University High’s Kampmann to Retire : After Long, Successful Run, Track Coach Nears Finish Line

Going to the city track finals has always been special for Coach Dick Kampmann.

But when he takes the members of his team to the meet at Birmingham High on Friday, it will be even more significant. It will be his last as the University High coach.

After directing the track and cross-country program at the West Los Angeles school for 26 years, Dick Kampmann is retiring.

He will be leaving behind an impressive string of successes both on the track and off.

89 League Titles

In cross-country, his squads in four divisions of competition (varsity, junior varsity, 10th grade and girls) won 53 Western League championships and seven city championships and had a dual meet record of 584 wins and 88 losses.

His track teams in three classification levels (varsity, class B and class C) won 36 Western League championships and had an overall dual meet record of 483 wins and 134 losses. His combined dual meet record in both sports has been 1,067 wins and 222 losses.

Those successes aside, he has also had a powerful effect on his athletes off the track.

“There’s so much more to coaching than the wins and losses,” Kampmann said. “Many coaches don’t realize the impact they have on their kids. They can make lasting impressions.”

Executive Credits Kampmann

One former student, Don Franken, 29, now president of World Class Talent Agency, a placement service for television commercial casting of athletes, said his life had no real focus until he attended University High as a 10th grader. He attributes an improvement in his attitude to his experience as a distance runner under Kampmann.

“He got me excited about running,” Franken recalled. “I started setting goals for myself and could see myself accomplishing something. It was the most positive thing. He helped me believe in myself. And it really carried over into my life after high school.”

Kampmann has not expected or wanted single-minded devotion to his sport from his students, even those with potential. “I want my kids to experience as much as possible and not divorce themselves from the rest of the world,” he said. “It’s more important that they develop as people than as athletes.”

Led Cross-Country Team

Heidi Howell, currently a senior at Cornell, who led the girls’ cross-country team to the city championship in 1979 and later became city track champion in the 3,200-meter run, was regarded by Kampmann as the finest female athlete he ever worked with, fully capable of achieving the fastest times among high school runners in the country.

But instead of demanding the high-mileage running during the summers or the grueling twice-a-day workouts in season that would have produced those top marks, he actively endorsed her non-athletic pursuits.

“He gave me support and encouraged me in what would make me happy,” Howell said. “He respected that I had other interests. He was neat.”

Was Outstanding Athlete

An outstanding prep athlete himself, Kampmann played football and ran track at Washington High in Los Angeles.

After leaving the Navy in 1946, his first opportunity to study coaching was as a volunteer assistant under Gail Wyatt at Washington High, which won the state track championship that spring.

He went on to attend UC Santa Barbara, where he ran the quarter-mile (48.7), half-mile (1:57.0) and mile (4:21.0).

Received Degree in 1950

He received his bachelor’s degree in physical education in 1950 and a year later he married Debby Winston, whom he met while in Santa Barbara. They now live in Santa Monica and have two children, Bill, a resident of Manhattan Beach, and Samantha, married and living in Canada. There are two teen-aged Kampmann grandchildren.

After a term as the freshman track coach at UC Santa Barbara, Kampmann’s first teaching assignment was at Gardena High in 1951 where he served as the gymnastics coach. Kampmann then went to Excelsior High in Norwalk for two years, where he was assistant coach in both football and track. From 1953 to 1958, he taught at Gompers Junior High in South-Central Los Angeles, working with many standouts in track.

One of his students, Anthony Lorick, who would later play football for the Baltimore Colts, long-jumped 19 feet, 6 inches as a seventh grader and progressed to a mark of 24 feet, 8 inches as a senior at Fremont High, winning the city championship.

Head Coach at Dorsey

His first opportunity as a head prep cross-country and track coach was at Dorsey High in 1958 where his teams were an immediate success. In cross-country, they won the Southern League championships in all three divisions. His junior varsity team won the city championship and the varsity, led by Mike Love, who would later become the lead singer for the Beach Boys, finished third.

In track, his class C team won the city championship. His varsity squad was runner-up in a league that was arguably the strongest in the United States. And his class B team finished third.

It was during that first cross-country season at Dorsey that Kampmann’s varsity squad defeated University High, breaking University’s string of 33 dual meet wins.

Recommended by Predecessor

So impressed was University Coach Jim Pursell, who would retire that spring after 24 years of heading the cross-country and track program, that he recommended Kampmann as his successor. Kampmann took the job in 1959 and said later that it was the best thing that ever happened to him.

Unlike some coaches, Kampmann said he never entertained thoughts of moving on to coaching at the college level. “In college, there is more emphasis on honing the skills and abilities that are already there,” Kampmann said. “At the high school level, you can take a 10th grader and see his development over three years. You can take that little puppy and turn him into a real animal.”

That kind of transformation has, at times, bordered on the phenomenal. One student, Dave Pascal, who as 10th-grader in 1973 on the University High cross-country team, was at first capable of only a 5:40 mile. After finishing 64th in the sophomore division City finals, he would gradually gain more self-confidence as his speed and endurance improved under Kampmann.

