Running Tradition : UC Irvine’s Cross-Country Team Would Love to Capture NCAA Title 10 Years After That Other Team’s Victories

Don’t ask UC Irvine men’s cross-country Coach Vince O’Boyle to compare this year’s team with the ones that won national championships in 1975 and ’76.

He says there’s no comparison. Besides, this year’s team is building its own tradition.

“People always compare our program with the Steve Scott days,” O’Boyle said. “But we’re as good as the team back then, if not better. Ten years ago, UCI had a strong Division II program. That tradition will help our future, but if we were Division II now, we could probably win nationals, too.”

UCI will try Saturday for its second straight Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. title in Fresno’s Woodward Park.

This season, the Anteaters have won the Riverside and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo invitationals and placed third in the prestigious Stanford Invitational, beating perennial powers UCLA and Arizona State.

“Stanford was an important race for us,” O’Boyle said. “I knew we were good, but I wasn’t sure how good. Beating UCLA and getting third put us in the position that we were credible.”

UCI’s only returning runners are seniors Ralph Garabaldi and Rod Curry. Garabaldi, who missed the first two races of the season because of a sore Achilles’ tendon, placed second in last year’s conference meet and should be the team leader by the end of the season, O’Boyle said.

Curry, the team captain, finished eighth in the conference last year. There are also two junior transfers--Richard Graves from Long Beach City College and Gus Quinonez, who won the state 10,000-meter race for Orange Coast College as a freshman.

Sophomore Rick Wilhelm and freshmen Steve Imlay and Mike Wall have contributed as the team’s fifth runners.

Saturday’s race in Fresno is doubly important for UCI, since Woodward Park will also be the site for the NCAA District 8 Championships Nov. 15, a stop en route to the NCAA championships.

“That’s what we’re aiming for,” O’Boyle said. “To qualify for NCAAs (finals on Nov. 24). After they run this weekend, I want them to be able to turn around and say ‘I can run that course 15-20 seconds faster.’ Then we’ll know we’re in great shape for nationals.”