UC IRVINE NOTEBOOK / JOHN WEYLER : Despite Her Pain, Goodrich Tries to Stay Focused

Traci Goodrich is planning a career as a real-estate mortgage broker. Anything, just so she stays out of the party decorating business.

While hanging streamers for a roommate’s birthday, she slipped and fell off a couch, dislocating her knee. That was two years ago, but she’s still experiencing pain and swelling while preparing for the Big West cross-country championships Saturday at Carbon Canyon Regional Park.

“I set big goals at the beginning of the season and one of my goals is to win the conference meet,” said Goodrich, who finished third last year. “I haven’t run this season the way I had hoped to, but the knee problem this summer kept me from training as much as I would have liked.

“One doctor was talking about surgery and then (the pain) mysteriously went away for a while. But it started acting up a couple of weeks ago, right before the Arizona State Invitational, and it bothered me a lot during the race. At this point, it feels a little better, but it’s just something I have to deal with.”

Goodrich, who finished 12th at the Arizona State meet against some of the best runners in the country, will have to outrun the two women who beat her last year--winner Alisa Nicodemus, of Utah State, and Cal State Fullerton’s Heather Killeen--in the Big West meet.

“Traci needs to run naturally, to just let it go,” Coach Vince O’Boyle said. “I’m confident she can do it because she’s so focused now. So intense. She’s really in tune with what she has to do to run well.”

Goodrich has run a lot of miles since she came to Irvine as a freshman five years ago, and she’s come a long, long way.

“Running was a priority for her, but not a very high priority,” O’Boyle said, smiling. “She wasn’t exactly a front-runner when she came in. I decided to redshirt her as a freshman and it turned out to be the best decision I’ve ever made.”

Goodrich, 22, can’t disagree. Her back-of-the-pack experiences during her first workouts with the Irvine team were numbing and humbling, especially for someone who had led her high school team (Palos Verdes) to three consecutive State Division I cross-country titles.

“We have this camp at the beginning of the year and I was just getting hammered,” she said. “I was used to being the No. 1 or 2 runner in high school and I got here and I’m last.

“The redshirt year did a world of good. I’m such a different runner now. I’ve become so much more serious over the years and at the same time, I’ve learned to have more fun, too. I used to come out at 3 o’clock and sigh and say, ‘Oh, another Wednesday.’ Now, I actually look forward to it.”

She won’t be able to look forward to it much longer, though. Goodrich, a senior, is running up to the end of her cross-country career. But she is also an NCAA All-American at 10,000 meters, so she won’t really start riding the waves of nostalgia until the track season starts to wind down next spring.

“I’m really grateful that I have track season left,” she said. “I think I might be really sad right now if it wasn’t for track. I feel like there’s so much more that I want to do and I guess that’s what keeps me running.”

Goodrich, the lone senior on the team, manages to shift her concentration from personal goals often to speak to her youthful teammates about Irvine tradition. The Anteater women have won nine of the past 10 conference titles and have been ranked among the top 25 in the nation for five consecutive seasons.

“Sometimes, it makes me feel old,” she said. “I’m the one who’s always looking back. They look up to me as sort of a mother figure, someone who knows everything, knows how to handle different situations.

“I know when I was a freshman, I was so totally ignorant about everything. So now I try to help steer them in the right direction.”

And she makes sure to add sage advice on how to stay on the good side of O’Boyle.

“That’s probably the most important thing. I warn them about what you can get away with and what you absolutely cannot do. You know, like, ‘Don’t be late to the airport.’ ”

And let’s not forget, “Don’t climb on the couch.”

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Record kickers: Shawna Berke, a junior midfielder from El Toro High School, needs at least an assist in the final two games of the season to set a school career scoring record. She has 62 points. Kim Cusimano scored 62 between 1984 and 1987.

Berke, who has nine goals and six assists this season, is five points shy of Karin Grelsson’s single-season mark of 29, set in 1986.

The women’s team, which lost, 2-0, Monday at New Mexico, is 11-7 on the year and is a victory short of its single-season high of 12 victories in 1991. The Anteaters play Wednesday at Chapman and close out the season at home Friday against Cal.

And junior forward P.J. Powloski, who has 11 goals and four assists for 26 points this season, needs only one point in the men’s team’s final two games to establish a school single-season record.

The Anteaters travel to the University of San Diego Thursday and play host to UC San Diego in the season finale Sunday.

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Pure madness? Irvine will introduce its men’s and women’s basketball teams during Midnight Madness at 12:01 a.m. Monday, even though both teams will begin practicing this Saturday. Practice drills and a short scrimmage will follow the introductions.

Doors to the Bren Center will open at 11 p.m., with free T-shirts and free food. There will be shooting contests and prizes for the best Halloween costumes.

Notes

It’s hard to tell which would please cross-country Coach Vince O’Boyle more: a second- or even third-place finish in the conference championships by the men’s team or a fifth consecutive title by the women. “For the women, the meet has less pressure, in terms of competition, than most of our schedule this year,” he said. “But for the guys, after what they’ve been through, I can’t tell you how rewarding it’s been to see them grow together and really improve.” The men’s cross-country program was terminated in May 1992, then reinstated on a non-scholarship basis in August 1992.