Metro Back on Track : High schools: Athletes could bring gold home to South Bay for the first time since 1966.

The year was 1966, and the names were Terry Rodgers and Tim Danielson. They represented the San Diego Section at the state track and field meet--only they did more than represent.

They took home gold medals. Rodgers of Hilltop won the 880 yards in 1 minute 51.5 seconds, and Danielson of Chula Vista paced the mile in 4:07.0.

Not that their times mean anything today. In fact, since conversion to meters in 1980, those events aren’t even run anymore.

It’s just that Rodgers and Danielson were the last two Metro Conference athletes to win gold medals in boys’ competition at the state meet.

Now, 25 years later, there is a strong likelihood they finally will be joined in the record book by other South Bay boys.

Meet Riley Washington of Southwest High, Eric Bell of Castle Park and Hector Hernandez of Mar Vista, all of whom competed in the state meet at Cerritos College last spring, all of whom came through with unsatisfying efforts and all of whom now consider last June 3 and 4 a learning experience.

Washington ran the 100 meters. After a horrendous start in the finals, he finished third in 10.70. He was competing as a sophomore and entered the meet with the fastest time in the state (10.53).

Bell did the 110 high hurdles, only he had a problem clearing them--he kicked over many in the preliminaries and did not make the cut.

Hernandez made it into the 1,600-meter final. He led early but faded and finished more than eight seconds behind the eventual winner and in fifth at 4:14.27.

A year later, Washington already is favored for the gold in the 100, Bell is speaking matter of factly about winning the 110 high hurdles, and Hernandez is hoping for some sudden attrition in the 1,600 field that could lead to his finishing first.

Washington, the sophomore, said little after his disappointing third-place finish last June. All he could think about were the two Southern Section runners who came in with slower credentials but who nevertheless out-paced Washington when it counted.

The difference, Washington decided, was preparation. Runners from the Southern Section, where the competition is much stiffer than in San Diego, had a spring’s worth of invitationals.

“These guys from L.A. are lucky because they get to push each other during the season,” Washington said a few minutes after his race. “If I want to hang with these guys, I’m going to have to put more into what I do to prepare.”

Washington’s coach, Carl Parrick, has little doubt Washington will do just that. Parrick also coaches football at Southwest and remembers an anecdote from the past season that demonstrates what Washington makes of second chances.

It was a game against Metro Conference rival Mar Vista, and Washington, a fullback who fumbled often the first couple games of the season, appeared to be repeating history.

The first time he was handed the ball, he fumbled it away. On Southwest’s next offensive series, he let a pass slip through his hands.

So Parrick took him out, sat him down and let him think a bit. Eventually Washington approached the coach.

“He looked at me and said, ‘Am I going to have a second chance?’ ” Parrick recalled. “And I told him, ‘You sure as hell are.’ I sent him back in and he ended up scoring five touchdowns that game.”

Washington, who scored all his team’s touchdowns except one in the 44-22 victory, did not fumble the rest of the way.

It was the second time that Parrick showed some confidence in Washington and was rewarded for doing so.

The first time came a year and a half before when the track season had just begun. Washington, then a freshman, showed up for tryouts, but was academically ineligible. Parrick saw to it that Washington raised his grades.

About two-thirds of the way through the season Washington became eligible. Just his luck, it was the week Southwest was to run against Castle Park, which was led by Kiyoshi Moody, then among the top two sprinters in the section.

So sure Washington would pull an upset, Parrick called a newspaper reporter and told him he had a story. Just show up for the 100-yard dash at Thursday’s meet.

Moody, a senior, had been running the 100 yards in the high 9s for several weeks. He lined up next to some freshman who hadn’t competed on the high school level.

When the gun sounded, the freshman beat the senior out of the blocks.

“Riley was actually ahead,” Parrick remembered. “And Kiyoshi had been doing 9.7s all season. But when Kiyoshi looked up and saw a freshman ahead of him, he started turning it on. He barely caught Riley at the finish line.”

Washington has not only started to win his races since that day, but has also turned things around in the classroom. This semester his grade-point average is 3.3.

“And that’s with two honors classes,” Parrick said.

Parrick is keeping up on Washington’s grades these days because several colleges have already showed interest.

“I’ve received 34 letters from colleges asking about Riley,” Parrick said. “That’s by far the most I’ve ever received while a kid is still a junior.”

Eric Bell never seemed hindered by his habit of toppling hurdles instead of topping them.

He consistently did it last season and still managed the section’s fastest time in the 110-meter highs. Until, that is, the section finals, when Morse’s Chris Jones came from behind to beat him by five-hundredths of a second.

Then came the state meet, and Bell, the second qualifier from the San Diego Section, was issued a spectator’s ticket after the preliminaries.

If Bell was to make it back to the Cerritos College track, not its bleachers, he was going to have to adjust his stride and stop hitting the hurdles.

So Bell gave up the last month of his summer vacation to work out at Southwest College in Los Angeles under the tutorage of hurdles coach Phillip Johnson, a friend of the family. Even since school began, Bell has been spending weekends with Johnson.

