Keeping Fast Company : The Great Grandson of a Pioneer Rancher, Rio Mesa’s FitzGerald Is Harvesting Sprinters

The land that makes up southern Ventura County was largely unsettled wilderness when a teen-ager by the name of Adolfo Camarillo suddenly found himself in charge of his father’s 10,000-acre ranch.

Apparently, young Adolfo was a good caretaker because the city of Camarillo eventually adopted his name. Now, more than a century later, Camarillo’s great grandson is helping to give the neighboring community of Oxnard a name.

Brian FitzGerald, co-coach of the Rio Mesa High track program, has turned out the state’s top girl sprinters in each of the past four seasons and five times in the past six years. Between them, Angela Burnham and Marion Jones have won nine state titles and set a national high school record under FitzGerald’s auspices since 1986.

But don’t expect FitzGerald to take credit.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that something like this would happen,” he said. “I feel like the luckiest guy in the world. Getting to coach someone of the caliber of Angela and Marion is something that doesn’t happen to a lot of coaches once in their career, let alone twice. . . .

“But my name is not Dr. Faustus. I didn’t sell my soul to the devil in exchange for these great sprinters.”

As was the case with great grandfather Adolfo, FitzGerald was presented a gift. But, as with Adolfo, it was up to FitzGerald to develop it.

It’s a responsibility he has taken seriously.

“I’ll be the first one to admit that I’m not the greatest coach in the world,” FitzGerald said. “Angela and Marion could have run fast no matter what school they ran for. But one thing I have done very well is to get them to peak at the right time.

“As a coach, it’s easy to get greedy with your athletes. You want to get them to run too fast too early, and that is how injuries occur. . . . My attitude has always been what you do in March and April isn’t important, it’s what you do in May and June that counts.”

Jones’ most recent campaign, her second under FitzGerald, reflects the coach’s philosophy.

After Jones ran nation-leading times of 11.38 seconds in the 100 meters and 22.87 in the 200 in the Arcadia Invitational in mid-April, FitzGerald reduced her speed work because he figured she was running too fast too soon. So, he pushed her up to the 400, in which she could develop her strength.

The results were encouraging.

A month later, Jones won the 100 (11.30), 200 (23.06) and the 400 (52.91) in the Southern Section 3-A Division championships. A week after that, she won the 100 and 200 in the Southern Section Masters meet.

But that was just a tuneup. In the state meet Jones, a sophomore, successfully defended both of her titles, winning the 100 in 11.17--equaling the second-fastest high school girls’ mark of all time--and the 200 in a wind-aided 22.91.

She closed the season with a national-record 22.76 in the 200, finishing fourth in The Athletics Congress meet and narrowly missing a berth on the U.S. team for the World Championships in Tokyo in August.

“I can still remember going to the state meet when I was younger, and thinking, ‘God. These people are great,’ ” FitzGerald said. “And I remember saying to my brother Tom, ‘I can’t believe a girl ran under 24 seconds (in the 200).’. . . . And now, we have someone who has run even faster.”

A couple of people, in fact. While Jones, 15, has personal bests of 11.17 in the 100, 22.76 in the 200 and 52.91 in the 400, she has improved only slightly on the Rio Mesa school records Angela Burnham set before moving on to UCLA. Burnham, who won five individual state titles and qualified for the Olympic Trials while in high school, ran 11.28, 23.45 and 54.09 under FitzGerald.

Burnham’s success was one of the factors that drew Jones to Rio Mesa, making FitzGerald the target of recruiting charges. Jones, who had run 12.01 in the 100 and 24.46 in the 200 for the West Valley Eagles Track Club as a 13-year-old, moved from Sherman Oaks into Rio Mesa’s attendance district in the summer of 1989 and enrolled at the school.

Jones’ mother, Marion Toler, heard about Rio Mesa through a former student who was a neighbor in Sherman Oaks. After visiting the campus in Oxnard and talking with school administrators and FitzGerald, Toler decided to enroll her daughter there.

“I knew people were saying things about recruiting, but that’s not what happened,” FitzGerald said. “I like the fact that people want to send their kids here because we have a good program. That’s one of the reasons I’m in coaching.”

Another reason is because FitzGerald, the father of 4- and 7-year-old boys, likes kids. His practice sessions are a far cry from the boot-camp atmosphere some coaches consider necessary. His athletes often call him “Fitz” or, if they’re really feeling formal, “Mr. Fitz.”

That is quite a change from FitzGerald’s first season as a Rio Mesa coach in 1982. Then, as the 23-year-old new kid in town, he believed that he had to establish his authority.

“I was real strict when I first came out here,” FitzGerald said. “After all, I was only four or five years older than some of the seniors. . . . But now, kids know what to expect from me. It’s loose, but they also know that there’s a line and they don’t mess with the line.

“They have to do what I want them to do and they don’t do anything halfway, but they can have fun doing it.”

Giving a full effort is all FitzGerald has ever asked of his athletes. When he took over the Rio Mesa program, his top priority was to help rebuild a program that had fallen on hard times since the mid-70s.

FitzGerald left just before the program’s decline, graduating from Rio Mesa in 1975. Co-coach Rick Torres graduated a year later. But under their stewardship, the Spartans have won state (1988) and Southern Section girls’ titles (3-A in 1990 and ‘91) and six consecutive Channel League championships from 1986-91.

They also have won five of the past six boys’ Channel League titles.

What’s more FitzGerald, who also teaches English as a Second Language and serves as the school’s athletic director, has won almost as many friends off the track as he has won titles on it.

“I like him as a coach and as a teacher,” said Alycia Burnham, Angela’s sister, who placed third in the 100-meter low hurdles in this year’s state championships. “He doesn’t put up that wall between you and him that most teachers do.”

Adds Torres: “He’s a great guy to work with. He works (his runners) hard and he trains them hard, but he also keeps them healthy and motivated.”

The athletes keep FitzGerald motivated as well. Although he has been involved in track and field in one way or another since he was a youngster, FitzGerald isn’t ready to call himself an expert by any means. No experiment is too crazy if he thinks it will help one of his charges run faster.

He has even bucked the system when it comes to sprinters’ starts, something most coaches take for granted.

Traditional thinking calls for a sprinter’s feet to be bunched close together in the starting blocks. The sprinter’s forward leg is supposed to provide most of the initial power out of the blocks.

FitzGerald has found, however, that by spacing the sprinter’s feet farther apart in the blocks, and by putting more pressure on the rear leg, more speed and power can be developed after the first 15 to 20 meters of the race.

“The old method definitely got you out of the blocks faster for the first five to 10 meters,” FitzGerald said. “But, by being all bunched up, you sacrificed a lot of speed and power later in the race.”

FitzGerald also has incorporated the use of bungee cords into his sprinters’ training.

“It’s not a new idea, but it does work,” FitzGerald said. “Coaches were pulling sprinters behind their cars years ago to condition their central nervous systems to react faster than normal. This way is just a little bit more refined and practical.”

The same could be said of FitzGerald. Great granddad Adolfo, for one, would be proud.