No family had more siblings run cross country at Sierra though than the Frandsens. Brian ran for Coach Payton and then I had the opportunity to coach Steve, Scott and Charlie. Additionally I coached Brian when I coached at UCCS and he and oldest brother Jeff ran for Harrison High School before Sierra even existed. Finally I coached Jeff's daughter Candace. In 2000 I created a new award for the cross country program to honor their father, Rulon who passed away. He was a great supporter of our programs and never hesitated to hold us accountable if he disagreed with something but as soon as we explained our rationale he was a loyal supporter. The "Rulon Frandsen Stallion Pride" award. "The athlete who wins this award represents what Sierra Cross Country stands for. Excellence in the classroom, excellence as a person in the school and community and excellence in Cross Country. The winner may not be the best runner in the program from year to year but it will be someone who exhibits all of the positive qualities we look for in our athletes". I was happy to see that the coach who replaced me continued the award the year after I left. After that I don't know but I hope other coaches continued to honor the tradition.
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| Charlie Frandsen, Steve Frandsen, Coach Anstey, Scott Frandsen, Coach Payton Sadly we lost Charlie too soon. He passed away at 23 years old in 2002
We had many sets of siblings in Swimming and Track as well. One disappointment that we dealt with through the years was when we knew a younger sibling was coming up through the school district and then for one reason or another we wouldn't get them in the program.
While family was big during my 20 years at Sierra it didn't hold a candle to the importance of family participation in the programs I coached in New Mexico. Pancho Morris of the Hobbs News Sun wrote a column about it in 1984.
'LHS Runners "Family"'
The 1979 World Series champion Pittsburgh Pirates and the Lovington High School cross country programs have one thing in common: Both can lay claim to the "We Are Family" title.
The Pirates popularized the song by the same title en route to their World Series victory. Though very few, if any, of the Pirates were really related, the song symbolized the togetherness of the team. However close the Pirates were, they have nothing on Lovington, which is indeed a family-oriented program.
"We can drive down one street and pick up half of our team," Lovington Lady Wildcat head coach Dana Anstey said jokingly.
The funny thing is he wasn't kidding.
No less than five sets of siblings are listed on the boys' and girls' rosters for 1984. But it's not something that "That's Incredible" would be interested in. Through the years, Lovington has had almost as many family members on its teams as it has outsiders.
"Cross Country teams are naturally a close-knit group and I think that plays a big part in it," Anstey said, offering some kind of explanation. "There is a lot of camaraderie and I believe the younger brothers and sisters want to be a part of that."
Whatever the reasons, Anstey knows that he has saved a lot of phone calls over the years.
Eight families have contributed two runners apiece to the program at one time or another, while three other families have had an even bigger impact.
In fact, the Marquez clan has had almost as much to do with the success of the LHS teams as have Anstey and LHS boys' head coach Scottie Watkins.
Librado, Vincente and Reyes Marquez - all brothers - should receive the "All-time Leading Assist Award" for the contribution of 10 offspring to the LHS teams.
Vincente has been the biggest contributor. Four of his children, Maria A., Marisela (Chela), Linda and Paul have run, or are running, cross country. Maria A. graduated in 1984 as did sister Linda. Paul was a 1983 graduate, while Chela, a senior is currently in her third year of competition.
Reyes has two sons, Rafael and David, both currently on the team and another, Rene, who graduated in 1982. The Marquez brothers are both seniors with Rafael running for two seasons and David one.
Librado's offspring have all graduated. Daughters Sylvia and Maria V. graduated in 1981 and 1982, respectively. Librado Jr. was also a 1982 graduate.
If that isn't confusing enough, the Marquez' sister's daughter, Irma Valencia, was a member of the LHS team last year before moving to Artesia.
Right behind the Marquez family are the Carrascos and Rubios.
Brothers Arturo, Filameno, and sister Amy Carrasco are all currently putting in their miles for the Wildcats, while Miguel graduated in 1983.
Amy, a senior, is the eldest, while Arturo is a junior and Filameno a freshman.
