Taft Track Team Begins Life After Watts

Taft High has furnished the Valley’s most renowned track program for the past three years, but when the Toreadors begin the season this afternoon in a non-scoring meet at Birmingham, they will be just another team seeking to establish itself.

“We’re definitely in a rebuilding year,” first-year Coach Mel Hein said. “We’ve got some talent, but we’re very young. The franchise is gone and now we just have to move ahead.”

The franchise was Quincy Watts, the heart and soul of the program for the past three seasons who led the Toreadors to consecutive City Section titles in 1986-87 and the state championship in 1986.

Now at USC, Watts won three individual state titles and five City championships at Taft, but he is not the only talented Toreador to be lost to graduation last June.

Gone, too, are Yomo Smith (third in the triple jump in the City championships), Lawrence Killens (seventh in the long jump) and sprinters David Flores and David Feinstein, who with Watts made up three-fourths of Taft’s City runner-up 400-meter relay team.

Pole vaulter Greg Sheets is the only individual scorer to return from last year’s team that placed third in the City championships behind Washington and Chatsworth.

Sheets, who vaulted 15 feet in 1988, placed second to Jay Bettinger of Chatsworth in the City meet and is favored to win the title this season.

Taft also has several returning athletes who performed well at lower levels in 1988.

David Rodriguez, a junior, won the City title in the C 800 (2 minutes, 1.68 seconds) last season and teammate Redrick Dixon, another junior, placed second in the C long jump (20-9).

Taft, the City Section frosh-soph cross-country champion, also could get some help from its young, but talented distance corps that includes sophomore Brian Goodsey and freshman Michael Krentzin.

In another meet today, Eddie Bowling of Canoga Park will lead the Hunters against North Hollywood at home.

Bowling, the defending City champion in the high jump, has a personal best of 6-9.