Poly Cross-Country is #1
This page reflects on the years of running with the Long Beach Poly High School Cross-Country team! The song that you are listening to in the background was the Official Song of the team during my Senior year in 1996-1997.
I was choosen as Co-Captain of the Cross-Country team my Senior year with good friend Natan Bershtel! That would be the very same year that our team would win CIF Southern Section Division 1 Championships for the first time since 1973! In this picture, Natan and I are joined with our Coach, George Wright, holding our CIF Championship plaque!
"Prime examples of why one must think twice before making promises. Pledges like, promising to shave one's head if they Boy's Cross-Country team wins CIF, will come back to hunt you." - 1997 Poly Yearbook. Here Coach George Wright is joined with my Track Coach, and Girl's Cross-Country coach, Joe Carlson. Both of them had promised to shave their heads if the Boy's team won CIF and had qualified for State...not knowing that the team would make it!
Here I am running in the Woodbridge Invitational in Irvine, CA. My Oakley sunglasses were one of my good luck charms! The other good luck charm was a one-dollar bill which I pinned to my singlet for each race! I ended up losing my dollar at the Mt. SAC Invitational, the same location where my team would later win CIF Championships. I guess my dollar worked!!!!
The Cross-Country Senior Class of 1997 is pictured at the Woodbridge Invitational, our first race of our last year running with the Jackrabbits! (Top:Left-Right)Moises Ramirez, Co-Captain Natan Bershtel, Coach George Wright, Thurman Ashley, Nate Richmond. (Bottom:Left-Right) Co-Captain JB Jaso, Matt Sonntag, Paul Greenawalt.
At the team's CIF Championship post-race Celebration party located at Cirivellos Sports Stop, Natan shaves the head of our Coach in front of the local newspaper reporter and many family, friends, and supporters of the team!
Email:
trijb@earthlink.net