The Rubios have the distinction of being the only three-member family to include nothing but girls. Tina started it off, running her senior year in 1979. Cindy, who will graduate in 1985, followed and is joined on the team by Connie, a junior. Connie does double duty for the Wildcats also competing on the volleyball team.
Other sibling runners include the Morleys, Becky and Carl, who are brother and sister, and cousins Lorena and Paula Arenivas, both sophomores.
The list of other family units are:
Lupe Martinez, a junior and Victor Martinez who ran in 1979
Jesse Ontiveros, a junior, and older brother Elias, a 1978 graduate.
Brother and sister Ruben and Mari Gonzales. Ruben ran in 1979, while Mari graduated in 1983 after three years of competition.
Nora Attaway and sister Marie Attaway. Nora graduated last year while Marie is currently a senior. They are primarily track athletes who use cross country for conditioning.
Quinn Smith, a 1977 graduate, and brother Dennis who ran in 1979-80.
Tom Herndon and brother Brad. Tom graduated in 1984, while Brad is a current member of the team.
Sound confusing? Hey, just wait a couple more years.
According to Anstey, there are even more family runners on the way up. But that's okay. Considering all the success, they
are family trees Anstey enjoys watching grow".
While families and family involvement brought a lot of good times to the programs there were also times when a "little less" involvement would have been welcomed. I'm sure some of those will be shared in future posts.
We were faced with another new challenge for the '96 - '97 school year. Some administrators in their infinite wisdom came up with a plan to fix attendance by punishing students no matter what the reasons or what type of grades they had. If a student had X absences in a class regardless of the reason then they had to fill out paperwork and appear before a committee to get credit for the class. If I sound like I didn't support the idea I didn't for multiple reasons. First, as I said reasons for absences didn't matter so if a student had legitimate reasons for missing it counted the same as skipping class. So now if an athlete missed classes to participate in an athletic event and they had enough other absences no matter the reason, they had to appeal. If they didn't get the paperwork in on time they could lose credit for the class and subsequently become academically ineligible for participation. And this was true even if they had an A in the class. "We're treating everyone the same"! What a bunch of clowns. Oh and by the way who generally served on the committees that heard the appeals? Teachers who had the time because they didn't do anything extra to work with kids. And that is a second reason that I disagreed with the policy. If I remember right it only lasted maybe a year because it was so labor and time intensive.
The cross country scrimmage showed me that while we didn't have that standout #1 runner on either team we were going to have a chance to be successful if our packs would run close enough to the front. Once again the boys' team was swept with our first runner finishing 10th but their split times for 1-5 (:51) and 1-7 (1:28) were outstanding. The girls' 1-5 (1:18) was equally impressive but their 1-7 (5:40) was horrendous and a sign that we could be in big trouble score wise if we were ever missing one of our top 5 runners.
Mid-season after the Coronado Invitational I wrote this in their newsletter; Ladies we came away from this meet a little stunned. It was our worst showing there ever so we were surprised because we really didn't think you were running that bad. You weren't running bad, it was just that the competition was as good as it has ever been at that meet. The only negative as far as a team is that our top two runners were to far back and the pack was way to far behind them. You all know that is something that must continue to improve.
Guys, the same things apply. Your pack time of 1:23 was pretty good it was just to far back. You must continue to move it closer to the front. In order for that to happen you've got to be willing to go out and take a risk. Going out comfortably in the back half of the pack will never bring the kind of improvement you want".
And after Pueblo Central Invitational 2 meets later; "Congratulations to all of you on a very fine effort. Hopefully you can take away positive feelings from this course and bring them back to the Regional meet in a little over two weeks. Of the 14 who ran, there were 11 Pr's and one season best. The other two were very close to PR's. If there is any negative that has to be pointed out it is the "pack". The boy's pack was way to far back in the field (although it was a good pack). 1:38 1-5 and 1:45 1-7. The girl's pack fell apart for the first time all season. Ladies, if you're going to State it won't happen with the pack that far behind Chrystal". There was 48 seconds behind Chrystal who was our 3rd runner and our 4th runner and only 27 seconds between 4th and 7th. Unfortunately Chrystal only ran one more meet before Region after it was determined that she had a stress fracture. And after Region she was too sore to compete at State.