After the season’s first two dual meets, however, Bell has not seen any improvement. Still, he knows it will take time to get used to the adjustments in his technique.

Actually, Bell has had to make only one adjustment.

“With my stride I was taking eight steps to the first hurdle,” Bell said about last year’s races. “And I was coming up to close to the first hurdle. That’s why I was kicking them over. Plus, with eight steps, I really couldn’t go full speed. During my last few steps, I was getting so close to the hurdle, I would have to slow down.”

The adjustment was to lengthen his stride and take only seven steps to the first hurdle.

So far, though, one problem has replaced another.

“He’s not kicking the hurdles anymore,” Castle Park Coach Alan Duke said. “Now he’s taking off too far from them and bumping them with his butt.”

He clocked a 14.9 in his first meet, “And that was a very nice, joggy pace,” Duke said.

He then managed a 14.4 last week--a good early-season time, but well off Bell’s lofty goal.

That goal is to run under 14 seconds. It is lofty because no other San Diego Section hurdler has ever managed the feat, the closest being El Camino’s Bruce Mitchell who 11 years ago clocked a hand-timed 14.24.

When told that not even Willie Banks ran the event that fast for Oceanside High in the early 1970s, Bell nodded and said, “I’ll be the first. . . .

“You know, back then it was hand-timed. Now I think it’s a even harder because they use electronic timing. But I know I can do it.”

Bell might not have to get below 14.0 to win the state meet, but he will have to get close to it.

Last year’s winning time was slow--14.41. But it was one of only three years since 1977 that the winning time has been slower than 14.0.

Bell has been running the hurdles only since ninth grade. He grew up playing basketball, but wanted something to do after school when he was a freshman, so he tried out for the track team and got stuck with the hurdles.

“There was a senior hurdler (Andrew Moreno) then,” Bell remembered. “And he was going to graduate, so the coaches wanted someone ready to take his place. Actually, I was kind of scared of the hurdles at first.”

Bell was also timid with the media, even last year while he was winning most of the invitationals. Rarely making eye contact with his questioners, Bell answered many questions with shrugs of his shoulders.

No longer. “Last year I was as confident,” Bell said. “But I guess I was just a little more humble. This year I have a goal and I want to go out and reach it.”

Hector Hernandez confounds Mar Vista track Coach Aaron Aubuchon.

“Most kids come up and ask what the day’s workout is going to be,” Aubuchon said. “You tell them, and then they complain, but not Hector. He just says ‘OK’ and goes out and does it.”

Maybe the difference is Hernandez enjoys it.

“For me running is better than anything else,” he said. “If I miss a practice, I feel I really missed something in life.”

Like Washington and Bell, Hernandez, too, learned last year that if he wants to compete with the Southern Section’s best at the state meet, it will take extra effort.

That he has been doing.

“He’s very self-motivated,” Aubuchon said. “From the end of cross-country season (mid-November) until now, he has been running on his own.”

Hernandez, however, also needs something else. If he is to have a chance for the 1,600-meter gold, he needs some outside help--help which appears to be forthcoming.

Last year’s first-place runner in the 1,600 meters, Coley Candaele of Carpinteria, graduated, as did three of the four others who placed ahead of Hernandez.

The one who didn’t graduate, Louie Quintana of Arroyo Grande, went on to win the Kinney National Cross-Country championship in December, at which time he said that this spring he would attempt to become the third high school athlete to run a sub-four-minute mile.

The difference between Quintana and Hernandez became apparent at January’s Sunkist Invitational indoor track meet at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. Both runners took part in what was billed as a national championship indoor mile.

Quintana placed first at 4:14.20 and Hernandez was way back in sixth at 4:27.1.

So what chance does Hernandez have of beating Quintana? None, except he might not have to. Quintana is considering dropping the 1,600 in favor of the 3,200 meters at the state meet.

And if the Sunkist mile is any indication, that would leave only one other California runner in Hernandez’s way--Ricky Gallegos, an underclassman at Arroyo Grande who finished third at the indoor meet in 4:21.61. The three others who finished ahead of Hernandez were from out of state.

One other thing Hernandez learned a year ago is that only one race really counts--the final one. Last year at the state meet he went all out in the preliminaries, turning in a 4:12. The next day for the finals, he was two seconds slower and the only runner in the top five not to improve his preliminary time.

“I really pushed myself hard the first day,” Hernandez said. “And I didn’t think about the next day. My goal was to just qualify for the finals.

“Now I know I don’t have to push real hard (in the preliminaries).”

Hernandez is also pushing himself hard in the classroom, but with less spectacular results. He and his mother moved to the South Bay from Tijuana in summer 1988 and Hernandez has not yet become comfortable with English.

In fact, his difficulty with English will keep him from accepting a scholarship to one of many schools to have beckoned, schools such as Arizona, Idaho and Stanford.

“I know the class (material),” Hernandez said. “But everything is still kind of hard because of the language, so I think my first step will be to a JC.”