Bill Pascual

Bryce Alderton

A runner at heart, Bill Pascual has held a clipboard in one hand and

a stopwatch in the other during home track and field meets for Corona

del Mar High the past 12 years, acting as a head official at the

finish line.

He charts runners as they end their event with some help with a

crew he calls the “A-team.” All in a day’s work and anything to help

head coach Bill Sumner.

“I make sure all the times are scheduled for the season and make

sure all the people who need watches and clipboards have them,”

Pascual said Thursday from his office at CdM, where he has been a

counselor since 1984. Three years later, he began assisting Sumner

with the boys and girls cross country teams, which he still does.

“Track has six or seven rings, symbolizing the things needed for

it to go,” Pascual said. “Everyone has to do their part so Bill can

be a coach and not have to do it.”

The results speak for themselves. CdM has developed a tradition of

strong runners during Pascual’s time.

He spoke of Kelly Campbell, Eddie LaVelle, Jim Robbins and the

newest Sea King sensation, freshman Anne St. Geme, who competed in

the 1,600 meters at the CIF State preliminaries Friday at Cerritos

College (she did not qualify for the finals).

“Anne was injured during the cross country season, but was

patient, came back from [rehabilitation] and it all paid off,”

Pascual said. “She has so much talent and quite a genetic makeup.”

St. Geme’s mother, Ceci, was the 1982 NCAA champion in the 3,000

while at Stanford and father, Ed, played football for the Cardinal.

Pascual spent his college years at Washington State University, where

he earned his bachelor’s degree in physical education while earning a

varsity letter for diving four years. He then obtained his master’s

in the same field at Chico State, near his hometown of Redwood City.

Pascual’s high school diving coach was friends with an official

from the American Football League in the 1960s. The official knew of

an opening at Costa Mesa High, which Pascual interviewed for and got

the job in 1967. He spent 17 years as a counselor and instructor of

social studies and P.E. instructor along with coaching baseball and

wrestling.

He began running recreationally in 1966, after playing sports such

as water polo, swimming and wrestling.

“I couldn’t stand doing nothing, so a friend invited me to race in

the Santa Cruz Mountains,” Pascual said. “That hooked me and I have

been running ever since. The individuality of the whole thing appeals

to me. In cross country, every kid competes each time there is a

meet. There is always a chance to move up to the next level.”

On the weekends, Pascual, who likes to run on trails near his

Laguna Niguel home, and wife Sheri ride their two horses

He admitted that CdM runners occasionally get ahead of him on the

trails, but that strength coincides with a teaching philosophy

Pascual attempts to instill into the athletes.

“I like to use the analogy that every day you work out, you are

putting money into the bank and every line you cross at the meet, you

draw back that money,” he said. “If there is no money in the bank

from the week, there is nothing left to pull from when the meet

comes.”

But Pascual, 59, makes sure he doesn’t use too much figurative

language.

“I don’t want to make it trite, but I want them to see the big

picture,” he said. “You have to appeal to different people in

different ways.”