What Used to Be Lonely Long-Distance Runners Are Now Just Faces in the Crowd

The film “The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner” probably could not be made today. At least, not under that title.

Running as a fad for the common man began about 20 years ago. At the start, it was a way for Everyman--and later Everywoman--to improve his or her health and stay in shape by jogging a mile or two every now and then.

In the 1960s, if you went jogging along the median strip on San Vicente Boulevard on the Westside, you probably would have experienced loneliness. Today, you are likely to bump into many of your friends--and meet a whole lot of new ones.

Running craze has become running norm.

Two decades ago, high school and college cross-country runners were rare creatures whom one had to forgive for pursuing such a solitary passion. Today, while they may not be regarded as campus heroes or heroines like football or volleyball players, they seem to be respected by their fellow students.

Harriers are not chasing rabbits anymore, but glory.

Which may explain why strong cross-country runners and teams are popping up in some unlikely places these days, places like Santa Monica College, Beverly Hills High School and Hamilton High.

University High School, under now-retired Coach Dick Kampmann, used to be the place for distance runners. And it still is under Ralf Latham, who succeeded Kampmann as cross-country and track coach in 1985.

In Kampmann’s 26 years at University, the boys and girls cross-country squads, in four divisions of competition from varsity to sophomores, won 53 Western League championships and seven city titles. Under Latham, the school’s girls won again last year, their second straight championship, and the boys finished third in the city.

Latham’s harriers went into Wednesday’s final Western League dual meet with a 4-0 league record. Their final opponent, Hamilton, also was 4-0.

Hamilton undefeated in cross-country? The school that has been better noted for such state champion sprinters as Antonio Manning, now a senior at USC, and Billy Mullins, a top quarter-miler who led Hamilton to a state track championship in 1976?

Yes, that one.

Hamilton’s top runner for the boys has been senior captain Homero Munoz, who has kept pace with University’s best, senior Cruz Hernandez. For the girls, the best for Hamilton has been senior Margo Gray, who was matched Wednesday with the best University girl, senior Angelina Haro. Haro is the fourth and last of the distance-running Haro family at University, including sisters Teresa and Caroline and brother Reuben.

Beverly Hills High won the Ocean League cross-country championship recently, led by senior John Mora, who was undefeated in league competition and finished first in the league final, and by sophomore Lisa Harris, third in the league final, and freshman Jamie Leeds, fourth, for the girls.

The Normans last won a league title in cross-country when they captured the Pioneer League championship in 1976, according to Howard Edelman, in his second year as coach of track and cross-country.

Anna Biller, a former top USC sprinter, began coaching women’s track and cross-country at Santa Monica College in 1979. Her track teams won state championships in 1981 and 1982 and finished second in the state last season. Last year her cross-country squad was eighth in the state meet, and last weekend her harriers finished third at the state meet in Fresno. Mira Costa College won the championship and Orange Coast was second. Biller’s top three runners this season, who often finished one-two-three in meets--and not always in the same order--were Migdalia (Midge) Arteaga, 28, a native of Venezuela; Patty Almendariz, a top distance runner at St. Monica High School a couple of years ago, and 37-year-old Pat Story, who had no cross-country team to run for when she was a University of Montana student in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Why are Beverly Hills and Hamilton high schools and Santa Monica College producing champion harriers now when the schools didn’t have quite as much success in the past?

In the case of the Santa Monica College women, Biller said that it takes time to build a program from the ground up and that her cross-country squads have profited from the success of her track teams.

“I think it’s a matter of building a program and attracting people to it,” she said. “It’s a matter of offering something (to distance runners) as a springboard to a university scholarship.”

There were no college athletic scholarships for women distance runners when Story graduated from high school, and few if any grants for any woman athlete, said the SMC coach.

Biller, who ran in the 1980 Olympic trials, said that she and then-fellow student Sherry Calvert were largely responsible for starting the USC women’s track program. She added that she did not receive a scholarship until she was nearing the end of her USC career.

Though Story, a physical therapist, did not compete in college, she has run a lot for the Santa Monica Track Club and was in the 1984 Olympic trials in the marathon. Biller said that she talked Story into coming to Santa Monica this year and that, since she did not run in college, “is a freshman in eligibility.”

At the state meet last week, Arteaga was the Corsairs’ top finisher in fifth place, Almendariz was seventh and Story was 13th.

