A LATE RUN

Most cross-country runners don’t play football, for obvious reasons.

That alone would make Brian Spangenberg special.

But the College of the Canyons freshman played his last high school football game 18 years ago.

That, his cross-country teammates would agree, makes the 35-year-old Spangenberg extra special.

Four years after abandoning his dream of earning a living as a rock and roll musician, Spangenberg has emerged as the top runner for Canyons, earning the respect of teammates, most of whom weren’t even born when he started classes at San Mateo High in the Bay Area.

“They’re just so proud of him,” Canyons Coach Lindie Kane said. “When he went up to get his award [for finishing third in the Orange Coast Invitational on Saturday], they were cheering and clapping for him for two or three minutes.”

That performance, combined with a seventh-place finish in the Ventura Invitational on Sept. 10 and a second-place effort in the first Western State Conference meet on Sept. 17, has established Spangenberg as one of the better junior college runners in Southern California.

“I had no idea what to expect,” he said of his first junior college cross-country season. “I expected there to be a lot of fast runners, so I’m really surprised I’ve done as well as I have.”

Although Spangenberg is a cross-country novice, he has run some noteworthy marathon times.

Spangenberg began running four years ago when some friends were training for the L.A. Marathon, but he soon surpassed them.

After running 3 hours 22 minutes in the Santa Clarita Marathon in 1996, he clocked 2:41 in the same race in ’97 and 2:36 in the L.A. Marathon in 1998.

He ran 2:34 and change--he doesn’t remember the exact time--in the Sacramento Marathon last December before clocking 2:34:32 in the L.A. Marathon in March.

Kane, Canyons’ cross-country coach since 1995, asked Spangenberg last summer to come out for the cross-country team.

Spangenberg agreed after discovering that Canyons had a business- and computer-related curriculum that would help him in his job with a medical supply company in Northridge.

Kane says Spangenberg has been a great addition to the team, but not only because he enhances the Cougars’ chances of advancing to the state championships.

“He’s a nice, down-to-earth individual who’s a good role model for younger athletes,” Kane said. “I mean, here’s a guy who’s working 40-plus hours a week, training two or three hours a day, attending classes at night and finding time to spend with his son on the weekends.”

Spangenberg, whose 8-year-old son Brendan lives with his ex-wife in Canyon Country, enjoys being the elder statesman on the Canyons team, though he’s frequently teased about his age.

Teammates often tell him he lacks a finishing kick, and the 33-year-old Kane uses Spangenberg’s age as a motivational tool with younger runners like freshman Juan Granados.

“Juan is kind of quiet guy,” Kane said. “So I’ll sometimes tell him in workouts, ‘You can’t keep letting that old man run ahead of you.’ ”

That old man was an all-league defensive back as a junior and senior at San Mateo who ran track as a freshman until quitting midway through the season.

“I just had a huge dislike for running [the 800 and 1,600 meters],” Spangenberg said with a laugh. “It was just a little too painful for me, and I wanted the glory of playing on the football team.”

After graduating, Spangenberg enrolled at San Francisco State but withdrew from school within a matter of weeks.

He attended Canada College in Redwood City before deciding to pursue a career as a rock guitarist.

“Music was a new and exciting thing for me,” Spangenberg said.

Spangenberg, who began playing the guitar in high school, pursued a musical career for the next decade.

He jokes that he “failed miserably” in his pursuit of rock stardom. He played base guitar in a band called Circle of Soul from 1989-95. The band cut two CDs in the early 1990s on the Hollywood Records label.

“It was a good band,” he said. “We were kind of a cross behind Guns N’ Roses and Lenny Kravitz.”

He began running shortly after leaving the band and is now more concerned with racing tactics than playing gigs.

“I had no idea there was so much strategy involved in these races,” Spangenberg said. “It’s like I’m learning something new every race.”