I-15: Cross-Country’s Fastest Highway : High schools: Competition breeds success when North County schools get together.

Martin Reyes, a junior at Escondido High, thought he had made a choice between returning to cross-country or getting an afternoon job and saving for a car.

Having recently turned 16, he wanted some wheels.

So much for cross-country.

But Reyes ran into a roadblock even before he got a job, even before school started. Escondido cross-country Coach Lonnie Morrow wouldn’t let him quit.

Morrow repeatedly called Reyes, took him out on runs, took him for doughnuts and went to his house to talk with his family.

“I just wouldn’t give up on him,” Morrow said. “I decided this kid was worth sticking with. . . . He was never real strong with his feelings, so I felt like I had a chance.”

Morrow’s hounding of Reyes paid off for the coach. Not only is Reyes back, but he’s among the top three runners for a team ranked second in the county throughout the season.

Such effort has enabled Morrow to lift Escondido to the ranks of the county’s elite.

Indeed, he does not have to look far to find the stiffest competition.

Call it the I-15 corridor and brand it dominant because no other area of the county has consistently produced so many strong cross-country teams as a relatively small stretch of that freeway.

Neighbors include San Pasqual, the only boys’ team ranked higher than Escondido, which lies a few miles down I-15 from Escondido High. A few more miles south are Poway and Mt. Carmel, consistently among the top five programs in the county. And several miles north is Fallbrook High, another perennial powerhouse.

How strong is the cluster?

-- Last year the Fallbrook boys did not even earn one of the San Diego Section’s two berths to the State meet in Division I, but were No. 9 in the final state rankings.

-- Three of the county’s current top five boys’ teams are from the corridor (San Pasqual, Escondido, Fallbrook) as are four of the top five girls’ teams (San Pasqual, Mt. Carmel, Poway, Fallbrook). Rankings are done by a poll of coaches.

-- Of the 16 teams from San Diego that made it to the state meet last year, five were from the I-15 corridor. The San Pasqual boys and girls both won first place in Division I, the Mt. Carmel girls took second in Division II and the Poway girls finished sixth in Division I. Only the Poway boys, who were hit with several injuries a couple weeks before the meet, did not place among the state’s top 10 in their division.

-- At the September Laguna Hills Invitational, the San Pasqual boys and Escondido boys finished 1-2. Later in the month at the 80-school Dana Hills Invitational, San Pasqual again finished first and Escondido was third. In second was another school some consider a part of the I-15 corridor, Mira Mesa, which competes in the City Conference rather than the North County Conference.

The reason these schools do so well, say those inside and outside the corridor, is because of the devotion given by coaches, the kind Morrow shows when he pursues athletes who have other agendas.

“I think it probably would be found that the coaches at the schools in that neck of the woods are very deeply involved and dedicated to their programs,” said Bill Stock, longtime girls’ coach at La Jolla High. “They put a great amount of their own time into it that a lot of other coaches are not willing to do, and I’m one of them.

“Will Wester (San Pasqual coach), for example, is married to the sport, from what I can observe anyway.

That’s his main interest in life. And that’s not a knock against him. I personally have some other interests. I’m willing to give the kids everything I can while I’m with them and I’m willing to give them some of my own time. But it does make a difference when a coach dedicates himself to a program. The kids are aware of your interest and they respond to that.”

Coaches along I-15 are hesitant to reach around and pat themselves on the back, but they realize their efforts are a big reason for their success.

“I think what happens,” Mt. Carmel’s Dennis McClanahan said, “is the kids in our area are pretty good, but there are good kids all over. The difference is all of us involved here are willing to put in the extra time. Cross-country is a work ethic sport. The kids that win don’t depend on their talent. They all have that. They depend on their work ethic. And to be successful, coaches have to work just as hard.”

One of the reasons they all work so hard is because they want to beat each other.

“A lot of it,” San Pasqual’s Wester said, “is one coach spreading the competitive spirit on to the other guy. If the guy up the street is doing a good job and winning a lot of meets, I want to beat him.”

Added Poway’s Dan Schaitel: “When one coach comes in and builds a really strong program, all the other programs are going to start pointing to and competing with that one program.”

San Pasqual has had that one program these past two seasons. San Pasqual and Escondido are the Avocado League members along the I-15 corridor. The other three belong to the Palomar League.

“Having San Pasqual in our league, everybody used to apologize to me when I first started,” Morrow said. “But we enjoy it because it makes us better runners. The kids enjoy running against them and they like to compare times each week to see if they’re getting any closer to San Pasqual.”

San Pasqual’s Wester feels the same way.

“I don’t want Poway to beat me, I don’t want Mt. Carmel to beat me and I’m sure Dennis (McClanahan of Mt. Carmel) doesn’t want San Pasqual to beat him.”

But they’re not in it only to win.

“The kids are so much fun,” McClanahan said. “You hear of coaches going through burnout, but I think that’s real hard in our sport because our kids are so positive. They’re a lot of fun to be around.

“They keep you young.”

Cross-country coaches also realize it takes a special student to be a distance runner.

“I’ve been saying for some time that it takes an awful lot of motivation and dedication to do well academically,” said Stock of La Jolla. “But you need the same kind of characteristics to do well in distance running. Lazy kids aren’t going to get good grades or be good in distance running.”

Some say most of the really dedicated cross-country runners come from upper-middle class backgrounds.

“I think it’s a combination of a little bit of lifestyle and economics,” said Doug Speck, a cross-country buff who does work for the Kinney National and compiles the state rankings. “The Thousand Oaks-Agoura Hills area in L.A. is very similar (economically) to San Diego’s North County and it’s one of the dominant cross-country areas in Los Angeles. Orange County too is very similar and very dominant. The suburban-type family situation just seems to be very supportive and allows for kids to get into sports, like cross-country, that demand a lot of time.”

Poway’s Dan Schaitel espouses the same theory, having watched as the Section’s strongest cross-country programs migrated from San Diego City schools to the East County and now to the North County.

“There has been a socio-economic movement from the city outward,” Schaitel said. “And it’s happening along the I-15 corridor right now.”