Top Throwers to Meet in Section Preliminaries : Southwest’s Crawford and Ramona’s Parker Remote (Not Unfriendly) Rivals

More than usual, people have been watching the high school girls’ discus at invitational track meets this year.

That’s because Southwest’s Tracy Crawford and Ramona’s Lori Parker have taken turns beating each other throughout the year, and the latest winner invariably becomes the national leader.

The tone for this rivalry was set on April 13. Parker set a San Diego Section record with throw of 150-feet 3-inches in the Mustang Relays at San Dieguito. Six hours later, Crawford took the national lead from Parker with a throw of 153-8 at the Arcadia Invitational. Parker did not make the finals.

Parker regained the lead one week later at the Sundevil/Coca Cola Invitational at Mount Carmel when she threw 162-0 on her first throw of the finals. Crawford was second at 143-5.

“I wanted to beat Crawford bad,” said Parker, who did not beat Crawford once last year. “I choked at Arcadia.”

That was the last time the two competed head-to-head, but they will face each other again next week at the Section preliminaries May 24, at Mount Carmel. Most athletes perform just well enough to qualify for the Section finals, but this rivalry might stir uncharacteristic efforts.

In fact, it would appear that these are rather aloof adversaries. They sit far apart between throws and walk past one another without saying hello or cracking a smile.

This has led people to assume the two don’t like each other. Some even have claimed they hate each other and said they have comments from one or the other to prove it.

Parker and Crawford say that’s baloney.

“There’s nothing to get mad about,” Crawford said. “She doesn’t say a word, so neither do I. I don’t have anything against her.”

Parker said: “Everybody wants us to say that we’re enemies, but we’re not. We’re not friends, but we’re not enemies. We’re just competitors. Everybody talks about how we should talk, so we don’t.”

Maybe they just don’t have anything to talk about.

“We’re just different,” Crawford said.

The road to Ramona is flanked by large, green cow pastures. Nearing the city of 4,200, the two-lane highway is lined with tall, shady eucalyptus trees.

“My grandfather and father planted those trees,” Pauline Parker said. “My grandfather came with his parents to Ramona in 1865. When Lori graduates, she’ll be the fourth generation to graduate from Ramona High.”

Pauline Parker was Pauline Darrow before she married her husband, Leonard. The Darrows are one of the oldest and most respected families in Ramona, according to Pauline Parker. Last year, Parker won $75 in an essay contest on the history of Ramona for her paper on the Darrow’s genealogy.

“They’ve lived here forever,” said Parker. “A lot of people know them around here. Almost everybody knows everybody (in Ramona).”

Parker says that though it’s nice to know everyone in town, it can be a drag sometimes having to drive a long way to “do anything.”

“There’s really nothing to do in town,” she said. “A lot of people go out of town. There’s one theater, but after a week or two . . . “

Maybe it was boredom that caused Parker to work so hard on the discus last summer. Pauline Parker said Lori would get up at 6 a.m. to workout before it got hot, come home, and then go back to throw or lift weights after the sun went down.

Parker did not always like the discus, however. She was a very good shotputter in junior high and wanted to continue to throw the shot--not the discus--in high school.

Parker still throws the shotput, but she is not nearly as proficient at it. In fact, she spends all of her practice time on the discus and has not practiced the shot at all this year. “I didn’t like the discus at first,” said Parker. “But I tried it and I threw 100 feet just playing around. I started to work on it harder after that.”

Pauline Parker said that work has helped to increase Lori’s confidence in her discus ability, but also in herself as a person.

“I can see the difference,” she said. “She was 10 times more quiet before than she is now. I could really see that starting to develop last year.

“One of the coaches from another school came up to her and asked her what she had thrown. And I think it was when she had broken the school record (with a throw of 129 feet). She told him what she had done, and he just looked at her and said, ‘Oh, maybe you’ll be good next year.” She looked back at him and said, ‘No, I’m good now, I’ll be better next year.’ ”

Parker said she plans to major in business and hopes to own her own business some day. Because of her good grades, Stanford, Columbia and Occidental have all expressed interest. Though she took a trip to Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff and received an invitation to visit Nebraska earlier this week, Parker said she’s not sure if she’ll go away to school.

