In high school I participated in two team sports, football and track and field, and did well in both. Because of my size, in football I was on the junior varsity team, what we called the B team. At age 14 I was 5’6” tall, and 120 lbs. soaking wet. I was fast, and coach had me in the backfield as a running back. Then we were called half-backs. We didn’t do particularly well as a team, and never came close to winning the league, but we did have some memorable good games to our credit.

Where I excelled was in track and field. Again, because of my size and weight, I was ranked on the Class C team. Class A was what was considered the varsity team, Class B, the junior varsity, and Class C was below that. These were the levels of competition by age, height, and weight, set by the Valley Oak League. Whatever, it meant I ran with the lightest members of the team.

I was taller than most of the other Class C runners, but my weight kept me with the smallest kids competing. I did well in competition, actually exceptionally well, and garnered record after record particularly in the high and low hurdles, on the 4×110 yard relays, and in the broad jump. By the end of my junior year, I held all the league records in Class C for the 110-yard low hurdles and the 75-yard high-hurdles, and did well enough in the broad jump to hold records in that event as well.

When it came to my senior year, I was once again classed low enough that I was on the Class C team. Coach Blackwell, however, told me that it would be “unfair” to the other students for me to compete against them, and he had me reclassified onto the higher Class B team. I was as tall as most of the other athletes in Class B, and as it turned out my slighter build and lower weight weren’t a handicap, and I began to win in the higher class as well. I ended the year winning all my races and set records in the 75-yard-high hurdles, in the longer 110-yard-low hurdles, and in the broad jump. According the Coach Blackwell, it was only fair to the other students.

My capping final victory came in the Modesto Relays held on the campus of Modesto Junior College which hosted a major competition of major colleges and universities from the western U.S. Competitors included college and university athletes, post-college amateur athletes, and high school students.

My specialty had been the 75-yard-high hurdles, but for the Modesto Relays the meet directors used the collegiate standards in meters for all high school races, so my 75-yard-high hurdle race was re-set as 70-meter-high hurdles. I won the race with a personal record and meet record time of 8.9 seconds, a record that stood for a number of years.

The other memorable track event for me was in the broad jump. In the mid-50s this event was referred to as the broad-jump, and years later it was changed to be known as the long jump. The track and field event was a dual-meet between Livingston High School and Merced High School, two rival teams some 14 miles apart and in different competitive leagues. Livingston township was a farming community, and we had the reputation of being a bunch of farm kids, while Merced was a larger city with a larger feel as opposed to a town. Their kids had the reputation of being more sophisticated, but really, in the 50’s California, we were all really just plain farm kids.

In the competition I ripped off a personal best leap of 20’1” and enjoyed the glory of leading the competition. It was short-lived, because within a brief 15 minutes Jerry Proctor from Merced High went out to 20’2”, and my winning leap was eclipsed by one scant inch. I remember the kid’s name, but over the years it along with the personal record has faded somewhat into the past…