Reluctant Runner Reaches the Top

They sat under a tree one afternoon, two best friends in junior high school, when Juan Salgado approached Alfonso Leon with his proposition.

Salgado wanted Leon to take up running as a sport.

“I was like ‘Yeah, right, whatever,” Leon said.

Two years later, as the two buddies were about to enter their sophomore year at Santa Ana High, Salgado approached Leon again. This time, however, Salgado brought a prop.

“He showed me the [1995] CIF ring he won,” Leon said. “He told me, ‘We can win one of these together, we can run together and be together all the time.’ ”

And thus, Leon’s high school cross-country career began.

It ends with Leon as the 1998 Times Orange County boys’ cross-country runner of the year.

He never did win that ring--Santa Ana finished second to Long Beach Poly at both the state and Southern Section Division I meets and he finished second in both as an individual--but he sure came close.

Leon finished four seconds behind Josh Spiker of Ventura in the Southern Section meet. He was second by five seconds in the state meet.

But the closest the ring came to his finger is the second-place team finish by Santa Ana in the state meet. The Saints lost by one point.

Cross-country team scores are determined by adding the places of each team member. The Saints had runners finish second, 15th, 23rd, 26th and 50th for a total of 116. Long Beach Poly had 115. The five Santa Ana runners finished an average of 1.8 seconds behind the competitor immediately in front of them--1.8 seconds away from the point needed for the ring.

“There are good and bad memories of this season,” Leon said. “I just gotta try and remember the good.”

He won every race he entered this season before the loss to Spiker in the Southern Section meet.

He won the Golden West League title by 32 seconds. He ran 15:06, the fastest time of the meet, to win the team sweepstakes race at the Mt. SAC Invitational and he won the Orange County championship in 15:10.

“I’m not disappointed, I tried my best and we all did what we could,” Leon said. “I didn’t get the ring, but I got close. I didn’t even think running would be fun till I went out for the team. Now I’m glad I did.”