Friday, January 09, 2015

Keith Conning has covered high school track and cross country in California for 39 years

by Keith Conning

I have been covering high school track and cross country in California since 1976 (39 years).   I started running high school cross country  in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park in 1956. We ran a distance of 1.9 miles from the east end of Lindley Meadow, west to 41st Avenue, and back to the east end of Speedway Meadow.   I am now 73 years old.  After being the Prep Editor of the Northern California Running Review, I became the Prep Editor of California Track and Running News in Fresno.  After that I was the editor of The Conning Tower.  I have coached track and cross country at Castlemont High School in Oakland, Martin Luther King Junior High School in Berkeley, Berkeley High School, and the Vacaville Police Athletic League.  I have also announced college and high school meets in California and Hawaii.  I started running junior high school track at Aptos Junior High School in San Francisco in 1953.  I also ran at Abraham Lincoln High School in San Francisco (1956-59); the U.S. Naval Academy Preparatory School in Bainbridge, Maryland (1959-60); the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado (1960-61); and the University of California in Berkeley (1961-62).

Northern California Running Review Nov./Dec. 1976 (No. 63)

EDITOR’ S MESSAGE by Jack Leydig
• NEW PREP EDITOR: - The NCRR is happy to announce that we have a new high school editor in the person of Keith Conning. Keith helped to put on the California State High School Track & Field Championships at Berkeley last year. Keith is also co-author of the booklet "Highlights of the State Track Meet (1915-1975)
http://lynbrooksports.prepcaltrack.com/ATHLETICS/TRACK/STATE_BK/statehis.htm,
which is available through the NCRR for $2.00 (plus tax and 25<t shipping). It appears that he will be a great replacement for Chris Kinder, who has done an excellent job over the past few years, but has decided to bow out of the picture. In this issue, Keith has done a great job of choosing, in order, the
top prep cross-country runners this past season in Northern California (both boys and girls), as well as the top teams.  In addition, Keith has provided us with an excellent writeup on the past season. Besides being a great researcher and obvious statistics fanatic, Keith can take great photos too, as you can tell from the numerous shots in this issue. Welcome to the staffl (Note: He is looking for reliable 'correspondents' this spring to send in weekly or bi-weekly results from various areas...in particular we need help from the Northern Section and the far northern portion of the North Coast Section. If you are interested in helping out, turn to the Prep Review section of this issue for Keith's address. Thanks!

http://library.la84.org/SportsLibrary/NCRR/1976/ncrr63.pdf

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