By Pete Borello
Community College Roundup
Track & Field
A community college tennis team with a long tradition of collecting championship hardware fell on hard times in 2002.
The Foothill College men’s program - which won 26 conference titles, 21 Northern California crowns and 13 state championships during Tom Chivington’s 34-year reign as coach - came up empty this season.
“It was a rough year,” said Dixie Macias, who took over for the retired Chivington last season. “Tom lost one conference match the whole time he was here; I lost three this year.”
Macias also lost players. What started out as a 10-man roster dwindled to six by the end of the regular season due to injuries and academic troubles.
“We started really well against the four-year schools,” Macias said of the Owls’ preseason success against NCAA teams. “Then the wheels started coming off whatever we were driving - which must have been a Yugo.”
Although disappointing by school standards, Foothill’s 9-3 Coast Conference mark still proved good enough to make the eight-team Northern California playoffs. But Macias turned down the invitation because not enough of his remaining players were living up to what he called “their academic responsibilities.”
The coach did send four players to the individual portion of the NorCal tournament, held May 3 in Modesto. The Owls’ top two players - Kevin Harris and Peter Mayer - participated in both the singles and doubles competition, while Mike Green and Nathan Brown played as a doubles team. All of them were eliminated in the early rounds.
Macias still managed to find some positives about the 2002 season, starting with sophomores Mayer and Green.
The 17-year-old Mayer, headed to Cal next year with hopes of making the tennis team as a walk on, may have been Foothill’s most improved player.
“He went from playing No. 6 (singles) last year to No. 2 this year,” Macias said. “He showed tremendous growth as a player and as an individual.”
The coach lauded Green, who plans to transfer to Pepperdine next spring, for his dedication.
“He was there all the time,” Macias said. “He didn’t accomplish all the goals he set for himself, but he was a team player.”
And what did Macias learn from the Owls’ hard-luck season?
“I have to figure out how to recruit more players,” he said. “We need more depth and numbers. I have to try to rectify that next year.”
Los Altos High graduates Pete Bjorklund and Steve Perry will head south this weekend to compete in the state championship meet at Santa Barbara City College.
Bjorklund (College of San Mateo) and Perry (De Anza) qualified for state by finishing in the top six in their respective events at last Saturday’s NorCal meet in Modesto.
Bjorklund placed third in the shot put (55 feet, 7 inches) and fourth in the discus (161-2). Perry finished fifth in the 1,500-meter run (4 minutes, five seconds).
