Rothman Romps to Top of Class in State Meet

Jeannie Rothman is a performer with two stages.

First, she is a straight-A student at Westlake High. Second, she is one of the top cross-country runners in the nation.

But it was not until four years ago, when Rothman was in the eighth grade at Colina Intermediate School in Thousand Oaks, that construction began on the second stage of her double-feature high school career.

Rothman was in a P. E. class taught by Roger Patrick, the boys’ cross-country coach at Westlake, and, like everyone else, was forced to run a half-mile to a mile every day.

“It seemed like a lot then,” Rothman said.

Now, Rothman, in her senior year at Westlake, has changed her definition of “a lot.” Her new meaning includes eight- to 10-mile hill runs and repetition workouts with distances varying between 440 yards and one mile.

Rothman’s broad training regimen and her fiery desire helped her to record the fastest time of the day in winning the state Division II cross-country title Saturday in Fresno. Rothman timed 17 minutes 28 seconds over the 5,000-meter (3.1-mile) course in Woodward Park, missing Agoura standout Deena Drossin’s year-old state-meet record by one second.

“I didn’t even know what her record was,” Rothman said. “I had heard the course record was right around 17:07. I wanted to go and do about 17 minutes, but I didn’t.”

Rothman comes off as a relatively shy girl, but she was not at all conservative about stirring things up in the state race. She darted to the lead after about a half-mile and led Shelley Taylor of Edison and Martha Pinto of Katella through one mile in 5:19; Taylor and Pinto were four seconds behind.

Rothman, the Southern Section Division II champion, extended her lead to seven seconds over Taylor at two miles, 11:46 to 11:53, and was 20 seconds in front of Melina Glusac (12:06) of Fallbrook.

“I had to take the lead at the beginning because I was worried about Shelley Taylor and Martha Pinto because they have a lot of speed,” Rothman said. “I don’t have that much speed. I’m more of an (endurance) runner.”

Rothman’s newly found talent has developed more over the past year. As a freshman she won only one race--at the Mt. San Antonio College Invitational--and remained winless until she surprised herself with an injury-plagued victory in the Royal Invitational her junior year.

“I was hurt and limping around and saying, ‘Don’t expect too much from me in this race.’ ”

Later that season she finished second in the Southern Section 4-A final and third in the state Division I meet.

Rothman qualified for the Kinney national championships, ending her junior season with a 16th-place effort and missing All-American honors by one place.

“Basically she was just an average runner in ninth and 10th grade, but she really came into herself her junior year,” said Patrick.

With Rothman’s remarkable progress this season, Westlake girls’ Coach Connie McCarthy says her protege’s goal is a top-six finish in the national meet.