HIGH SCHOOL TRACK PREVIEW / SOUTHERN SECTION MASTERS MEET : Thacher’s Stokes Finds Future in Hurdles

Marcus Stokes of Thacher School takes great pride in everything he has learned at the exclusive private school in Ojai.

Whether it was excelling in a tough academic environment or learning to ride a horse both English and western style--a requirement for graduation from Thacher--Stokes has grown immensely as a person since coming to Ventura County from Canton, Ohio, as a sophomore in 1989.

But his senior year is when he realized that his athletic future lies in track and field.

Although he is a letter winner in soccer and served as the captain of the basketball team, this is the first season he has concentrated on track, and the results have been impressive.

He won the 110-meter high hurdles and the 300 intermediate hurdles in the 1-A Division in the Southern Section championships at Cerritos College on Saturday.

Tonight, he will compete in the Masters meet at Cerritos in both races. The top five finishers in each event qualify for the state championships at Cerritos next week.

“Until this season, I always thought basketball was the sport I was going to play in college,” he said. “Now it looks like it’s going to be track. I really love the hurdles.”

Although Stokes, 6-foot-1, 180 pounds, hails from a school of about 220 students, he runs fearlessly against hurdlers from large schools such as Saddleback’s Charlie Davidson and Hawthorne’s Demond Smith.

“The school size doesn’t matter in track,” Stokes said. “That’s one of the neat things about it. If you average 25 points a game in basketball playing against small schools, people might question the level of competition. But a 14-flat in the high hurdles is a 14-flat, no matter what the size of the school.”

Stokes has personal bests of 14.0 seconds in the highs, 38.56 in the intermediates and 22 feet 7 1/4 inches in the long jump.

He qualified for the finals in the 1-A long jump but was disqualified by an official after his second attempt in the finals because he talked to Thacher Coach Kurt Meyer in the stands.

National high school rules prohibit an athlete from receiving instructions from a coach during competition. Although officials usually do not enforce the rule in instances when coaches and athletes communicate with each other via hand signals, athletes who actually speak with coaches often are disciplined.

“I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong,” Stokes said. “We had been doing that all year and no one had ever disqualified me before.”

Many athletes might have been unnerved by the disqualification but Stokes used it as motivation.

“I was a little upset at first,” he said. “But then I said, ‘That’s OK. I’m going to get them back in the hurdles.’ ”

And he did, winning the highs in 14.54 and the intermediates in 38.72.

Although Stokes will graduate from Thacher next month, he will spend a postgraduate year at Northfield (Mass.) Mt. Herman School before deciding which university to attend.

Because of his age--he will not turn 17 until December--and the fact that he skipped a grade, Stokes retains one year of high school eligibility.

Stokes is one of five athletes from the region who will compete in two individual events.

The others are Andre Desaussure of Royal (200 and 400 meters ) in the boys’ meet, and Marion Jones of Thousand Oaks (100, 200), Nikki Shaw of Fillmore (800, 1,600) and Kim Nellis of Palmdale (100 low hurdles, 300 low hurdles) in the girls’ meet.

Jeff Wilson of Newbury Park, Maribella Aparicio of Fillmore and Stacey Auer of Thousand Oaks qualified for the Masters meet in both the 1,600 and 3,200.

However, Wilson has dropped the 3,200 to concentrate on the 1,600, and Aparicio and Auer have dropped the 1,600 to focus on the 3,200.

Field events will begin at 6:30 p.m., running events at 7.