To Finish Is to Win : Santiago High’s Thrill Seekers Find Completing L.A. Marathon Helps Them Compete in Life

Antonio Baez came north from Mexico four years ago to reunite with his family and attend school in the United States, but he never figured he would be running along the Santa Ana River, underneath the Garden Grove Freeway while cars crawl overhead in early-morning darkness.

Nevertheless, there was the Santiago High junior last week at 5:30 a.m., on a chilly 10-mile workout with a dozen classmates in preparation to run in Sunday’s Los Angeles Marathon.

Baez belongs to Thrill Seekers, a unique running club at his school that uses the discipline associated with distance running as a way to help at-risk students learn how better to manage their lives. The L.A. Marathon is the culmination of seven months of training in which the goal of each student runner is not so much competing to win it, as it is to finish.

“We teach kids that they can do whatever they put their minds to,” said Thrill Seekers advisor Christina Cole, a math teacher who has been at Santiago 29 years. “Finishing is the name of the game.”

Cole founded Thrill Seekers four years ago. It is the only Orange County chapter of Students Run Los Angeles, a program started by three continuation school teachers in 1990. SRLA was designed to teach self-discipline, encourage students to stay in school and earn high school diplomas and provide at-risk youths alternatives to drugs and gangs. Seven years ago, SRLA began with 30 running groups and about 300 kids. On Sunday, the organization will put more than 1,400 runners from 77 chapters, most of them affiliated with high schools, on the streets of Los Angeles.

“This has taught me high goals,” senior Maria Velasquez said. “It doesn’t matter how high the goals are, I know I can finish them.”

Oscar Jardon, 16, is the president of the club and the caretaker on the road. During a recent outing, when a teammate fell back several hundred yards because of leg cramps, Jardon broke from the pack to return to the boy and quickly made sure he got back with the group.

Eric Spears, a marathon runner and now the principal at Temescal Canyon Continuation School in Pacific Palisades, was one of the founders of SRLA. He said statistics show that 98% of all students who complete the program graduate from high school, as compared to a 78% graduation rate district-wide in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

“We are teaching these students to handle a higher level of competition, and with that comes higher self-esteem,” Spears said. “The bottom line is that they feel empowered so that they can do whatever goals they commit themselves to.”

Cole seized on the SRLA concept and brought it to Orange County. She has noticed a big change over the years in Santiago’s student population, which is mostly Latino. The school boundaries include portions of eastern Garden Grove and northwestern Santa Ana.

“For me the lessons in life are not in a book,” Cole said. “We are teaching them inner peace, that peace comes from within. When kids are living on top of each other in their crowded homes, the kids have nowhere to go.”

The Santiago club has had as many as 60 members, but this year’s group isn’t as large. Cole said she expects 17 runners to take part in Sunday’s marathon. It has become, perhaps, the most recognized of all SRLA running groups. Dressed in magenta and black uniforms, Thrill Seekers run two abreast. The group finishes as a unit. Cole estimates it will take the group about five hours to complete Sunday’s race.

“We are a noncompetitive program that, in essence, teaches you that you win when you finish,” Spears said. “She has taken the concept to heart and designed her program so students are supporting each other all the way through. She does it to build a group identity and teach how to support each other in groups.”

Through graduated steps students increase fitness and learn responsibility for their actions. By striving to complete the marathon, the runners discover how to set a goal and obtain it.

“A lot of what this teaches is self-discipline and that carries over into the classroom,” said Santiago history teacher Gerry Charlton, an SRLA supporter. “I’ve had kids that did ‘D’ work for no reason and by the end of the year they were doing ‘B’ work. They were capable of doing that all along, they just didn’t get their life organized. When you get up that early to run, you get your life organized.”

The Thrill Seekers run as many as eight shorter street races during the year in preparation for the marathon. The runners wear string necklaces and each time they reach a certain number of miles, they receive a colored bead to add to the necklace.

Cole says her approach helps students, who run up to 37 miles a week before classes, learn how to get along with others, so that when they get into the job market they will be better suited to working as a team. Spears points out that studies show that both employers and colleges look more favorably on students who have participated in groups such as Thrill Seekers.

Cole calls each student by a nickname she creates that has something to do with running. Many speak English as a second language.

Jardon is “Quick Quick,” for the speed with which he runs. Velasquez, who hopes to attend college, is “Road Scholar.” Baez was tabbed “Day in the Park” because he makes running look so easy. Cuong Vu, 14, the club treasurer, is called “Money Man.”

Vu, a freshman, found the Thrill Seekers to his liking when he first arrived on campus.

“I wanted a new experience, to meet new people, so I joined,” he said.

Sophomore Blanca Gonzalez, 15, is known as “Robot Runner.” She is also captain of the Cavalier girls’ soccer team.

“This has given me self-confidence,” she said. “I think this will help me in college.”

Claudia Herrera, 17, a senior who is married and has a stepson, ran with the Thrill Seekers last season. She once used an inhaler to help treat asthma attacks, but said running has helped her overcome her illness.

At her mother’s gated Santa Ana apartment, she proudly pointed to the gold and blue medal she received for finishing the 1996 L.A. Marathon, an event that she says helped her learn to persevere.