Last year sophomore Arteaga finished 43rd in the state meet and Almendariz was 10th.

Before Arteaga and her husband immigrated to the United States and she enrolled at Santa Monica College in the fall of 1985, “she had no previous running experience,” said Biller, adding:

“She felt that running cross-country was a good way to meet people on campus, that it would be kind of like a nice stroll through the woods.”

Almendariz, also a sophomore, knew from her career at St. Monica High that running cross-country was no gambol. That lesson was brought home to her, painfully, at the Southern California Championships.

At that meet, Almendariz was knocked to the ground in a wild start, other runners fell on top of her and she injured her right knee. But she got back up and finished 10th in that race.

It was doubtful whether Almendariz, who strained cartilage in her knee when she fell, was going to run at the state meet. But she responded well to treatment, doffed a brace she had been wearing for the injury and finished a strong seventh at Fresno.

Bruce K. Thomson is one of the chief reasons for Hamilton’s strong showing this season. Thomson, who ran distance events at Hamilton in the late 1970s, is a UCLA graduate and an accountant for a lumber company.

He said that he had “no idea that I would get into coaching” when Myron Menzies of the Hamilton coaching staff called him and asked him if he would help out by coaching Rick Tanner, a promising distance man and then a sophomore.

The fledgling accountant agreed to be a walk-on coach for Hamilton distance runners, Tanner finished third in the city in the mile in 1984, and Thomson found himself also coaching cross-country under Dick Haynes, head of the track and cross-country program.

Thomson said that distance running and cross-country started to gain popularity at Hamilton with Tanner, who went on to Stanford but is now on a mission for the Mormon Church.

He said that students began looking at Tanner and thinking, “All of a sudden we have someone who is a really great distance runner.” Some of those students also began thinking that perhaps they could be really great.

And Thomson began thinking about a full-time career as a coach and teacher and said he is working on a teaching credential at Loyola Marymount.

Haynes, for one, said he hopes that Thomson gets into coaching full time and credits him with the success of Hamilton cross-country, which he thinks won its last City championship in 1945. He said that the Yankee harriers have been winning because “we have a good coach and, in addition, kids who are self-motivated.”

Thomson and Haynes said that their cross-country runners are generally good students as well as good runners. Haynes said that one reason for that is “many of the kids we’ve been getting are in the magnet program” at the school.

Thomson said that top miler Tanner was his class valedictorian. “Distance runners tend to be a little bit more introverted than other athletes and tend to have the highest grade-point averages among those in sports.”

Beverly Hills Coach Edelman was a distance runner at West Los Angeles College, graduated from Cal State Northridge and coached track and cross-country at Burbank High for eight years before coming to Beverly two years ago.

Edelman, 34, inherited John Mora from Chuck Kloes, who coached some fine distance runners before he became an administrator in the Beverly Hills school district. In his first year with cross-country, Edelman said, only about 35 students turned out, but this year about 70 came out for the teams.

“My goal was to build up a lot of numbers, and it’s paid off in competition,” he said.

It also has paid off for Mora, who said that among the schools that have shown an interest in him as a runner are Princeton and Georgetown. He is also interested in those schools, not only for running but also for their strong programs in foreign affairs. He said that he wouldn’t mind attending Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Mora, who said he has a 3.69 grade-point average, explained that he has “always been interested in international affairs. I did a little negotiating last summer in a mock program at Cornell.”

He said that, though student interest in running is high, his achievements as a runner have not made him a big man on campus. “We’re still lowest on the totem pole. I run for personal gratification, and there’s no other reason for me to get out there. When I do well I feel good.”

Harris, whose father, Art, coached baseball at Venice High and West Los Angeles College for many years and is teaching mathematics at WLAC this year, is also a top student. Edelman said she has a straight-A average in an honors program.

Unlike Mora, who said that he has experienced feelings of elation known as “runner’s high” during some of his races, Harris said she feels that running is often hard work. But the work is worth it, she said, adding: “The worse you feel during the race, the better you feel afterward, when you have pushed yourself to beat someone.”

Harris said that in distance running “it always helps if you run with someone” and that she is glad that Leeds came out for cross-country this fall.

Coach Edelman said that Leeds is also a top student and has “a lot of natural talent as a runner. Her legs are real strong.”