Despite the loss of Chrystal and the fact that we never got our 1-5 split under 3:15 without her the girls still managed to qualify for state as a team for the 7th year in a row after finishing 3rd at Region. And despite the fact that our boys had an outstanding 1-5 split of 1:10 they once again missed out on qualifying finishing 7th of 11 teams and only the top four qualify. Places tell the story better than anything I could say. Girls 9-12-14-18-38 (41-47) for 91 points. Boys 28-31-33-43-48 (50-68) for 184.
   
After our first swim meet it was obvious that even though this was the second year for Coach Gross and I we still had a lot of work to do to change the culture of the program. Our first meet we lost to Wasson 103 -64. "Ladies, losing is never fun> I know some of you who do other sports continue to do those sports "because they are fun", and it's good that you can see that as a positive. The bottom line however is that losing is not fun. The beauty of a sport like swimming is that win or lose you can always find positives. And in spite of the fact that we lost as far as team score is concerned there were a lot of positives". We then emphasized that fact that if they did the good things as well as possible and improve the scores could eventually change in our favor.
We didn't expect the "change in our favor" to take place so fast. In our next meet we beat St. Mary's 103 - 76. The girls swam and competed very well. We were brought right back down to reality in our next meet though getting beat by Mitchell 114 - 61. Coach Gross' comments after the meet sum up what we were dealing with. First he reviewed things that had gone wrong during the meet event by event and then he said; "None of these things however is a major concern of mine. What does disappoint me is coming to practice and finding only 16 out of 33 swimmers present. I know some do have legitimate reasons to be absent occasionally, but I am tired of kids not swimming because they have a headache, the sniffles, a club meeting, etc. etc. I am tired of come-late, leave-early, sometime swimmers. And ladies, it better stop. This team is not about getting our pictures taken and having fun in the water. It is about being successful in a difficult sport; and it takes courage, commitment and hard work to achieve".
We next went to Rampart to swim in the Holiday Relays and scored 4 points. By comparison the winner Rampart Gold scored 264 and their B team Rampart Blue scored 104 and finished 8th. There were 21 teams total and we were 16th. But the kids actually did a great job swimming and carrying themselves with class and dignity throughout the meet. We finished the season 1-6 in dual meets and our record stood at 3-14 for our first two years with the program. We were improving though and school records and top ten lists were indicative of that improvement.
The '97 track season started out just like most as far as weather, scheduling conflicts and getting kids out on time. It also started off with performances that showed promise for a successful season. After the first week of practice I wrote; "I'm very proud of your efforts the first seven days of practice. We didn't have one good day and yet we were outside everyday doing your best and doing it without complaining. You did a great job with the testing. Now you'll start specializing more. It may not be where you want to be but it will be where we think you can do your best". You never know how a team is going to respond to the start of a spring season in Colorado with the type of weather we had to deal with year in and year out and the girls did a great job.
This was the first season that I wanted to try something different as far as welcoming everyone to the program and making sure we were all on the same page in all areas. I got with the other coaches and we created a list of what we felt every team member should know and then we met with some key upperclassmen and went over the handout with them. Then, "The upperclassmen will meet with groups of you and tell you about expectations. Listen to what they say and take it to heart. If you don't want to do what it takes to help this be a winning program don't waste your time or ours. It is not simply about participation, it is about being the best individually and as a team that we can". That turned out to be a successful component of our program for several years.
And then of course before we could get everyone's focus on our program we once again had a successful boy's basketball season to work around. "Ladies we had an outstanding ride with the boy's basketball team the past three days. Having it end in a state championship and seeing so many of you there being a part of it was outstanding. Now it's time to focus on making our program be as successful as possible. That means being at all practices, keeping it together in the classroom, acting like ladies at all times and competing to the best of your ability wherever you are asked to compete".
This was also the year that the swimming pool was available more than in the past and we decided to use it more for pool workouts, recovery days and fun in addition to rehab which is all we had used it for in the past. "Friday we will be going in the swimming pool for practice. Make sure you have your suit. This is not optional unless there is a medical reason. Bring your suit and a towel. Dry off good and change into dry clothes before you leave". We used the pool extensively for the rest of my career at Sierra. There were many benefits and we could still get a hard workout in using the pool.
