Allice Trying to Jazz Up USC’s Track Program

Ron Allice, USC’s first-year track coach, often can be found slung low in a chair in a back corner of a dark jazz club.

“Rhythm is a part of everything,” said Allice, describing his affection for music. “In everything that everyone does, there is some rhythm involved.”

Allice, once an aspiring percussionist, long ago traded his drumsticks for a stopwatch but still admires the improvisational nature of jazz.

“There is structure in music, but I think you can do things within the structure and I think that applies in coaching, too,” he said.

But Allice was often accused of working outside an appropriate structure while he ran the dominant junior college program in the state at Long Beach City College from 1978-94.

His teams often included out-of-state and foreign athletes, and there were rumors that he recruited illegally, searching beyond his local area for talent.

Allice denies that.

“I had a good referral system,” he said, adding that he doesn’t remember having more than one foreign athlete at a time except for the 1983 season, when a group of nine Venezuelans accounted for 66 of his team’s 93 points in winning the men’s state championship.

But wherever his athletes came from, they had a habit of winning. In his 16 years at Long Beach, Allice’s teams won 16 conference championships, 14 Southern California Regional championships and 11 state championships.

Before taking over at LBCC, Allice coached at Long Beach Poly High, Long Beach Wilson High, Cal Poly Pomona and Long Beach State. Among his former athletes are 13 Olympians, seven American-record holders and four world-record holders.

He is not only among the most widely known track coaches in the country but was an icon in Long Beach, where he had a hand in the development of the track facility at Veteran’s Stadium.

“I know everybody from the mayor to the people who sweep the streets,” he said. “That is home to me.”

That was one reason he turned down opportunities to coach at four-year colleges before finding USC’s offer too good to refuse.

Allice’s arrival on the Trojan campus has ushered in a new era, which has not been met with universal applause. Former coach Jim Bush, 67, who had a year remaining on his contract, resigned in August, saying he was being pushed out in the wake of Allice’s hiring. Administrators had planned for the two to work together for the first year.

With Bush gone, Allice, 54, controls both the men’s and women’s programs. One of his first moves was to implement a policy he’d had at Long Beach of not turning anyone away. The combined Trojan roster has 82 athletes this season, 14 more than last.

“I personally feel, as expensive as it is to go to USC, if someone wants to be a part of the track and field program and train every day, then I think they should be given that opportunity,” he said.

Allice has created a “developmental” schedule for walk-ons, and hopes that meager funding and time demands won’t interfere with his philosophy.

“I can’t change,” he said. “Maybe the job will change me. Maybe if you call me back three years from now, you will say, ‘What happened to that wonderful philosophy of yours?’ But I will do the best I can do.”