Tracy Smith

[bishoprunner]

His wife, Caroline, was just as humble. She was also an accomplished runner. They had a golden retreiver, I think it's name was Shawn, that loved to go in the lakes and retrieve. They also had a donkey or a mule named Christmas. Tracy would load her up and take us backpacking in the Sierras. So, as you can probably tell, I wasn't too thrilled to have to leave this just before my senior year. He also had a running camp in Mammoth during the summer that I attended after I graduated high school. I could go on and on, but the bottom line is this: Tracy was a great runner, but above all of that he was a man of exemplary character to his runners. I sent him a Christmas card a few years ago, and it looks like he has raised his children to also be wonderful citizens. I am thankful for the short time I knew him, and am not surprised he is still going strong after all these years. The kids in Oregon are fortunate.

Now, about Bishop Union cross country. We won the Mt. SAC Invitational and CIF 1A (I think that is what it was called back then) in 1976 and 1977. Richard Arnold was our coach, and he was fantastic. A man of few words, but we all wanted to perform for him. Our training area and the courses we ran on in league were nothing compared to the Mt. SAC course. We would come down from 4,000 ft. altitude and see the smooth, almost road-like surface of Mt. SAC and do very well. Our top guy, Steve Peters, won CIF cross country two years in a row. Our second guy, Horatio Martinez, was usually right behind. There was no state cross country meet back then, so I don't know how our times would have compared to the other larger schools. But compared to the small schools, I think we did pretty well.

Okay, sorry for being long winded, but the 2 years I spent in Bishop created some wonderful memories. It's where I began to run competitively, and it was fantastic. We had 2 superb men coaching us, talented athletes, and an excellent environment to train in. I have lost contact with all of them, other than Tracy, so if any of them see this, shoot me an email!

Brian

[jhc68]

Thanks for the backstory, Brian.
I was coaching at Carpinteria HS during that mid 70's to very early '80's time period.
Our boy's teams were always in the CIF Finals and a couple of times we thought our seven had real shots at winning but Bishop Union and/or the Sherman Indians were always too tough at the end of the season!
I distinctly remember one Bishop runner (I'm thinking it was Peters) running at Mt. Sac with a pretty gnarly looking cast on his arm. That was the sort of resolve that was difficult to beat.