Cross-Country Revival May be Afoot at Valley

The recent death of Mission College’s sports programs might lead to the eventual resurrection of the men’s and women’s cross-country teams at Valley College.

That is the hope of Kevin Galbraith and Gretchen Lohr, the men’s and women’s track and field coaches at Valley.

Galbraith and Lohr coached the Mission cross-country teams for the past two seasons because Valley dropped its cross-country program in 1994 in order to add softball. But when Mission axed its baseball, men’s golf, men’s soccer and men’s and women’s cross-country teams last week because of budgetary constraints, it left the San Fernando Valley with no junior college cross-country programs.

Pierce hasn’t fielded cross-country or track teams for several years and Mission’s cross-country squads were primarily comprised of students at Valley who were allowed to run for the Free Spirit because their school didn’t have a program.

“In the long run, it’s going to help our program,” Galbraith said. “Because I don’t see how the district cannot have cross-country in the San Fernando Valley for very long. If you’re going to have track and field at Valley, it only makes sense to have cross-country.”

Chuck Ferrero, the Valley athletic director, agrees with Galbraith, but hesitates making predictions about the future of cross-country at the school.

He knows that Valley won’t have a program this season and it might not have one next year.

“As an athletic director, I would like to bring women’s and men’s cross-country back to Valley,” Ferrero said. “I’m going to start the process of going through all the various committees to get it done, but I’m not sure it’s going to happen [within a year].”

The elimination of the cross-country programs at Mission means that Marisol Barajas will not defend the state title she won last November and the Free Spirit women’s team won’t have a chance to improve upon its second-place finish.

California junior college rules would allow Barajas or any of the returning Mission runners to compete for a different school this season because their program has folded, but Barajas said she plans to remain at Valley and train with Lohr.

“As an individual, I could go and run for someone else,” Barajas said. “But one person is nothing. It’s important to us that we stay together as a team. It’s important to keep running and training with Gretchen.”

Although Valley will not officially field a cross-country team this season, Galbraith and Lohr have formed the Valley College Track Club. The team will be comprised primarily of runners from last year’s Mission team and of incoming freshmen who plan to run track for Valley next year, and will compete in several collegiate/open cross-country meets.

The team won’t be allowed to run in any junior college meets, but they will compete in events such as invitationals at Cal State Fullerton, UC Riverside and Cal Poly Pomona and in the USA Track & Field Southern California three-mile cross-country championships at Mt. San Antonio College.

Members of the women’s team will also be able to test themselves against Lohr, a 2:41:41 marathoner who plans to race for the team she’ll coach.

“Now I can go to the races and run on the same team as them,” Lohr said. “It’s too bad we’re not going to be able to run in the state meet because with what we had coming back and what we have coming in, I think we could have won it. But that’s just life. You just deal with what you’re dealt.”

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When Laszlo Tabori, the longtime coach of the San Fernando Valley Track Club, was in the prime of his athletic career, he became the third man in history to break four minutes in the mile when he ran 3:59.0 in 1955. Yet he wasn’t surprised at all when Kenyan Daniel Komen broke the eight-minute barrier in the two-mile last Saturday with a 7:58.61 clocking in Brussels.

First of all, Komen had run a world record of 7:20.67 in the 3,000 last year, which converts to a time of 7:55.92 for two miles.

Secondly, Tabori said he had envisioned the eight-minute barrier one day falling back in the mid-1950s after fellow Hungarian Sandor Iharos had set world records of 3:40.8 in the 1,500 and 13:40.6 in the 5,000 in 1955 and 28:42.8 in the 10,000 in 1956.

“I thought back then that it would be possible,” Tabori said of the eight-minute barrier. “But I knew it would take someone like Iharos to do it. Someone who could run a good 1,500 and a good 5,000 or 10,000 as well. Someone who had good speed, but also a lot of strength.”

The splits in Komen’s record race were awe inspiring as he clocked 58.6 for 400 meters, 2:00.4 for 800, 2:58.9 for 1,200, 3:58.4 for 1,600, 4:58.2 for 2,000, 5:56.7 for 2,400 and 6:57.5 for 2,800.

Komen timed 3:59.2 for the first mile and 3:59.4 for the second.

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Mark Covert’s streak of running at least three miles a day every day reached 29 years Wednesday.

Covert, the cross-country and track coach at Antelope Valley College, said he logged 115,557 miles during that stretch. That’s an average of 10.9 miles a day, 76.3 miles a week, 331.9 miles a month and 3,985 miles a year.

The streak, which is based on an honors system, began shortly after Covert graduated from Burbank High in 1968 and measured 10,592 days as of Wednesday.