Competitively we had a very good season winning 5 varsity meets including the Cheyenne Mountain and Panther Invitationals. The Panther was a special victory for us because they brought in an outstanding team from Norman, Oklahoma. We not only won the girls division but scored enough points with the boys to win the coed plaque.
"Ladies congratulations on a total team victory, like I told the newspaper, we won because you are a group of hard working young ladies who will do whatever you are asked to help the team. We placed in every event, if we had complete results, I would bet that we wouldn't find another team that did that. Your efforts were outstanding and you pulled together like a team from the start and kept it together throughout the entire meet in spite of terrible conditions. (Some of you let the weather and extra load get to you. You know who you are and you know you have to work harder in practice and on your attitude so that it doesn't happen again).
There are to many of you who did a good job to try to mention you all individually but a couple I have to mention are Elise who ran a total of 7 races, Tanya B. who ran 2 800's despite the fact that she's a sprinter (and she ran one on only a couple of minutes notice), Tasha for going over 100 feet in the discus for the first time, Charity for filling in on the 4 x 800 and running the fastest 800 and Kharisa for setting a new freshman record in the shot put.
If the Regional Championship is our goal we must keep working hard and improving. Air Academy is certainly going to be a team to watch, as is Fountain Fort Carson and Falcon has some outstanding individuals. We are going to have to win it with depth which means everyone doing their best in every event. Do that every meet so that it becomes a habit".
The two meets we didn't win, the Icicle Relays and the Colorado Springs Metro League meet we were 3rd both times but we were the highest finishing 4A team. And the future looked bright when we won the City Freshman - Sophomore Championship with 200 points, the second place team had 92. We won 4 of the 5 relays and finished 2nd in the other. And that 6th consecutive Regional Championship? It didn't happen.
"Ladies congratulations on a really outstanding performance. I know you all wanted to win and you were disappointed that we didn't but because you wanted to win badly enough you competed to the best of your ability and finished a strong second. As I told you on the bus Saturday, there were eight other teams that would love to have been taking home your second place trophy. Don't sell yourselves short, you competed hard, you scored in every event and you did your best throughout the meet. You will always be champions in the eyes of the coaches.
Let's look at some facts. You scored more points than we have ever scored in the CSML Region before. You had the 5th highest Regional point total in the school's thirteen years of competing. You finished 11.5 points behind the winner but you were 42 points ahead of 3rd place and beat eight of the nine other teams in our region. Fifteen of you qualified for state and only 5 of you are juniors and seniors. The future looks good for Sierra girls track and field. You did a very good job. I'm proud of you and you have a lot to be proud of.
As I told you on the bus after the meet, before the meet I predicted that we would score 133 points. We scored 133 points, if you did your best and got beat there is nothing you can do except start right now thinking about next year and what it will take to win again.
If you need anything positive to think about just remember the gutsy performances of the 4 x 800 after Elisa got knocked to the ground and the medley after Kawana and Patty dropped the baton on the exchange; both of them got back into it and qualified for state. Or think about what an exciting race the 4 x 4 was sticking Autumn in at the last minute because we had to put Charity on the medley. That's what this team is all about ladies and you each need to take pride in the fact that we are winners because you are winners.
As I wrote in a previous post it was always my final decision about who would run on the relays. At region Kawana and Autumn both freshmen ran as alternates after another runner or runners had to be moved to other events or couldn't compete. On Monday after region we worked out in the pool and I can remember almost 20 years later, as if it was yesterday calling them over to the southwest corner of the pool and telling them how proud I was of them both and what an asset they were to the team. I also explained that if the upperclassmen they had replaced was able to run that they would be alternates and get to attend the state meet but may not participate. I said, "make sure that you tell your parents so they don't drive all the way to Denver just expecting to see you compete". Well! One did and one didn't and after the meet when we were loading up the vans if looks could kill that would have been the last meet I ever coached because Kawana hadn't told her parents. Fortunately we got past it and she became a four year letter winner in track and ran cross country as well.
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