“At this age, we just want to have fun, to get drunk, at least some of the girls in school do,” said Herrera, who came here four years ago from Mexico City. “With us, it is different. We can have our fun because we run. We have discipline. We have to [run a marathon].”

Socorro Castro, Herrera’s mother, has three other small children and spends much of her time working in a neighborhood bakery. She has been thankful for the Thrill Seekers.

“It is very positive,” she said, speaking in Spanish. “The kids aren’t on drugs. They aren’t becoming alcoholics and they aren’t in gangs. It is very good.”

Baez would get up early on Saturday mornings to run and, many times, would come home late after running in training races with the Thrill Seekers. His mother accused him of running with gangs.

“Then I came home one day and showed her a medal I got,” he said. “She was shocked.”

While washing clothes for her family of eight at a coin-operated laundry near Santiago, Emilia Baez said she was surprised and proud to see the medal and happy to see that her son was not running with the wrong crowd.

Spears, one of the founders of SRLA, said studies have shown that runners who complete the program often achieve more respect in their own homes.

“We see a tremendous change in the family dynamics,” he said. “The kids who are told by their family and friends that they are crazy for doing this, that they won’t stick to it, that they won’t finish, actually come back and become the heroes within the family. They gain a lot of respect.”

Community service is part of Cole’s program. She proudly displays a 10-gallon pickle jar in her busy Santiago classroom. It is nearly full of pop tops from aluminum cans that are collected by students and donated to Children’s Hospital of Orange County. The hospital recycles the tops for their aluminum scrap value. It is a small token of support, but one that Cole believes is in keeping with the philosophy of the running club.

“Look at this,” she said, holding up the jar. “We have three just like this that are full.”

Cole, a mother figure for many of these students, began her teaching career at Santiago in 1968 after graduating from Kansas State. She helped found the school’s field hockey team, one of its most recognized girls’ sports, and has taught physical education, science and math. She receives no salary for her efforts with Thrill Seekers and raises about $3,000 for the club through corporate donations.

Along the way she ruffled a few feathers.

For instance, she started the club without approval of the Garden Grove Unified School District. When administrators discovered it in its second year of existence, they weren’t happy. They were especially upset about the handful of athletes such as Baez, the cross-country runner, because participation in a school-sponsored running event out of season of the sport--cross-country is run in the fall--put Santiago in violation of Southern Section rules.

Cole was flabbergasted.

“To me there is no season,” she said. “This isn’t a sport. It’s strictly [teaching kids] to finish.”

It took awhile, but the Southern Section gave in last year, thanks to Cole’s persistence, and altered its rules so campus running clubs such as Thrill Seekers can continue without risking teams’ compliance. Section Commissioner Dean Crowley said the section rules committee recognized the value of what Cole was trying to do.

“Students Run Los Angeles is a very good program,” Crowley said. “Those are kids who are really at risk.”

School district officials were also up in arms because they said the early-morning training runs along the bike path that runs high atop the western ledge of the mostly dry river bed was a safety hazard, according to Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Schools Andrew McTaggert. McTaggert said the school board gave the club its approval after more than 1 1/2 years of debate only when it was assured the route was safe.

“The kids have interest in the program and as long as they abide by rules, they can honestly take part in one of the most challenging sports,” McTaggert said.

Cole acknowledges that she may not have followed proper procedures all the time, saying only that she had the best interest of the kids at heart. That doesn’t surprise Spears, who lobbied the Garden Grove School District from Los Angeles for support.

“I use the term, ‘fiercely loving’ when describing her,” Spears said. “She is dynamic and believes in her kids 100%. She’ll fight for these kids.

“She’s been with us a number of years and she has embraced the essence of what we want to put forward. She is a role model for these kids. Her kids can count on her. If they have a problem, she will give them an open and honest ear and she will tell them, bluntly, what is right and wrong.”

Early morning dew covered the grass at Santiago when the runners quietly passed through the palm-studded school parking lot on a run last week. They headed east on Trask Avenue to Edna Park in Santa Ana where they caught the bike path, officially known as the Forrest S. Paull Memorial Trail, stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the south and beyond the 91 Freeway to the north.

The runners headed north, through the cities of Santa Ana, Orange and Anaheim, crossing under two freeways and past Anaheim Stadium.

Just short of the Pond, they turn around and backtrack over the miles of dark blacktop and gravel trails. As they cross under the 57 Freeway, the Big A sign tells them it is 46 degrees at 6:31 a.m. Some are dressed in shorts and T-shirts, but they don’t shiver. They arrive back at Santiago long before the first class bell at 8 a.m.

During the runs they watch the workers at River View Golf Club, jog past bicyclists who use the path as a thoroughfare and see the peak of Saddleback mountain glowing with morning’s first light.

Former Thrill Seekers vice-president Jesus Hernandez, 17, a senior, has had to make a lot of tough decisions lately. Known as “Push Push,” he took great pride in finishing the marathon last year but has decided he doesn’t have time to participate this season. Among other things, he has learned to play guitar and is making money for his family by playing in a Salsa band at a local club.

“It was tough, but I got to the finish line last year,” he said. “It was tough, but we did it.”