Bradarich’s Efforts Have Kept La Quinta in the Running

It was easy to overlook Ha Tran’s accomplishment in a Garden Grove League dual meet two weeks ago. The senior at La Quinta High finished first in a three-mile race against Los Amigos at Mile Square Park, but her time of 21 minutes 51 seconds wouldn’t have placed among the top two in 22 of the other 23 races run across the county that day.

The Aztecs lost the meet by one point, but what mattered most is that they were able to post a team score at all. Some victories are measured differently, especially when you’re in La Quinta’s running shoes.

To appreciate the magnitude of that performance and what it meant for the school’s program, you have to go back more than two years, when Dick Bradarich called his first meeting as coach and only two boys showed up.

Before Bradarich landed his first cross-country coaching job, he spent 17 years coaching basketball and teaching at Foothill, Los Amigos, Pacifica and Bolsa Grande high schools. He gave up the boys’ varsity basketball job at Bolsa Grande to come to La Quinta after getting a preferred teaching assignment.

Bradarich was scheduled to coach a lower-level boys’ basketball team the following winter, so he came up with a plan to start conditioning early and breathe life back into the cross-country programs as well.

“We would put a uniform on them on Thursday and take them over to Mile Square,” Bradarich said. “We ended up taking the entire lower-level basketball team running, then we started doing the same with the girls.”

Bradarich’s first season was successful mainly because of senior Robert Ellis, who ended up being the Garden Grove League champion and a Times second-team all-county selection.

Bradarich began an intense off-season campaign to build numbers, even contacting area middle schools and sending surveys, but received little response. During his second summer only four runners showed up, all of them boys.

“Finally last fall I said I’ve tried everything and there’s still no response,” Bradarich said. “So I began telling P.E. teachers, ‘If your kid comes out running with us, I’ll give them a Coke.’ ”

Students gradually began to show up after school, some not until the season was nearly half over. Eventually there were 24 in all, but still no girls.

Bradarich continued to recruit runners for the girls’ program, which had dominated the Garden Grove League in the mid-1980s but fizzled out at the beginning of the ‘90s.

“These are good kids, but they have no support at home,” Bradarich said. “I get calls from parents saying that it takes too much time, that they can’t go to a Saturday invitational. Their parents discourage it.”

Bradarich figured he needed to get even more creative if he hoped to have both programs competing at the varsity level.

He began a breakfast club for team members, who would eat breakfast together after a 30-minute run. He developed a point system that rewarded everything from coming to practice to bringing family members to invitationals.

“There are certain days when he gives out Popsicle sticks, or we have Freaky Fridays, where we run for 12 minutes and then we play soccer,” said Tran, one of six girls now on the team. “We practice hard, but we have fun.”

THIS WEEKEND

The 52nd Mt. San Antonio College Invitational will be held Friday and Saturday with more than 420 teams participating in the high school competition. The approximately 80 high school races will include varsity, junior varsity, freshmen and sophomores.

The highlight of the high school competition will be the individual and team sweepstakes races.

The boys’ team sweepstakes will begin at 9:30 a.m. Saturday and will include Edison, El Toro, Mission Viejo, Newport Harbor, Santa Ana and Santa Ana Valley. The boys’ individual sweepstakes will follow at 9:50 and will include Santa Margarita’s Steven Murray and Santiago’s Rene Rangel.

The girls’ individual sweepstakes is scheduled to start at 10:10 a.m. Saturday and will include Julie Allen of Fountain Valley and Amber Steen of Newport Harbor, with the team sweepstakes to follow.

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Cross-Country Polls

Southern Section Coaches’ Poll

BOYS

Division I--Chino Don Lugo, 2. Rialto, 3. Katella, 4. Long Beach Poly, 5. Santa Ana Valley, 6. Murrieta Valley, 7. Hesperia Sultana, 8. Esperanza, 9. El Toro, 10. Dana Hills.

Division II--1. Barstow, 2. Burbank Burroughs, 3. Agoura, 4. Newbury Park, 5. Villa Park, 6. Lake Elsinore Temescal Canyon, 7. Santa Margarita, 8. Newport Harbor, 9. Trabuco Hills, 10. Santiago.

Division III--1. Covina South Hills, 2. Rosemead Don Bosco, 3. La Canada, 4. San Luis Obispo, 5. Ridgecrest Burroughs, 6. Temecula Chaparral, 7. South Pasadena, 8. La Puente, 9. La Puente Bassett, 10. Goleta Dos Pueblos.

Division IV--1. Agoura Oak Park, 2. Ojai Nordhoff, 3. Corona del Mar, 4. Fillmore, 5. Orange Lutheran, 6. Sherman Oaks Notre Dame, 7. Los Angeles Cathedral, 8. Los Angeles Salesian, 9. Estancia, 10. Morro Bay.

Division V--1. La Canada Flintridge Prep, 2. Lancaster Desert Christian, 3. Downey Calvary Chapel, 4. Apple Valley Granite Hills, 5. Sierra Madre Maranatha, 6. Oxnard Santa Clara, 7. Riverside Woodcrest Christian, 8. Claremont Webb, 9. Riverside Martin Luther King, 10. St. Margaret’s.

GIRLS

Division I--1. Palos Verdes Peninsula, 2. Rialto, 3. Yucaipa, 4. Woodbridge, 5. Hesperia Sultana, 6. Esperanza, 7. Redlands East Valley, 8. Los Alamitos, 9. Capistrano Valley, 10. El Toro.

Division II--1. Foothill; 2. Santa Margarita, 3. Newport Harbor, 4. Brea Olinda, 5. Barstow, 6. Westlake Village Westlake, 7. Pacifica, 8. El Modena, 9. Tustin, 10. Trabuco Hills.

Division III--1. Covina South Hills, 2. La Canada, 3. San Luis Obispo, 4. Rosary, 5. South Pasadena, 6. Lompoc, 7. La Verne Bonita, 8. La Puente Bishop Amat, 9. Rancho Alamitos, 10. El Centro Southwest.

Division IV--1. Corona del Mar, 2. Ojai Nordhoff, 3. Woodland Hills Louisville, 4. Morro Bay, 5. Pasadena La Salle, 6. Orange Lutheran, 7. Estancia, 8. Twentynine Palms, 9. Lancaster Paraclete, 10. Agoura Oak Park.

Division V--1. Palos Verdes Chadwick, 2. Lancaster Desert Christian, 3. Northwood, 4. Bermuda Dunes Desert Christian, 5. Sierra Madre Maranatha, 6. La Canada Flintridge Prep, 7. North Hills L.A. Baptist, 9. Pasadena Poly, 10. St Margaret’s.