

Staff --- Russ Knudsen, Rod Berry (Redwood HS, Larkspur; Stanford), Sean Gallagher, Ryan Shaw, Ross Sullivan, Mary Kitchens

cc: Pete Donoff A D

P.S.Remember pictures are tomorrow, Wednesday, right after school. BRING YOUR UNIFORMS TO SCHOOL

# 1 "passing the baton to Wes Santee when Mr. Taylor was his teammate in the Marine Corps

# 2 Mr. Taylor watched Rod Berry place second in the California state 2 mile final in 1978, same night as Mr. Taylor's Drake mile relay team finished third out of all of the girl's 4 x 440 "MILE RELAY" teams in the state

#3 Drake girls exchange baton in 1978 in the Meet of Champions in Berkeley; they set a new meet record in the prelims on Friday, lost to Berkeley high school in the finals the next day because the Berkeley team anchored with a 53 second leg; at the state, Berkeley did not place, while Drake was third

Reprinted with permission of Bill Taylor

Do you know that we have three coaches with division one collegiate backgrounds? Bill Taylor was a member of two national championship track and field teams at USC, Rod Berry was captian of the Stanford track team, and Ross Sullivan was a championship pole vaulter at Princeton. Russ Knudsen was a head coach at Marin Catholic for a considerable number of years and is deep in experience. And Sean Gallagher has returned to his familiar rings where he performed for Drake in the discus and shot put.
http://www.drakeathletics.org/index.cfm?action=main.teamnews&id=5594