Tolson’s Biggest Hurdle: Transferring Schools

Like many teen-agers, Elinor Tolson often needs a little prodding to get out of bed and off to school in the morning. But last fall, Tolson needed more than prodding.

She needed a bomb scare. Or an earthquake. Or a stampede of buffalo. Or anything that would make her drop her boycott of Fountain Valley High School.

Tolson, the county’s best hurdler, was a freshman at La Quinta High School last year. But when her parents decided to move to Fountain Valley last April, Tolson refused, saying she would not transfer.

She didn’t like Fountain Valley, she said, because she thought it was “a big school with stuck-up people.” Mostly, though, she didn’t want to leave her friends at La Quinta.

And so the parent-daughter war was waged. When the first day of school rolled around, Tolson wasn’t rolling out of bed. In fact, she decided she wasn’t getting up at all.

Days passed, but Tolson remained bed-bound. She didn’t read and she didn’t watch TV, not even to play along with “The Price Is Right” or to dabble in “The Days of Our Lives.”

She just stayed in her pajamas, staring at her ceiling and getting out of bed only for an occasional snack and a trip to the you-know-where.

Her father suggested another trip--to juvenile hall. But Elinor knew he was only bluffing.

Finally, Al Tolson called his daughter to his room and told her if it meant this much to her, she could transfer back to La Quinta. She was thrilled, she said, until she and her mother were told by the Garden Grove Unified School District office that a transfer would be impossible unless the family moved back into the district’s attendance area.

Elinor was crushed, but she agreed to start school at Fountain Valley. She did not start with a smile.

“I was really mad, so when I went to school, everyone thought I was evil,” she said. “I guess it was the look on my face. I don’t like smiling.”

(For the record, Tolson says she doesn’t like smiling because she’s a tad insecure about the slight space between her front teeth, a trait shared with history’s greatest intermediate hurdler, Edwin Moses).

Once track practices started in December, Tolson had another adjustment to make. At La Quinta, where the only coach was a 19-year-old walk-on, Tolson ran her own show. As a longtime national-class age-group competitor, Tolson knows plenty about her event and figured she didn’t need more guidance.

But at Fountain Valley, Tolson found herself in a much more regimented program, with coaches who expected her to think of the team first and individual pursuits second. She was asked to sprint when she wanted only to hurdle. She was asked to push herself when she wanted to quit.

It came down to this: Tolson felt fantastic as an Aztec, but she was feeling barren as a Baron.

But then came Sharon.

Sharon Hatfield was one of the top high school hurdlers in the nation while at Fountain Valley in the early ‘80s. Last year, she began working with the hurdlers at Fountain Valley part-time.

Hatfield was the understanding voice Tolson needed to hear.

“I would’ve quit if it wasn’t for her,” Tolson says.

Hatfield says she doesn’t know about that, but she promises this: Tolson will be the best high school girl hurdler in county history by the time she graduates.

That would mean knocking Hatfield out of the record book. In 1982, Hatfield set the county record for the 300-meter hurdles, running 42.55 seconds to finish second in the State final.

On the same day, Hatfield placed sixth in the long jump (19 feet 3 inches), seventh in the 100-meter hurdles and eighth in the high jump. She went on to become a two-time All-American in the heptathlon at USC.

Tolson doesn’t seem to realize her coach was once a star, but that doesn’t bother Hatfield, a modest woman. Aside from Al Tolson, Hatfield seems to be Elinor’s No. 1 fan.

She predicts Tolson will break not only her county record in the 300 hurdles, but also the 100-meter hurdle record of 14.13 set by University’s Laura Mills in 1981.

“I would say both Orange County records will be wiped out by Elinor soon, if not this year,” Hatfield says.

She adds that the key to Tolson’s performance is a small, technical adjustment they’ve been working on. But that’s a secret Hatfield won’t reveal.

Now that she’s been at Fountain Valley for eight months, Tolson says she has made friends and is basically a happy Baron. The team’s unfashionable bell-bottom sweat pants, she says, are her only complaint. And bell-bottoms aren’t really worth a boycott.