Foothill senior has ‘super-good year’
| Wednesday, Dec 24 2008 01:14 AM
Last Updated Friday, Mar 27 2009 01:49 PM
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Foothill's Chris Schwartz runs at the Park at River Walk in Bakersfield on a stormy afternoon in Bakersfield.
For anyone who would think Chris Schwartz just does this running thing because he’s good at it, he’s got a message for you.
“I’ve loved running since eighth grade when I started track,” he said. “I had my first taste of victory then.”
There have been many, many more for the Foothill senior who is now a two-time CalifornianAll-Area Runner of the Year.
Schwartz dominated Kern County again, winning every local race by a comfortable margin, then winning his second straight Central Section title. He fell to seventh in the Division III state championships but rebounded to win the Foot Locker Western Regionals and to take seventh in the National Cross Country Championships.
“It was a super-good year,” Schwartz said.
That’s saying something, considering it came after Schwartz broke through as a national-caliber cross country star as a junior. He went from 132nd at the state meet as a sophomore to a champion as a junior after taking to heart some pacing lessons coach Arron Rietz and his Foothill staff hammered home.
“At first, he just ran on pure adrenaline and desire,” Rietz said. “But that’s one of his strengths. Everybody asks about his pacing, and that has developed, but it’s his desire that makes him go. He just doesn’t want to lose.”
Schwartz’s magical junior season was all the more special because he was finally settled in a comfortable foster home after bouncing around from group homes to foster homes since he was 10 years old, when he said his mother abandoned him.
His junior-year success ramped up the expectations for this season. Schwartz mostly backed them all up, failing to finish first only three times all season: at the Mt. SAC Invitational, where he was second to Trevor Dunbar of Kodiak, Alaska (he beat Dunbar at the Western Regionals); at the state meet, where he faded after leading the race at the two-mile mark; and at nationals, where he had the one-mile lead.
In between, Schwartz won a myriad of local races, the prestigious Clovis Invitational, the Kern County championships, an SEYL title and a Central Section Division III title.
“I ignored the expectations,” Schwartz said. “You can’t really decide if you’re going to have a good day or not. You just run your best, and see how it comes out. Almost all of them are a good race if you do that.”
That includes the nationals in San Diego, where Schwartz was 37th among 40 runners last year but finished seventh this time.
“I didn’t expect to be that high up,” Schwartz said. “I ran the course last year and knew how hard it would be, but it got easier this time.”
If Schwartz continues to improve, what he calls his ultimate goal — “to go to the Olympics, run there and just be the top runner in the world” — doesn’t sound so far-fetched. His next step, he hopes, will be a scholarship at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
“I’ve had kids that I’ve known for four years, and it’s sad to see them go,” Rietz said, “but this guy, it’s going to be real hard. And not just because he’s the best runner I’ve ever had. He is just a great kid.”
