San Diego High School Player of the Week : When Tadese Runs, Teammates Follow

Darryl Nelson, the Crawford High School cross-country coach, says that Goshu Tadese is simply one of Southern California’s best high school runners.

Tadese proved him correct on Saturday, when he won the individual sweepstakes race at the Mt. San Antonio College Invitational high school cross-country meet, one of the season’s most prestigious meets.

Nelson also says that Tadese, The Times’ High School Player of the Week, is one of the most likable runners he has coached in his 11 years at Crawford.

Tadese’s teammates proved that point before Saturday’s race.

“It was 5:30 in the morning and it was raining,” said Nelson, whose team had assembled at the school for the drive north to Walnut, Calif. “Goshu was running in the individual race, but it wasn’t absolutely necessary for the other kids to run in the team races. I gave them the option to go home.”

Nobody did.

“The kids told me they didn’t care if they ran, but they just wanted to see Goshu run,” Nelson said. “It goes to show you the kind of influence he has on people. A lot of kids in sports are jealous of the really good athletes, but here, Goshu is the best, and all of the kids really like him.”

Tadese won in 15 minutes 15 seconds--the best time of the day’s 100 races, which featured some of the top high school cross-country runners in Southern California, Nevada and Arizona.

“He’s really an amazing kid,” Nelson said. “He runs all the time. He’s had this hip injury for a while, and he can’t get rid of it because he won’t take time off. He’s stronger than most of these other kids because he has built up so much mileage.”

At 12, Tadese moved with his father to the United States from his native Ethiopia. He came to San Diego a year later and started running cross-country at Crawford.

In his first competition, the sophomore race at the South Bay Invitational, he proved he knew little about pacing himself.

“Goshu went out and ran the first mile (of a 3.1-mile race) in 5:05, and I looked up and nobody was within a quarter-mile of him,” Nelson said. “All of us coaches said, ‘Oh my God, this kid is going to die out there.’ But he didn’t die. He just kept running and he won easily.

“Afterward, he asked me when the next sophomore race was, and I told him he wouldn’t be running in any more of those. He’d be running varsity.”

In the two years since, Tadese has learned to pace himself better.

“Now I just go out the first mile and stay with the fastest runner,” he said. “Then, the second mile, I take off. It’s good to save my power a little. I used to never want to be second in a race. Now I know it’s most important to be first at the end.”

When he runs, he thinks about running the marathon in the 1992 Olympics. He wants someday to be like Abebe Bikila, the Ethiopian who won the Olympic marathons in 1960 and 1964.

For now, however, he’ll concentrate on three-mile cross-country courses and the upcoming track season. He ran the half-mile, mile and two-mile last year for Crawford and plans on doing the same this spring.

“I can run them all in one day with no problem,” he said.

And there’s a good chance his teammates wouldn’t mind watching him run all three, either.

Goshu Tadese

Crawford High School

Position: Cross-country runner

Height, Weight, Class: 5-7, 140, Sr.

Last Week: Won individual sweepstakes race at the Mt. San Antonio College Invitational high school cross-country meet. Time of 15:15 for three miles was best of the day.