Hall of Fame: Gina Heads (Newport Harbor)

Richard Dunn

As an athletic superstar and homecoming queen in high school, Gina

Heads of Newport Harbor not only lifted the heaviest weights and threw

the greatest distances, but carried the biggest smile.

When attention came her way, she accepted it warmly, humbly and

graciously, always said thank you and let her work speak for itself.

Heads later attended Stanford on a track and field scholarship,

throwing the shot put, discus and hammer (in which she placed fourth at

the 1997 Pacific-10 Conference Championships). But her real specialty was

weightlifting.

Groomed under former Newport Harbor throws and conditioning coach Tony

Ciarelli, Heads and her younger sister, Cara, developed into mainstays,

and champions, in world and national competitions.

In fact, in 1995, Heads won the collegiate weightlifting title in her

division in the snatch and clean and jerk, and her sister competed at the

2000 Sydney Olympic Games.

Gina Heads, perhaps the most decorated female athlete in Newport

Harbor or Newport-Mesa School District history, suffered a torn anterior

cruciate ligament at Stanford in 1996, which, essentially, ended her

Olympic weightlifting dreams.

But Heads, who watched her sister compete at last year’s Olympics with

her parents, Larry and Cathy, still rolls up her sleeves every day.

Heads was raised with plenty of life’s comforts, including top-flight

coaching at Newport Harbor. “Ciarelli could be a (college) Division I

(conditioning and throwing) coach,” Heads said of her mentor, now the

head football coach at Huntington Beach.

But Heads, a bilingual first-grade teacher in a low-income district of

East Palo Alto, is now showing young and impressionable minds what

somebody can really do if they work hard and commit their hearts.

She thumbs through the pages of her scrapbook -- full of newspaper

articles, photographs and headlines and put together by her parents --

with her children in the classroom.

“I enjoy showing the kids,” she said. “They know I’ve done something

more than teach. They can actually see me as somebody else. I’m able to

show them something, that they can accomplish their goals.”

Heads (circa 1994), who competed in the finest era of Newport Harbor

girls track history and was arguably its most eminent star, set a new

path for others to follow in many ways, including dealing with sports

scribes in the high-profile Orange County media market, where at least

three daily newspapers kept tabs on her remarkable feats.

When Heads was a Newport track star, she embodied everything Ciarelli

and head coach Eric Tweit hoped for in their athletes on and off the

field.

“Gina and Cara both were great role models for my kids, and I have

three daughters. They have emulated the Heads sisters,” Ciarelli said. “I

think for girls anywhere and women anywhere, both are great people who

point the direction in the way life should be lived.”

Heads, voted the 1993-94 school, district and Sea View League Athlete

of the Year, finished third in the state in the shot put with a personal

record, then heaved even farther, 47 feet 5 inches, at the National

Scholastic Federation High School Championships in North Carolina.

In total, Heads won an astonishing six individual CIF Southern Section

titles in the shot put and discus, captured two Masters Meet

championships in the discus and was an annual darling at the CIF State

Championships at Cerritos College, where the 5-foot-4 bundle of joy

placed third in the shot put and discus in 1994.

Heads, who also won six Sea View League titles in the throws, was a

key member as a junior of Newport Harbor’s 1993 CIF Division II girls

track team championship, which also featured notables Michaela Ross,

Misty May, Cara Heads, Lindsey Curtis, Mandy Clayton and Tina Bowman.

“Once (during a postseason meet at Cerritos College), Gina stepped

into the (shot put) ring and did the old Babe Ruth,” Ciarelli said. “She

pointed out to a big throw and did it ... she’s just one of those people

who loved to step up and come through with big-time stuff.

“If she wasn’t the most tenacious athlete I’ve ever coached, she was

right up there with the best of them. She truly knew how to compete,

loved competition and loved pressure.”

In basketball, Heads was a four-year varsity performer for Coach

Shannon Jakosky, who in five years turned the program around from

awkward-dribbling players to a cohesive group of hardcourt thinkers,

crowned by the school record-setting team of 1993-94, which advanced to

CIF Division III-AA and CIF Southern Regional championship games.

“My favorite athletic highlight, actually, is making those two free

throws (with 12 seconds left in the CIF Division III-AA semifinals

against Newbury Park),” Heads said, “because my parents always remind me

of it, so it’s embedded in my mind.”

That night, Feb. 26, 1994, Heads stepped to the line with the game

tied, 41-41, but had struggled throughout on foul shots (missing 7 of

10). She sank ‘em, however, when it counted most and Newport Harbor

reached its first CIF title-game appearance with a 43-41 win.

After the game, when asked what she was thinking prior to shooting in

the one-and-one, pressure cooker situation, Heads smiled and calmly said,

“Make ‘em.”

For the latest honoree of the Daily Pilot Sports Hall of Fame, her

lasting impression always had a big smile.