They Made Their Mark in The Year That Was : JACK FARRELL : Year After Year, He’s Coach to a Group of Champions

Whether you measure his success over the last few seasons or the past two decades, Jack Farrell of Thousand Oaks has established himself as one of the top high school cross-country coaches in the state, if not the nation.

Combining superb preparation in training with a laid-back demeanor on race day, Farrell seems to always get the maximum effort from his charges.

The Lancers have won six Southern Section major-division boys’ titles since 1980--no other school has won more than two--and the last two State Division I championships.

Although Thousand Oaks was upset by Hart in the 1992 State Division I final, the Lancers have been ranked third and second in the nation by a cross-country magazine the past two seasons.

The 1993 team was called the state’s best in 20 years by some of the nation’s top high school cross-country authorities, but this year’s squad might be California’s best ever.

Consider:

* When the Lancers won their third consecutive Southern Section Division I title, they became the first team to win three consecutive major-division boys’ championships since Compton in 1950-52.

* The cumulative team time of their top five runners (77 minutes 9 seconds) in the section championships knocked 47 seconds off the course record they had set at Mt. San Antonio College last year.

* They won the State title by 68 points after winning the section championships by a whopping 82.

Although Thousand Oaks was upset for the State Division I girls’ title, the Lancers were ranked 13th nationally after winning the Mt. San Antonio College Invitational, Ventura County, Marmonte League and Southern Section Division I championships, as the boys did.

Their victory in the section finals made Thousand Oaks the first program to win both major-division titles in the same year.

Not a bad season for the 49-year-old Farrell, an English teacher who didn’t coach in 1989 or ’90 because he wanted to pursue other interests.

“I just thought I had done this enough and I’d seen everything I could see and done everything I could do,” Farrell said.

“I thought there were other things I could do and I wanted to see what it would be like to have a free Saturday.

“But I found out that there was nothing real special about Saturdays if you weren’t at a cross-country or track meet.”