LANE CHANGE : Angela Burnham of Rio Mesa Discovers New Race to Run in Life and on the Track

As the athletic director at Rio Mesa High, it is Brian FitzGerald’s job to support each of the school’s athletic teams with equal enthusiasm. But one look at his office tells even the casual observer that this is not the case.

True, the front half of a Spartan football helmet is mounted on a wall next to a framed 8 x 10 color glossy of All-Ventura County forward Eric Thomas launching a jump shot against Santa Barbara. But most of the office is adorned with track and field memorabilia.

There are trophies and plaques won by many of the Channel League championship teams that FitzGerald and Rick Torres have guided, and photos of Travis Cooksey, the 1987 Southern Section 4-A Division 800-meter champion, are displayed on either side of the office.

But those mementos are overshadowed by a poster-size photo of sprinter Angela Burnham.

The shot was taken at the 1986 Spartan Relays at Rio Mesa when Burnham was a shy 14-year-old freshman loaded with potential but lacking in confidence.

Three years later, that potential has produced 3 individual state titles and a gregarious, confident young woman.

This is not to say that Burnham is a stereotypical sprinter. She does not strut around boasting about her accomplishments on the track, but she will talk about them when asked. No longer is she afraid to look reporters in the eye when answering questions and her replies are no longer short. Frequently, they are long and explanatory.

“She’s much more outgoing now than she was then,” FitzGerald said. “But another thing is that she has so much more confidence in herself to achieve things away from the track.

“She wasn’t a great student when she came here as a freshman. She’s still not a great student, but I’ve had teachers come up to me and say, ‘Hey, Angela is doing some things that I didn’t think she’d be able to do this year.’ ”

Burnham, who will defend her high school 500-yard dash title in the Sunkist Invitational indoor track meet at the Sports Arena tonight, agreed with FitzGerald.

“I still remember my first track meet,” she said with a laugh. “I was terrified. I did not want to run in front of all those people. . . . I never competed in other sports because I was too shy.”

Burnham’s one-track attitude no doubt helped in her development. Whereas many elite high school athletes compete for different coaches in 2 or 3 sports, Burnham was able to devote her time exclusively to FitzGerald.

Consequently, there was never any adjustment period between sports, and a consistent year-round training regimen paid big dividends in 1988 when Burnham won state titles in the 100- and 200-meter dashes and propelled Rio Mesa to a share of the state championship. She also set a national age-16 record of 11.28 seconds in the 100 at the Olympic Trials in Indianapolis and placed sixth in the 100 at the World Junior track and field championships (for athletes 19 and under) in Sudbury, Canada.

The 11.28 clocking moved her to third on the all-time high school list behind Chandra Cheeseborough of Ribault High in Jacksonville, Fla., (11.13 in 1976) and Wendy Vereen of Trenton Central High in Trenton, N.J., (11.17 at altitude in 1983).

Those accomplishments won Burnham recognition as the national high school female athlete of the year by Track and Field News, making her the first junior to receive the award since Denean Howard of Kennedy in 1981.

So how will Burnham deal with the higher expectations and pressure of her senior season? By putting last season behind her.

“Last year is completely over,” Burnham said. “This is a totally new year. Last year was a long time ago and now I have to prove myself again.”

FitzGerald will try to ease that pressure by having Burnham concentrate on the 400--not the 100 and 200--early in the season.

“I don’t want to hold that 11.28 in front of her,” he said. “I don’t want the 100 to be the focus of this year at the start. I mean, that 11.28 came under optimum conditions. I don’t want her to think that if she’s running 12.0 early in the season, that she’s not running well. That’s why we’re concentrating on the 400 early in the season. To take some of the pressure off of her.”

To most high school sprinters, running the 400 is akin to being surrounded by a school of sharks during a feeding frenzy. It’s a death wish. But Burnham welcomes the challenge.

“The longer distance will make me stronger,” she said. “And secondly, it will take some of the pressure off of me. I know people are going to think I haven’t improved if I only run 11.6 early in the season. But I know if I go out there right now, I can’t run 11.28. It could be the best conditions in the world and I couldn’t run that fast right now.”

Burnham had the best conditions in the world when she ran 11.28 in the quarterfinals of the Olympic Trials last July. The Indianapolis track was lightning fast, the sweltering weather was perfect for sprinting, the competition was superb and Burnham had had 2 months to focus on the meet.

“The trials was an anomaly,” FitzGerald said. “Everything just came together at the right time. . . . We were able to peak her perfectly.”

Burnham credits Jackie Joyner-Kersee, the World Championships and Olympic Games winner in the heptathlon and long jump, for her scintillating sprinting at the trials.

“I was warming up before the second round and she said, ‘Angela,’ ” Burnham recalled. “I turned around and figured she must be talking to somebody else. But then she said, ‘Aren’t you Angela Burnham, the high school runner from California?’ I said ‘yeah,’ and she said ‘looking good.’ Oh, wow, after that, I was on cloud nine. I figured that’s why I ran 11.28.”

But the biggest factor in Burnham’s splendid ’88 campaign was good health.

After upsetting Tami Stiles of Hawthorne for the state 100 title as a freshman, big things were expected of Burnham in ’87. But a bout with the chicken pox and a torn right hamstring suffered at the Southern Section championships ended her season.

So, last year, her goal was to stay healthy. She accomplished that and more, lowering her previous bests of 11.77 in the 100 and 24.08 in the 200 to 11.28 and 23.45.

This year, Burnham would like to win at state again--although she is still not sure exactly in which events she’ll compete--and qualify again for the national junior team and compete in the World Junior Championships in Buenos Aires.

But now, tonight’s Sunkist meet and a recruiting trip to the University of Texas, at Austin, on Saturday, are the most pertinent events on her itinerary.

Burnham, who has made a recruiting trip to Tennessee and expects to visit UCLA, was wary of running in the Sunkist meet until she won an all-comers’ 400-meter race in 57.8 at Mt. San Antonio College on Saturday.

“When I first started school this year,” Burnham said, “I said to myself, ‘Angela, you do not want to look at a track. You ran all the way until August and it’s time for a rest.’ But I got on the track last Saturday and I was ready to go.”

That didn’t surprise FitzGerald.

“Obviously, she’s loaded with talent,” he said. “But she’s a great competitor. She rises to the occasion. I’ve never seen her fold. I mean, when the chips are on the line, she always comes through.”