Showed They Could Excel

“He could show kids that they could excel at something if they made the effort,” Pascal said. As a senior, he would go on to become varsity city champion in cross-country, setting the 2.85-mile course record of 13:54.0 at Pierce College and later in track running a 4:13.8 mile.

Now competing for the Sub-4 Track Club, Pascal ran 2:21.5 in a 1,000-meter race in Vienna in 1983 and was the fifth fastest American at that distance for the year.

“He was the most influential man of my life,” Pascal said of his high school coach. “Even now I don’t go two weeks without calling him, asking for his advice.”

Over the years, Kampmann earned a reputation for fair treatment, showing no favoritism, giving attention and consideration equally to all his students, no matter how gifted athletically.

Could Punish, Too

One outstanding miler, Paul Medvin, learned that his coach could also dispense punishment equally. In 1978, Medvin, then a junior, was scheduled to race as an unattached competitor in San Diego at the Aztec Invitational on a Saturday, the day after a dual meet against Crenshaw High.

“At the time, it didn’t make any sense to knock myself out,” Medvin recalled. “We were losing the meet anyway and I wanted to run a fast time the next day.” Medvin ran less than all-out in the half-mile race at the Crenshaw meet. Incensed because the athlete had acted as an individual in what should have been a team effort, Kampmann suspended Medvin, forcing him to withdraw from the Arcadia Invitational, one of the top showcase events for high schoolers and a meet that Medvin had been looking forward to for the entire season.

“I realized how selfish I had been,” Medvin said. “I really learned my lesson.”

Won Without a Shoe

At the state meet in Bakersfield weeks later, in spite of losing a shoe when his foot was stepped on during the third lap of the mile, Medvin still managed a startling surge of acceleratin to pull away for a win.

Now married, living in Newport Beach, working for a computer leasing firm and making plans to study law at Indiana University, Medvin still recalls running across the infield after the race into the arms of his coach and crying with joy.

“That was the high point of my high school days,” Medvin said, eclipsing even his senior year when he would run a 4:05.3 mile, which remains the fourth-fastest ever run by a California prep.

Picture of Fitness

Kampmann is still the picture of fitness, and jogs at least 1,500 miles a year. But after turning 60 in January, he calculated that the preparation and teaching of daily classroom sessions and the planning of workouts and training for 120 to 140 athletes took almost seven days a week, leaving little time for his wife and family. He decided that it was time to move on to other things.

Kampmann said he hopes to start work on a book dealing with coaching. And after a summer break, he plans to return to coaching, but on a limited basis--and not at University High, in successor a free reign. But regarding the cross-country and track programs, Kampmann pointed to a roster with few graduating seniors. “These teams are just a year away,” he said. “They’re going to be awfully tough.”

A Dying Breed

Kampmann feels high school coaches such as he has been may be a dying breed; few of the young coaches now coming out of college ever have the opportunity to work with programs as large as University’s.

Scott Chisam, who coached the UCLA women’s track team to NCAA team championships in 1982 and 1983, was a student-teacher and an assistant coach under Kampmann at University High. He said he has noticed a trend:

“In California high schools, a lot of great coaches like Dick are retiring and they’re not getting replaced,” Chisam said. “Many of the schools are taking physical education instructors with little track experience and shifting them over to fill these openings and then hiring a temporary outside coach for around a thousand dollars for an entire semester. And without any program stability, it hasn’t been working. I think it reflects the overall lower marks in the state, especially with the girls.”

Couldn’t Find Replacement

When Kampmann’s younger brother, John, stepped down as coach at Venice High in 1980, the school could find no suitable replacement at the time and was without a cross-country and track program for two years.

The task of finding a replacement for Dick Kampmann at University High is being handled by Principal Jack Moscowitz, Vice Principal Tom Rayburn and Duane La Rue, the athletic director and chairman of the physical education department.

“We’ll be hiring a teacher first and a coach second,” La Rue said. “It has been Dick’s philosophy, which has also become the department’s, that a good teacher can become a good coach but a good coach can’t always become a good teacher. And we’re going from there.”

Interviews Under Way

Candidates fitting into the school’s teaching scheme have been sought out and interviews are already under way. La Rue is hoping that a final decision can be made before the end of the semester.

University High, which was founded 60 years ago, has had only two coaches handling the cross-country and track program in the last 50 years, a fact not lost on those associated with the school.

“With Dick Kampmann leaving, the school is losing a super coach and class guy and one good teacher,” Bob Fordiani, the assistant track coach, said. “You’re also talking about a long, long tradition.”

Finding a new coach is one thing but replacing Dick Kampmann is another matter entirely.

“No one will be able to fill his shoes,” Medvin said. “They won’t be able to find anyone who would invest so much time and effort. It sure wasn’t for the love of money. In school, some of us figured that he was earning about 50 cents an hour for all his time. It was all for his love of the sport, for the kids. I’m positive there’s nobody around like him or who could come close. Nobody.”