Prep Review : Getting a Jump on Competition : At Oceanside, Tradition Grows by Leaps and Bounds

When Willie Banks graduated from Oceanside High School in 1974 as the Avocado League champion in the long jump and triple jump, Pirate track coaches could have hardly anticipated what was to come.

Instead of leaving a void in those events, Banks, who became a world-class jumper, started a winning tradition in the jumps at Oceanside.

“Other teams see that we’re always strong in the jumps,” said Terry Scaife, Pirate assistant track coach. “They know that they’re going to have to improve on their previous bests to beat us.”

Scaife graduated from Oceanside in 1974 after playing for the school’s football team. He was officially hired to coach the jumpers after helping a friend, Duane Coleman, triple jump for Oceanside in 1979.

“Duane had good strength,” Scaife said. “And I told him that if we worked together, we could win a CIF championship. Duane won the CIF championship that year and they hired me the next year.”

Said Leonard Palos De La Rose, Oceanside’s coach: “That’s what we hired him for. To produce champions.”

Although kidding about the reasons for the hiring, Scaife has been a productive coach. Under Scaife, Oceanside has produced three San Diego Section champions in the jumps, five Avocado League champions and six second-place finishes at the league finals.

Oceanside’s most productive season may have been last year when John Gibbs won the section championship in the triple jump (47-11 1/2) and Mike Smith won the long jump (23-9 3/4).

Despite losing both to graduation, the Pirates are back in 1985 with another of the county’s strongest jumping programs.

“This has been an especially good season,” Scaife said. “Usually the boys are strong and the girls aren’t or the girls are good, but the boys aren’t. But this year we have both going well for us.”

Junior Dwayne Jeffers leads the boys. He led the county through the early part of the season with a 43-9 1/2 triple jump. Although he was passed last week by La Jolla’s Chris Trowsdell, the setback has not bothered Scaife.

“We’re not interested in big improvements right now,” Scaife said. “There was a lot of pressure on Dwayne to jump well every meet when he was the top in the county. Now that pressure’s off him and we can try different things. We’re more interested in gradual improvement.”

Scaife said he expects Jeffers to leap farther than 45-0 in the triple jump and 22-6 in the long jump. Jeffers’ best in the long jump this season is 21-8.

The girls are led by juniors Lana Gibbs and Letitia Wayne. Gibbs has bests of 35-0 in the triple jump and 16-0 in the long jump. Wayne was the Avocado League champion last season at 34-9 1/2 in the triple jump and has gone 34-3 this season.

Oceanside also has youth on its side. Freshman Leigh Mata has long jumped 14-2 1/2 and triple jumped 33-0 this season. And Maribel Williams, another freshman, has long jumped 15-8, triple jumped 33-0 and high jumped 4-10. Scaife was quick to add that there are no senior jumpers this season at Oceanside.

And so, the tradition continues.

Track site chosen: The all-weather track at San Diego State University was chosen on Friday as the site of the San Diego Section track and field preliminaries and finals.

The prelims will be on Saturday, May 18 and the finals on Thursday, May 23.

The final decision came down to having the meet at Mount Carmel High on successive Saturdays or at SDSU on Saturday and Thursday. Last year’s sectional meets were held at Mount Carmel, but the all-weather track at SDSU prevailed over Mount Carmel’s dirt track.

The California state meet will be held on May 31 and June 31 at Hughes Stadium in Sacramento.

Add Sundevil: Despite the poor weather conditions at Saturday’s Sundevil/Coca-Cola Invitational, the meet still produced the state’s top mark in the long jump this season (24-4 1/2 by Lawrence Nelson of Simi Valley), four meet records and many of the county’s top marks this season.

The meet did suffer, however, because of two no-shows from Los Angeles.

Locke High’s Chewaukii Knighten, who equaled her national prep record in the 500 in the Michelob Invitational in February, was scheduled to run in the 100, 200, 400 and the 100-meter low hurdles on Saturday. She scratched from the meet because of the flu.

She was an overwhelming favorite in each of the four events, especially the 400. Leslie Hardison of Western High of Las Vegas won the 400 on Saturday in 56.13. Knighten has a best this season of 52.1.

Also a no-show was Tracy Williams, a freshman from Mountain View High. Williams beat Grossmont’s Darcy Arreola by two strides in the 3,200 three weeks ago at the Pasadena Relays. The two were scheduled to continue their rivalry in the 1,500 and 3,000 on Saturday.

Arreola set a meet record in the 1,500 (4:39.4) as she outleaned Laura Goodwin (4:39.8) of Palo Verde in Arizona. Arreola was then outleaned by Melissa Sutton (10:14.02) in the 3,000. Arreola ran 10:14.04.