Coach Bill Taylor's (Sir Francis Drake, San Anselmo) message to his team

Here is information for the "Redwood Empire" NCS championship meet. Note the early morning beginning, please.

http://www.cifncs.org/sports/track/files/Redwood%20Empire%20Bulletin.pdf

I have very fond memories of this gathering of the larger high school teams from the "Golden Gate" to the Oregon border. Yes, Eureka, Fort Bragg, the big Santa Rosa teams, Petaluma, etc. The top seven places, decided by times in one of two heats in all of the running events except the 1600m and 3200m distances, and the normal way of ranking field event athletes, make it into the "Meet of Champions" at the University of California, Berkeley, a week from this coming Saturday. The preliminaries are on Friday next week, the finals on Saturday.

Fond memories?

Very hard to pick five of them.

(1) the girl's mile relay team in 1978 had run 4:02 to win the county finals the week before, then lowered that time over 4 x 440 yards to 3:58* in the "Redwood Empire" championship meet in Eureka; yes, under 4 minutes with two girls who had never run high school track before; anchor runner, Lori Saia, had won the 880 earlier in the afternoon. We had a marvelous drive back to San Anselmo.

"Sky high"

(2) a couple of the East Bay coaches asked me if I had any threatening runners to put on the track in 1990; I told them that I had a junior who might give a nationally ranked miler (# 13 in U.S. said "Track & Field News") a race; I was told the "East Bay" coaches then placed their bets; the pace in the "mile" was modest through 3 laps; in fact, "modest" until there was 330 yards to go; then Richie Boulet of Drake introduced himself to the Northern California track world, blasting away like he had jet engines and not giving this "Burkowtiz" any chance of catching up; the time was 4:15 and we had a great one; Boulet went on to win the Pacific Coast conference 1500m twice as captain of the Cal track team, then ran 3:53 for the full mile behind two Kenyans as a professional; Richie's wife, Magdalena, made the 2008 U.S. Olympic team.

(3) I can't believe I am putting this as "third" in my order; in 2000, I had a sophomore I called "the Elf"; the "Redwood Empire" was held in Petaluma that year and Morgan Banks wasn't a big name yet; I told her to go out in 64 seconds for the first 400m, and she did; I told her to burn the third turn and separate from the field; she did; then she was to relax on the backstretch and gradually bring it "home"; she did; all of a sudden there was silence; the crowd knew something had happened; my friend Clark Palmer, an official at the finish line, was shaking his head in awe, or disbelief; the "Elf" had just run 800 meters in 2:11*; would go on to place second in the state finals and record the second fastest high school time in the nation

(4) she came to me from Detroit; I didn't believe the Drake office staff when they told me a "national" runner had just transferred into Drake as a senior; "yeah, yeah, yeah", I had heard that before; well, "believe it"; Karen Brown was for real and in the "Redwood Empire" meet in 1984 she set a meet record over the 300m low hurdles in 43* seconds; oh, Karen won the high hurdles in 14.3, too; that meet that year was in Santa Rosa, and Karen went on to win and set a meet record in the "Meet of Champions" the next Saturday; in the state finals she was behind the # 1 and # 2 hurdlers in the history of high school track, as well as a future Olympic champion; when she approached the final hurdle in third place, Karen didn't want to lack grace in going over the hurdle, so she slowed up to look good and ended up fifth; in the "junior nationals" a week or so later, Karen ran 59.6 over the 400m hurdles

(5) this is a real tough one for me; how can I choose just one more?; I could pick Angela Driller going over the 300m low hurdles in 45.7 as a freshman at Drake, or two other girls' "mile relay" teams breaking four minutes in 1979 and 1980; the other teams hadn't come off the final turn; there are so many that I am experiencing vertigo;
hurdles, hurdles, hurdles, mile relay's, mile relay's, mile relay's; 880 yards, 800 meters, etc.; just a few years ago our Drake half milers won both of the timed "heats" at Crescent city (e.g., Adams and Lee); I think I'll go with the twin "mile" victories in 1981 at Santa Rosa; Drake put on display twin milers who both won their 4 lap events; Katy Dykstra and Dan Caldwell went on to place second and third the next week and advance to the California state finals; in Los Angeles, Katie missed the final nine in the state "mile" by less than 1 tenth of a second

* remain "meet records" for Redwood Empire finals

(If you go up to the meet this Saturday you will likely find in the program Alex Pearlstone if Drake holding a meet 100m record, and our boy's mile relay team listed for a fairly recent 4 lap event; there is a problem with history, here, in that when the distances were changed to meters from yards, we ended up with different sets of records; the NCS even tried to drop our 3:58 girls' relay which was in yards because they entered it as a time in meters; not so; Pearlstone, who went on to win 4 gold medals in the "Meet of Champions" the following week, isn't close in speed to what the NFL football star, Mel Gray, ran in the 1960's over 100 yards; and our boy's "mile relay" mark isn't the best ever; petty points?; no way, history, accuracy, the "truth" is important; if you don't believe me, just ask the respective athletes who set these tremendous marks).

Bill Taylor

Staff --- Russ Knudsen, Rod Berry (2nd in California state high school "2 mile" final in 1977 and 1978), Sean Gallagher, Ross Sullivan, Ryan Shaw, Mary Kitchens, Carolyn Hutchins (mother of Clayton Hutchins who will run the "2 mile" on Saturday), Dana Rose (the head high jump official for this meet)

cc: Pet Donoff Athletic Director from New York

photographs ---

# 1 Mr. Taylor with the "Elf" in 2000; Banks ran 2nd fastest time in U.S. high school two weeks after the NCS race in Petaluma,

# 2 the fast and oh so strong Karen Brown, who went on to set "Meet of Champions" record the next week

both national stars