“I might go to a JC for a year or two,” she said. “I like it here. . . . I’ve lived here all my life.”

Naval yards and industry pave the path to Southwest High School in the far southwestern corner of San Diego. Crawford can almost throw the discus across the border.

Long after school is out, high school students are still seemingly everywhere on the huge school’s grounds. The cheerleaders are practicing a routine, and Tracy Crawford is waiting nearby to throw the shotput. She is dancing to the cheerleaders’ chant.

Crawford had already finished the part of practice she enjoys--throwing the discus. She was doing everything she could to make what she considers a drudgery--throwing the shotput--fun. Though Crawford threw 44-0 1/2 and finished fourth at the state meet last year and holds the county best (42-11) this year by more than a foot, Crawford said it’s not easy to make throwing the shot enjoyable.

“I hate the shot, I never liked it,” Crawford said. “But Coach (Fred) Sils says, ‘If you don’t throw the shot, you don’t throw the discus. If you don’t do good in one, you might do good in the other.’ ”

But when she steps into the shotput ring, she is serious. Without much effort or expression from Crawford, the shot flies more than 41 feet.

A minute later, she’s helping the other throwers correct what they are doing wrong. Two minutes later she tells a group of guys that she’ll mention them to a reporter.

“That’s Tracy,” assistant coach A.J. Curmaci said. “She’s very emotional. She’s doing one thing one minute, and another the next. It’s hard to keep track of her.”

Crawford said, “I wasn’t always that way. I used to be shy. Last year, you even mentioned my accomplishments and I’d get all embarrassed. Not any more.”

Not any more is right. Impulsive is a better word to describe her than shy.

“I like to joke around a lot,” said Crawford, who moved to San Diego from Marion, Ind., when she was 10. “But people look down on me for that. They say, ‘Oh my God! Look at that girl!’ But I’ve got to be myself.”

The Crawford family has been supportive of whatever Tracy has done. Crawford said her mom, Rosa, used to haul Crawford around to tap and ballet lessons when she was little. At the Sundevil Invitational, Rosa and her husband, James, set up an umbrella to shade Crawford from the heat between throws and consoled her when things weren’t going her way.

Indirectly, the family also has helped to prepare Crawford for her planned vocation. Crawford said she has always helped her three brothers and three sisters--and even her parents--with their problems. Consequently, she wants to major in psychology.

“People flip out when they hear what I want to be,” Crawford said. “I tell them I want to be a marriage counselor. I like helping people with their problems. I’m always right.”

Crawford has been contacted by numerous schools, but she said the final choice will be one with a strong psychology department.

Earlier in the year, Crawford said she wanted to go to Minnesota because of its psychology program. However, she has since concluded that the weather might be just a little bit too different from what she’s used to here.

So Crawford, like Parker, wants to go to school close to home.

“If I could pick a school, I’d go to USIU,” she said. “I have friends there (former teammate Vickie Williams) and they have a good psychology department. Besides, Vickie told me they have a lot of cute boys there.”

Crawford and Parker may come from different backgrounds and have different personalities, but they do share the same feelings on attention.

After Crawford beat Parker at the Arcadia Invitational, Crawford said peoples’ image of her changed.

“A lot of people at school came up and congratulated me,” Crawford said. “They announced it on the loud speaker and everything. That was fine.

“But the next week, when I didn’t do as well, people came up and asked why I did bad. You go out, try, do your best, and people say, ‘That’s all?’ I still threw farther than I did all last year (141-8). You can’t expect 153 (feet) every day.

“It’s tough when you’re good. You have to set a good example, and people expect a lot from you. It gets embarrassing.”

Parker has had the same type of experience at Ramona.

When Parker threw 162-0 at the Sundevil Invitational to set a new Section record, she said she suddenly had a lot of friends she didn’t know before.

“A lot of people congratulated me,” Parker said. “It makes me feel good that they know what I’ve done, but it’s kind of embarrassing when people you don’t even know want you to sign autographs.”

At least that’s something they have in common.