Biggest Track Meet Requires Personal Best

For those of you leaving town this weekend, Al Britt has one simple request:

“Take me with you-- please ,” says Britt, only half-jokingly.

Britt, Esperanza’s track and field coach, is at wit’s end. Organizing one of the biggest track meets in county history can do that to you.

For the first time, Saturday’s Orange County Track and Field Championships will combine girls’ and boys’ varsity and frosh-soph competitions. The meet used to be run on separate weekends--first boys, then girls--by separate schools.

But the opening of Trabuco Hills High School’s $300,000 track this year sparked new interest in a co-ed county championship. More interest, in fact, than Britt ever imagined.

“I figured we’d have 1,400, 1,500 entries max,” Britt said. “As it turned out, we’re over 2,000. My wife and I spent eight hours a day, everyday during Easter break at the computer. It’s, like, Looney Tunes.”

The meet, scheduled to start at 9 a.m. and finish by 7:15 p.m., has one added, albeit unexpected, attraction--the El Toro Air Show, which begins at 10 a.m. and expects to attract nearly a million spectators. Britt said that last year, the Air Show took place on a different weekend. Now he’s got to worry about traffic jams and the deafening roar of the Blue Angels.

Said Britt: “I just want to survive this thing.”

La Quinta Coach Dave Demarest has a knack for making average baseball teams great. And his teams have a knack for coming up with some of the weirdest good-luck charms and pregame rituals.

But it seems the team’s record (10-6-1) and sub-par offensive output has taken away some of the magic--at least for the coach.

“I know they have their rituals,” Demarest said. “I just wish they’d hit.”

He’s No Blockhead: A call to Huntington Beach High School confirmed our suspicions--Oiler track and cross-country Coach Eric Anderson is not who we thought he was.

“ Eric Anderson?” asked the student who answered the front-office phone. “You mean ‘Gumby,’ right?”

Right. Ever since junior high, Anderson, 24, has been known to his friends, teachers and co-workers as “Gumby.” Longtime roommate Christian Fex says Anderson owns everything from Gumby dolls, T-shirts and coffee mugs to Gumby bathroom soap.

His license plate? GUMBY, of course.

A portrait of Anderson’s rubbery green namesake hangs on his bedroom wall. It shows a woozy-looking Gumby laying flat out on a patch of blacktop.

Seems that Gumby--the man--earned his moniker years ago during a pickup football game. According to legend, Anderson was knocked off his feet by a monster hit. When he finally landed, he bounced. He has been Gumby ever since.

“Gumby is my name,” Anderson says. “Call me Eric? Absolutely not. I’m Gumby, like a Richard is a Richard.”

Not that some don’t wonder sometimes.

Said Fex: “Every once in awhile I take a reality break and go, ‘Why am I calling a grown man ‘Gumby’?’ ”

Fast Stat: Shortstop Charity Chavez and outfielders Charli Ruskin and Ruby Ramos are working hard to improve their combined batting average of .200 this season. That’s in baseball, not softball.

The girls play for Pacific Shores High School, which offers co-ed baseball because its enrollment--45 students at last count--cannot support softball and baseball.

Chavez, Ruskin and Ramos, all reserves, are a combined one for five, Coach Rich Zanelli said. They wear the same uniforms as the boys and use restrooms instead of locker rooms to change at away games.

“To be honest,” Zanelli said of the situation, “I don’t think anyone’s really noticed.”

Western basketball player Ricky Legender on the fiery reputation of his coach, Greg Hoffman, who will coach the North team in the Orange County boys’ all-star basketball game Saturday:

“He’s a nice guy. It just depends on his mood.”

Expense of the Week: According to Dave Zirkle, Orange High’s athletic director, a 10-pound bag of chalk used to mark baseball fields, tracks, etc. costs $2.52. The Panthers go through 600 bags a year.

Expense II: Orange High also stocks up on something called Neutron Formula NI-712--a super-potent chemical compound that eliminates locker room odor.

“A perfume-type luxury,” Zirkle says. “But tough to live without.”

Annual cost? From $300 to $400.

Don Rayl, Cypress’ baseball coach, doesn’t have time to sit around all night plotting strategy. He has songs to sing.

For the last 10 months, Rayl has been entertaining customers at Senor Lico’s Mexican restaurant in Trabuco Canyon. You can catch his guitar ballads--everything from John Mellencamp to John Denver--Wednesday through Saturday nights, starting at 8 p.m.

“It’s only a hobby for him,” his wife, Marcia, said. “I think he likes it better than baseball, though.”

Good News: Sunny Hills track Coach Chris Rael learned last week that he had qualified for Sunday’s U.S. Olympic race-walking trials at New Orleans.

Rael, 32, who placed sixth in last summer’s Olympic Festival 50-kilometer walk, isn’t expected to make the Olympic team; he had the slowest 50K time of 15 qualifiers. But a finish in the top 12 will place him on the U.S. national team, which competes internationally.

Bad News: Rael, who has sophomore distance sensation Carrie Garritson on his roster, hasn’t been allowed to coach Garritson since she transferred from Rim of the World High last year.

Carrie, a State cross-country champion as a freshman, is coached by her father. Mike Garritson doesn’t allow his children (James, a junior, is also on the team) to train with the other Lancer runners.

Last Saturday, at the Mt. SAC Relays, Rael said Mike Garritson informed him he’s thinking of moving his kids again--this time to a private high school.

Spittin’ Image: Leslie Begley, a reporter for the Woodbridge High School newspaper, Golden Arrow, had this to say about spitting, (a.k.a. the No. 1 pastime of high school baseball players).

“Spitting every once in awhile, I can understand,” Begley writes in her column, Leslie’s Lingo. “Maybe a bug flew into your mouth, or you’re getting rid of leftover toothpaste. . . .

“Whatever the reason, spitting is a gross habit. If you have so much saliva to spare, there are plenty of political campaigns that would be happy to have your help sealing letters.”