Celebrated CdM coach Bill Sumner to call it a career
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Bill Sumner was in rare form Wednesday, his eyes behind the signature shades keeping watch over practice while he characteristically shared stories whenever the chance presented itself.
When you’ve been around the block a time or two, as Sumner has in many a running circle, you’ve got stories to tell.
On the eve of announcing his plan to retire at season’s end, Sumner, who has been in place as head of Corona del Mar’s cross-country and track and field programs since 1984, waxed nostalgic about coaching and the relationships that have come with it.
His influence is clear. Past program participants call and reconnect regularly, and one, he says, went so far as to name their yacht after his teachings.
“Rule No. 1, ‘Never give up,’” Sumner said. “Rule No. 2, ‘Don’t forget Rule No. 1.’”
Sumner said he shared that advice with a young Dan Kash over 40 years ago at camp. The former pupil recently invited him out to see his new 210-foot yacht.
“He says, ‘Coach, look at the name on my yacht — Rule #1,” Sumner said.
That’s just one example of the reverence shown for the community staple, who continues to operate the Cal Coast Track Club.
Sumner, 78, and his wife, Mary Ellen, facilitated the cleaning and donation of more than 150,000 pairs of shoes through the Magic Shoe Foundation. That work was honored with an award from the Pat Summitt Leadership Group in 2019.
The Newport-Mesa Unified School District in 2022 named the new track and field at CdM after the Sea Kings’ longtime leader.
Corona del Mar cross-country experienced extended periods of dominance with Sumner at the helm. The girls’ program won 10 CIF Southern Section championships — back-to-back titles in 1992 and 1993, three consecutive from 1998 to 2000, and five in a row from 2004 to 2008.
That run of success was complemented by seven state titles for the girls, with an additional two state championships won by CdM on the boys’ side.
Under Sumner, the cross-country program produced six CIF individual champions: Tracy Clark (1992), Dresden Howell (1993), Annie St. Geme (2005), Sarah Cummings (2006), Shelby Buckley (2007) and Max Douglass (2024). Cummings and St. Geme each followed up their section titles by claiming individual state crowns.
The Sea Kings’ cross-country and track and field programs have won 18 section championships combined in Sumner’s time at the school.
“We need knowledge and energy and experience here,” said Sumner when asked why now was the time to hang up his whistle. “I don’t have some of it anymore. I don’t have the energy. I got the knowledge, OK, but unless you want to put me in a wheelchair and roll me around and just use my brain from day to day, you got to have the energy.”
Sumner’s too competitive to vanish all together. This is a man who continues to run road races in his advanced age. Only half-jokingly, he said when he saw this reporter in the Cypress 5K some years ago, he had to run back to talk trash before the reporter — 40-plus years his junior — crossed the finish line.
Looking back on a more recent race, Sumner can’t wait to get back in the action after he said he failed to break 30 minutes for the first time in his life.
“I’m going to get in another race, I’m going to break 30 minutes,” Sumner said. “I’m going to beat the guy ahead of me. If I don’t beat that guy, I’m going to beat the guy behind me. I’m beating one of those suckers, I guarantee it. One of them is getting taken down by me. I still have those cards, and I play them.”
After more than four decades of high school meets on Saturdays, Sumner said he is looking forward to “some serious three-day weekends” in retirement. He wants to continue meeting with his running groups. One ship he is sure has sailed? His last marathon is behind him.
A relative but linear progression curve is how Sumner measures success. Getting teams to “try” led to the hardware.
“I’m keeping score,” Sumner said. “If you were getting D’s and now you’re getting C’s, you’re winning in my book. That’s a champion. You just got to go where you are and move up. You move up, you’re a champ in my book.”
