John Glenn Championship cross country team from 1960s reunites
Members of the 1964-66 John Glenn CIF Championship Cross Country team, joined by former coach Brian Springer and current coach Andy De La Torre
NORWALK - Conversation and laughter permeated across and around the long table. For most of those dining in the DoubleTree’s Sonoma Grill private room on Saturday, it was a reunion a long time in the making.
It’s been over 55 years since the 1964-1966 Cross Country teams at John Glenn High School capped a successful multi-year title run, including two CIF Championship wins and a second-place finish.
“Some of us haven’t seen each other for 50 years,” said John Ishii, a team member.
The team – joined by former coach Brian Springer and current John Glenn coach Andy De La Torre - came together over the weekend to reminisce about their triumphs.
Springer attributed the team’s success to “an experience of family,” adding that the team “had something we were proud of.”
“John Glenn was a shock to me teaching, a total shock. The fact that kids didn’t care about school, getting better than a C grade was, no, you don’t do that,” said Springer. “But among the kids, the few [on the team], we didn’t have a ton, we developed a family relationship where they knew that they had friends. We were like family, we were together. It was something I never experienced again in my life.”
It’s a sentiment shared by many on the team.
“I remember one time, thinking back to when we ran in 1967, ’68, there was a lot of camaraderie, a lot of things that happened spontaneously,” said team member Al Davis. “One in particular a time when it was raining, and between the classroom buildings, it was designed so that the water could drain away from the buildings. It just so happened the water would collect there, and it was perfect for a makeshift slip-and-slide, and so it was too wet for us to run, and of course with all that pent up energy we started just kind of a spontaneous thing of running as fast as we could and then leaning back to slide. We were sliding, and without realizing it we were disrupting the classrooms and all the kids were all standing up looking out the windows.”
He continued:
“It was because of the camaraderie and the cohesiveness of the team, I think that was highlighted by the idea that we had such tremendous success in that we were CIF champions, it made for a real closeness. When you’re working hard towards a common goal, I think things just happen in a different way. When there’s a lot of failure, there’s a lot of sadness, but when there’s success it’s like a flower opening up: it blossoms, and people begin to find themselves, and it’s easier to work together as a group.”
Of course, team members also heap a ton of credit to their coaching, first under John Tansley and followed by Springer.
“What got everybody together was Coach Tansley, he was the original coach for us. And then right after that was Brian Springer,” said team member Andy Mosqueda. “It does depend on the coach. It’s the coach that glues everybody together.”
“Both of them, they were coaches that were able to inspire the kids, and for us to be able to know that they really cared about us,” added Ishii. “That’s the key: for us to know that they really did care about us.”
Tansley passed away in 2021 at the age of 85.
Seeing many of his former pupils again for the first time since leaving John Glenn left Springer emotional.
“From a teaching standpoint, there can be nothing to make you prouder than to see the kids that you had in class be a success, and they are. They’re successes,” said Springer.