GWC Coaching Great Tom Noon Passes

TOM NOON….We have lost another of our own. Tom Noon, longtime Golden West College Head Track & Field and Cross Country Coach, recently lost the battle against Alzheimer’s disease. Noon, 77, served GWC for over 40 years and will be remembered as a passionate and compassionate teacher/coach.

Noon began his teaching and coaching career at Tustin High School before moving to GWC to head up their programs. In 1968 at the Mt. SAC Relays Noon’s four-mile relay set a national JC record in the 4-mile relay-17:10.6. The following year GWC’s Jim Seymour won the first ever one lap (440-yard) hurdle race in So Cal Finals-52.0. Seymour went on to numerous international honors:  two-time All-American at U. of Washington; 1970 Pan Am Games IH runner-up; 1972 West Coast Relays, Compton Invitational, and Mt. SAC Relay IH titles. At the 1972 Munich Olympics Seymour represented the USA with a fourth place (48.4) in the 400 meter IH final.  Seymour was Golden West’s first track and field Olympian. 

Coach Noon was an intense, fiery competitor in many activities including competitive rugby and formula race car competition. He was a proud father of five children. A memorial service will be held Saturday, March 12 at the Landmark Steakhouse in Corona del Mar from noon to 2p.m.

RIP Coach Noon-you had a positive and lasting influence on hundreds of young people in your lifetime.

            News Flash!!! 

Cardona’s special performance…El Camino's David Cardona ran one of the fastest 5K times in the past 30 years  by a California community college runner at the Ben Brown Invitational. Cardona's 14:21.27 ranks in the top seven times by CCC runners since 1980. Several foreign runners for Riverside CC ran faster times in the 1990s, but American born Mark Ruelas (Citrus) won the 1982 So Cal Finals in a meet record 13:59.20, while Tracy Garrison (Taft) took the 1986 So Cal Finals in 14:13.16. Congratulations David, and good luck next year at Cal Poly SLO.

Distinguished CCC Coaching Alumni named to Pan American Games Staff

2011 Pan American Games-USA Staff Announced...

October 23-29 in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Men’s Staff Assistant Coaches:

Head Men’s Team Manager-Manny Bautista (former San Diego Mesa Head XC/Asst. T&F Coach; Grossmont XC Coach/Kansas State staff/Cal Poly SLO Staff)

Women’s Staff Assistant Coaches:

Women’s Asst. Coach-Endurance events:

Francie Larrieu Smith (DeAnza CC student/athlete)… A 1998 inductee of the National Track & Field Hall of Fame, Larrieu Smith’s running career spanned four decades and included 13 world indoor records and a total of 35 American records in distances ranging from 1,000 meters to two miles. Larrieu-Smith qualified to compete on five Olympic teams.

 Bautista and Larrieu Smith follow in the footsteps of the following CCC T&F coaches who have been part of USA Pan American Game’s staffs:

Dr. Ernest Gregoire (Mt. SAC Asst.)…1981 Asst. Coach-USA Pan Am Jr. team;

1991 USA Pan Am Team-Asst. Coach-Meet site: Havana, Cuba

Bob Covey (Bakersfield Head T&F/XC Coach 1963-05)…1983 Pan Am Games Asst. Coach-Site: Caracas, Vz.

Tom Tellez (former Fullerton CC Head T&F/XC Coach/ UCLA Field Event Coach/ Houston Univ. Head T&F Coach)… 1987 Pan Am Games-USA Head T&F Coach

Bob Chambers

Remembering a Legend

Coach Bob Chambers Memorial Tribute…LA Pierce no longer fields a track and field program, but the legacy that Coach Bob Chambers left is special in CCC history. Chambers, a 1948 Olympian and former USC 880y star, died in December of 2010. Chamber’s athletes broke a handful of NJCRs, but his Pierce mile and two-mile relay teams will be what CC old-timers remember best. Pierce impressively won three consecutive state mile relay titles (1966-68). At the end of the 1968 season Chamber’s two-mile relay team had four of the top seven all-time JC times in the event including the NJCR mark of 7:29.4 (the closest opponent time was 10 seconds slower!). At the end of the 1967 season Pierce held the top five all-time mile relay marks with a 3:10.1 NJCR, and no time slower than 3:12 (and, remember, this was the dirt track era). In addition, Coach Chambers 1966 Brahma cross country team won the state title.  

In addition Coach Chambers had a hand (with former Bakersfield Coach Bob Covey) in devising the lane seeding formula that set a standard. Covey remembers how the seeding formula plan came about.  “ In 1967 and 1968, some of us coaches were asking the question: "Why don't we construct a lane assignment formula for the So Cal Championships. At that time, I knew that we could go to a So Cal or State Meet and find the best athlete in an unfavorable lane. Whether lanes were drawn by lot or the Meet Director just decided the "draw", which was what they were said to be, there was no set way to predict from championship meet to championship meet what lane assignments athletes and relays teams would find themselves.

“In 1969, I asked So Cal Rules Committee Chairman Ed Conly (Citrus) about working on such a formula, and after much discussion in committee, he asked Bob Chambers (LA Pierce) and me to work on such a formula. We did and in the fall meeting presented it to the So Cal Track & Field Rules Committee and it was adopted as a trial for the 1970 So Cal Championships.  

 “The State Meet adopted a similar formula a year later, as I recall. At that time, the Olympic Games and the NCAA Championships still had no organized lane assignment formulas that we were aware of. I think our formula may have been the first such formula adopted for use at the championship meet level.

 “Over the years, our formula was tweaked and a formula was added for the field events. I believe the So Cal Rules Committee should be proud to be a pioneer in the world of Track and Field. “

Bob Chambers “other life” was as a LA County/LA City Lifeguard for over 40 years. He was held in high esteem by his colleagues who remembered Chambers with a special memorial service on the beach after his ashes were scattered in the ocean. RIP Coach Chambers, you left a lasting legacy.