The Natural : El Camino’s Sharette Garcia Had Never Run on a Track Until ‘86--at First She Was Intimidated, but Now She’s the Intimidator

Sharette Garcia’s fast little feet had never stepped on a track before she moved to Los Angeles in 1986. The first time the 19-year-old saw one she was watching the 1984 Olympics on television in her hometown of Belize in Central America.

The petite (5-foot-3, 103 pounds) El Camino College freshman participated in annual races through the streets, but there was no formal training or an adequate facility to work out in.

“It was so different there,” Garcia said in a heavy Creole accent. “We ran for houses. Those were our teams. There were five house teams and we competed once a year. We just ran on the streets of my town. There were no tracks or anything like this.”

That’s why her father, Fred, wanted her to move to the United States. Fred was on Belize’s sprint relay team at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico and he wanted his daughter to have better training and competition.

So Garcia moved in with her mother, who had left her as an infant and come to California in search of a better life. Now Garcia, four siblings and her mother live southwest of downtown L.A.

She attended Manual Arts High for two years although she had completed high school in Belize where the average graduate is 16 years old. Academics went well at Manual Arts, but track was disappointing during her junior season because she was inexperienced and intimidated.

“At first it was horrible,” Garcia said. “I came to America and I didn’t know what to expect. I just saw that the other girls were so good and I was so scared .”

Manual Arts track Coach Rosalind Mayfield says it was evident that Garcia had ability, but she was clearly undisciplined.

“She’s a natural runner,” Mayfield said. “It’s in her blood, but we had to teach her how to run on her toes and things like that. It was like a natural horse that had to be refined.”

And by the following season, Garcia was. She trained hard during the summer and with the help of Manual Arts assistant coach Leroy Graham improved her mark in the 800 meters by about seven seconds, and she chopped her 400-meter time from 58 seconds to 56.27.

As a senior in high school she won the 800-meter and 400-meter league titles and captured the 800-meter City title by defeating the defending state champion from Locke High. Garcia placed second in the 400-meters at the City meet and she ninth in the 800 at the state meet.

“I had never seen or been in anything that big before,” Garcia said of the state meet run at Cerritos College. “I was so overwhelmed by the crowd. I was really scared to be there.”

Now the fear is gone. Garcia takes an hour and a half bus ride every morning to be on the El Camino track team because her distant cousin, Margaret Hemmans, competed there. As a Warrior, Hemmans was a two-time state champion in the 400-meter hurdles and the 400 meters, which is why her father wanted her to attend the school and compete for Coach Terry McFate.

“Sharette weighs 103 and her heart weighs 90 pounds,” said McFate, who coached Hemmans in high school and at El Camino. “She’s 5-foot-3 and her heart is five feet tall. She’s always here. She almost practices too hard. Every day out here (on the track) is important to her.”

She is essential to the South Coast Conference champion Warriors who will compete in this weekend’s Southern California Regional finals at Cerritos.

Garcia is the state’s second best 800-meter (2:13.7) and 1,500-meter (4:39.4) runner and the conference champion in both events. She also runs the third leg of El Camino’s 1,600-meter relay team, top rated in the state (3:47.1).

This weekend Garcia will face her top competitors in the two individual events, Kathy Kreiger and Marit Koch of Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo.

“She’s a very capable runner,” Cuesta Coach Darrell Rich said of Garcia. “She possesses qualities that can present trouble for our girls. She’s a lot smaller than most of the girls, but she has a lot of good foot speed.”

Kreiger, who will attend the University of Georgia next year, is the defending state champion in the 1,500. In the Western State Conference meet two weeks ago she recorded the season’s best state mark (4:33.1). Koch holds the state’s top 800-meter time (2:12.31).

Their strength however, doesn’t frighten Garcia as it would have when she was a timid 16-year-old. Despite an injury that forced her to sit out a month this season, she’s gained the confidence of a top-notch runner.

“She’s an outstanding athlete,” said Mt. San Antonio College Coach John Norton, whose team placed second at the SCC meet. “She has a lot of great ability and her ability hasn’t even been totally tapped. She’s still very young and she has a long way to go. She can be very good.”

El Camino assistant coach Dave Shannon, who also coaches cross-country at the school, says Garcia surprised him from the start.

“She’s definitely an untapped talent,” he said. “Everything is still fairly new to her, but she loves track so she works extremely hard. She’s just a phenomenal athlete.”

So is Laura Ainsworth, considered El Camino’s best multi-event athlete. She and Garcia are expected to qualify for the state championship meet at Fresno College on May 19.

Sophomore Ainsworth, who didn’t get through league competition last year because of a stress fracture, won four events (400 meters, 100 and 400-meter hurdles and the long jump) at the SCC meet two weeks ago and placed third in the triple jump.

This season she holds the state’s best marks in the 400-meter hurdles (59.29) and 400 meters (54.63). She anchors the Warriors’ top-ranked 1,600 and 400-meter relay teams and ran an incredible 52.9 quarter-mile split in the 1,600-meter relay this season.

“She’s very good and very fast,” Norton said. “She’ll do very, very well. They obviously have a lot of talent over there.”

Freshmen sisters Shena and Shenae Mills are the other two legs on the 1,600-meter relay team, and Alesia Erweng, Cassandra Vance and Cecilia Thomas complete the 400-meter relay squad.

Thomas won the 100 and 200 meters at the conference meet and Vance won the high jump. Sherry Sperling added points by winning the javelin (134-4) and shot put (42-7 1/3). The sophomore won the state shot put title last year with a 47-10 mark.

“Keep in mind,” McFate said, “that we don’t have to win this weekend. We just have to qualify (for the state meet).”

In order for Garcia to do that, she needs to finish in Southern California’s top four in the 800 meters and in the top six in the 1,500 meters. The thin runner from Central America, however, can’t take winning off her mind.