Gutierrez Likes to Be On the Run

Jorge Gutierrez was a cross-country runner even before he was a cross-country runner.

There were those Friday mornings when he would rise early and run two miles down a concrete river bed in Los Angeles. He would reach the railroad bridge, then start back. It was a ritual that kept him in shape to play pick-up basketball as a seventh-grader.

Life can be that simple.

This week, Gutierrez is preparing for Saturday’s Big West Conference championships at Carbon Canyon Regional Park in Brea. In many ways, it’s just another simple step for the UC Irvine senior, yet one that took time and work.

Gutierrez, 22, always has followed his path, from a kid growing up in war-torn Nicaragua to his days in a gang-infested area in Los Angeles and then to Irvine.

He and his sister would ride a public bus an hour each way from Los Angeles to El Monte Arroyo High. He enlisted in the Army, moved to the Army Reserve while at Citrus College, then plowed through spools of red tape to get into Irvine. Always, he was on the right track.

“He is a kid who easily could not have been involved and could have dropped out,” said Tim O’Rourke, his high school coach. “He had to do it all on his own. No one else could help him. He never quit.”

He didn’t quit for a simple reason.

“As long as I stayed in school and kept a high grade-point average, they would let me run,” Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez, Irvine’s top runner, finished 16th in the conference meet last season, covering the 8,000 meters in 26 minutes 29.3 seconds. He has chopped nearly a minute off that time this season. That comes as no surprise to his teammates.

“Jorge loves pain when he runs,” said Doug Frichtel, a junior at Irvine. “Giving it and taking it.”

Gutierrez, his teammates point out, has the Star of David on his chest. He carved it with a heated paper clip. He’s not Jewish, but he won’t tell of its significance, other than to say it’s to “remember some friends.”

It’s just one of the things that makes Gutierrez unique.

He joined the wrestling team in high school just to see if he was as tough as teammate Joe Cepeda, an Arroyo runner who also wrestled.

He joined the Army in high school for the G.I. Bill, completed basic training before his senior year, then joined the reserve after high school. He asked out a year later so he could stay in junior college.

Gutierrez even took an unusual route to the track and cross-country teams. He had to wait for his sister after school, had to, as the bus stop was no place for a young girl alone, his parents said. Karla Gutierrez, a year older, played three sports, leaving her brother with time on his hands.

Tired of watching others compete, Gutierrez joined the track team his sophomore year, then the cross-country team the next fall.

“Picture this, I was the only guy watching the girls’ volleyball practice, then watching the girls’ basketball team practice,” Gutierrez said. “By the time we got to track, I was kind of sick of just hanging out and doing my homework.”

In two years, he became the cross-country team’s top runner.

The area around Belmont High, where the family lived, made Gutierrez’s mother nervous. It seemed too violent, even for a family that had been been in worse situations.

Twice they emigrated from Nicaragua, first in the late 1970s to avoid the civil war between the Sandinista rebels and then-President Anastasio Somoza Debayle, who was backed by the United States. They returned after the war, but fled again in 1984, partly to avoid another conflict, this time between the Sandinista government and U.S.-backed Contras.

Gutierrez only remembers snippets of the troubles.

“I know the city where we lived, Esteli, was attacked, so we moved to Santa Cruz [in Nicaragua],” Gutierrez said. “We stayed at a ranch some friends owned and went back after the fighting.

“I was just a kid, I could kick back and not worry about such things. I never saw anyone get killed. Still, even as a little kid, I knew there was something wrong.”

Los Angeles was better, but it did have its on-going war.

“It wasn’t that bad around our house,” Gutierrez said. “You just had to be careful where you were, who you were with and what time it was.”

Little wonder that his mother, fearing gangs, used a friend’s address to enroll Jorge and Karla in Arroyo.

Said O’Rourke: “He came from a part of town where the only way you succeed is by your own perseverance.”

Getting into Irvine, alone, took that.

Gutierrez, a talented runner at Citrus College, was sought by Anteater Coach Vince O’Boyle. The Irvine men’s team, though, does not offer scholarships, so Gutierrez found himself in a financial aid runaround with a twist.

“Either I filled out the wrong form or they messed it up,” Gutierrez said. “Either way, I couldn’t get money until I was enrolled in school and I couldn’t enroll in school until I paid my tuition.”

An Irvine official finally recognized the insanity of this situation and arranged an advance on the aid.

“Just dealing with our financial aid department shows how tough Jorge is,” O’Boyle said.

There have are other examples.

At the Stanford Invitational a year ago, Gutierrez was so sick his teammates said they feared he might have to go to the hospital. Instead, he ran.

“I’m out on the course and Jorge just blows by me,” Frichtel said.

Gutierrez finished first among Irvine runners that day.

“It wasn’t all that bad,” Gutierrez said. “At least in my opinion.”

Said Frichtel: “He looked like he was dying that morning.”

Such is Gutierrez’s dedication.

“You could just see all kinds of potential in him from the start,” O’Rourke said. “He would set these high goals and accomplish them. He was infectious to be around.”

So far, there is no cure. Gutierrez is a big reason the Anteaters have done so well this season. They finished second at the UC Santa Barbara Invitational, against three other Big West schools. Gutierrez finished fourth in the race with a season-best time of 25:28.2.

“When you run against Jorge, you had better be prepared to run,” Frichtel said.

Gutierrez seems to have it made, although there are still bumps in the road.

Money is still tight. His father, who was a truck driver in Nicaragua, rents a truck three or four times a year to deliver packages to his native country.

The family is still in the same neighborhood, surrounded by chaos, living peacefully.

Yet there is no doubt what direction Gutierrez is headed.

Last December he became a U.S. citizen, taking the oath with 3,000 people at the Los Angeles Convention Center. This spring, he will receive his degree in social science from Irvine.

“I wanted to generalize my education,” Gutierrez said. “I tend to generalize everything I do.”

It makes life simple.