Track : UCLA’s New Coach Is Running Into Challenge of a New Era

Although college track and field is a team sport, its appeal comes from the individual athletes who represent a school.

UCLA and USC once had stars in abundance. More recently, there have been athletes such as Greg Foster, Willie Banks and Mike Tully for the Bruins and Clancy Edwards, James Sanford and Billy Mullins for the Trojans.

But the track programs at both schools, weakened by a 14-scholarship limit imposed in the NCAA, have had a distinctly low profile the past few years. There have been some good athletes, to be sure, but not of the quality that guarantee first places in the NCAA meet, especially against experienced foreign athletes recruited by other schools.

UCLA, under its new head coach, Bob Larsen, doesn’t have a team of stars this year. But Larsen, a quiet, low-key type, expects to have his share in the future and is building a program that is geared to restoring UCLA to its former prominence in the sport.

Larsen succeeds Jim Bush, who was UCLA’s track coach for 20 years. Bush had an enviable record of four NCAA championships and seven Pacific 10 titles, and under him the Bruins were ranked seven times as the nation’s best dual-meet team.

But UCLA hasn’t been a factor on a national scale the past few years. Neither has USC.

Larsen was Bush’s assistant for five years, having come to UCLA from Grossmont College in El Cajon. At Grossmont, he had developed an outstanding distance-running program, and he upgraded UCLA in this area, as well as bringing the Bruins expertise in the jumping events.

Larsen isn’t making any bold predictions this season. Such proven athletes as distance runner Jon Butler, decathlete Jim Connolly, half-miler John Phillips and quarter-miler Roy Carls are redshirting.

“We also graduated most of our top men in the field events along with Ron Roberts, our school record-holder in the 1,500,” Larsen said.

The most notable absentee would be John Brenner, the 1984 NCAA discus and shotput champion and one of the best collegiate throwers of all time.

“As far as the big meets are concerned, NCAA and Pac-10, most of the people who produced those points are gone,” Larsen said. “However, we brought in a lot of new people to give us depth, and they’ll develop in time.

“As a dual-meet team, I’m more optimistic than I was at the beginning of the season (the Bruins are 2-0). I think we’ll be in every meet this season, but I’m not sure whether we can beat Texas, California or Oregon, and USC has a better dual-meet team this year.”

Saturday at Drake Stadium, UCLA has its first major test of the season--a dual meet with Texas, which has been bolstered by foreign stars.

“I think the real story for UCLA this season are the five assistant coaches we have who are giving individual attention to each person,” Larsen said. “They’re all good people in their events, a real bonus to our program.”

Larsen was referring to weight coach Art Venegas, vault coach Anthony Curran, hurdles coach Alan Rigby, sprint coach John Smith and jumping coach Steve Lang.

The mainstays of UCLA’s team will be hurdler Steve Kerho, the Pac-10 110-meter champion, who has been bothered by pulled muscles; quarter-miler Dwyan Biggers, half-miler Jack Preijers, metric miler Mike Parkinson, sprinter Gerald White, distance runner Rich Brownsberger, triple jumper Dwayne Washington, high jumper Troy Haines, pole vaulter Greg Stull and shotputters John Frazier and Jim Banich.

“We feel this year is a steppingstone for next year--new coaches, guys redshirting and new athletes,” Larsen said. “We want to become a close-knit team through dual meets. Next year should be an excellent year for us when we put it all together. Our expectations aren’t as high this year, but we’re going in the right direction.”

When UCLA was winning NCAA championships in the early ‘70s, it had some foreign athletes on the teams. Of course, that was the era of unlimited scholarships.

Later, Bush became adamant against the recruitment of foreign athletes, saying it deprived American athletes of scholarships. Other coaches, who once agreed with Bush’s stand, now are recruiting foreigners. Theirs became the if-you-can’t-beat-’em, join-’em principle. They were tired of losing.

“We always said that we would take foreign athletes but we wouldn’t give them a scholarship, or recruit them actively,” Larsen said. “At the present time we are keeping our options open. Hopefully, we can be contenders again for the NCAA title. The preparations we’re making for next year will answer a lot of questions. For the most part, we’re trying to do it with local athletes, a developmental program.”

A close dual meet, without exceptional performances, is a tough sell in the competitive L.A. sports market.

“We have to live with no stars this year, but we won’t be like that in the future,” Larsen said. “Our intent is to recruit two or three top people to add to the people we have, some of whom will become stars.”

Past UCLA-USC dual meets were a showcase of world-class athletes. But those athletes seldom continued their track careers for many years past college.

“We have some excellent people in college now who don’t shine as brightly because you have older athletes who continue to compete until they’re 35 because of the money involved,” Larsen said. “Also, a Brownsberger or a Parkinson, who are breaking school or meet records, don’t get a lot of attention because of the foreign athletes. If not for the foreign athlete, several UCLA athletes would have been individual NCAA champions in the distance races.

“Everyone stays around so much longer now--Americans and foreigners.”

It’s a decidedly different climate now in college track, and Larsen and others are trying to cope.