A 2.3-mile stretch of Pacific Coast Highway through the South Bay — less than the length of a decent cross-country course — is all that separates Redondo Union High School and Mira Costa High in Manhattan Beach.
Proximity, however, only partially explains how the two schools have established themselves, and by extension the Bay League and the South Bay, among the nation’s elite in high school cross country at a time when American distance running has produced unprecedented success from the preps to the Olympic Games and World Championships.
There are nearly 32,000 boys and girls high school cross country teams in the U.S., a total of more than 430,000 athletes, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. The sport’s ultimate target is reaching NXN, prep cross country’s premier event, high school sports’ one true national championship, held each year in Portland.
NXN isn’t so much a race as it is a celebration of cross country. Created by Nike in 2004, high school runners for four days are treated like pros at a Diamond League meet. They tour Nike’s Beaverton campus. There are talks with Olympians. On race day, the runners sport custom-made uniforms and shoes. Of those 32,000 teams that started the season only 22 squads per gender — a tenth of a percentage point — and another 45 individuals qualify for NXN through a series of regional races, or in the case of California schools, the CIF State meet.
More than anything, that the Redondo Union and Mira Costa boys and the Costa girls will be among the less than 1 percent on the Glendoveer Golf Course starting line Saturday morning is a tribute to two coaches, Redondo Union’s Bob Leetch and Mira Costa girls co-head coach Renee Smith Williams, a pair of South Bay natives, teammates first at El Camino College and then Kansas State, who returned to lead their alma maters — and their local rivals — to national prominence.
“The running community at large in the greater South Bay produces an amazingly supportive running culture,” NXN meet director Rich Gonzalez said.
Redondo Union qualified for NXN in winning Leetch’s first state championship, holding off San Clemente and Mira Costa in a dramatic final mile to claim the CIF State Division I title. Mira Costa boys’ third-place finish in the Division I race secured the Mustangs one of just four national at-large spots in the NXN field. The Costa’s narrow loss to Buchanan in the girls Division I race locked down California’s second automatic NXN berth.
“From the supportive local community college coaches like since-retired Dean Lofgren (at El Camino), to the cadre of excellent coaches mentoring class after class of teens at the various high schools, to the great feeder programs at the junior highs and middle schools, you’d be truly hard-pressed to find a better place for youngsters to fall in love with this great sport for the long haul,” said Gonzalez.
“We’re in a golden era of local distance running right now with excellent talent that loves to compete and phenomenal coaches mapping the pathways for success.”
Smith Williams and Leetch have spent the past 20 years creating those pathways, producing CIF and state champions, national leaders and future NCAA All-Americans. The community has taken notice.
“Every time I’m running with Renee on The Strand, we might get a half-mile before everybody is shouting ‘Renee! Renee! Renee!,’” said Mira Costa girls co-head coach Rebecca Kelley, referring to a beachfront path stretching from Manhattan Beach to the Hermosa Beach-Redondo Beach border.
“Bob and Renee are such great coaches. They’ve had so much success. Everybody knows them. They’ve really cultivated this running culture.”
Leetch’s Sea Hawk teams are renown for their aggressive front-running style, a reflection of a lesson he learned as a student in his Redondo Union biology class.
“We like to get out and stay grouped up and get out hard and early in the year,” Leetch said. “It’s easier to keep up than to catch up. That was that kind of mantra I got from my biology teacher in high school that he got from his cross country coach in high school.”
In a way, Jim Ball’s mantra has been adopted by several of Leetch’s South Bay rivals.
“Even when we go to a little meet, it’s a big deal. It’s not a little meet, it’s a big deal, and it matters to these guys, and it matters to Redondo,” said Mira Costa boys head coach Hunter Johnson, one of the state’s young rising coaching stars. “And so I think it just keeps us on our toes all year. We never feel like, ‘Oh, it’s gonna be an easy win. And every meet, you got to work for it. And I think that can be a disadvantage if you’re beating up on each other too much, but I think we found the right balance of racing each other enough for it just to push us to be better, and we’d beat Redondo, and then they’d come right back and beat us, and vice versa.
“So I think it’s a huge advantage, and also think it’s a testament to just great coaches in the area. I mean, I’m just in awe of how many great coaches are from the South Bay, and how much success has come about in the last 40 years.”
The South Bay has a long history of prep distance running excellence. In the late 70s through the mid 80s, Palos Verdes emerged as one of the nation’s first girls powerhouse programs. The Sea Kings’ biggest star was Kirsten O’Hara, who won the 1984 CIF State 3,200 title by nearly 30 seconds. She is now married to Leetch.
Leetch won the CIF 1,600 title for Redondo Union in 1980. His school record of 4 minutes, 9.47 seconds still stands today. Mira Costa’s Jeff Atkinson went on to earn All-American honors at Stanford and later make the 1,500-meter final at the 1988 Olympic Games.
But in the NXN era, it has been Smith Williams and Leetch, both named national coach of the year during their careers, who have led the way.
“It’s really hard to make it to NXN. It really takes a lot,” said Redondo Union senior Gavin Hasson. “We have great places to train. If we want to do hills, we can just drive up to PV. We can go down the beach and get in a flat 14-mile run. And us and Costa have really competitive kids.
“But to get to NXN you have to have great coaches and we have a great coach.”
In 2008, Leetch, in just his fourth season at Redondo Union, guided Cody Schmidt to a 21st place finish at NXN. The bar had been raised.
A year later, Smith Williams and the Mustangs made their NXN debut. That same year, Atkinson and Brian Shapiro coached the Palos Verdes boys as well as Rebecca Mehra to NXN spots. Mehra, then a sophomore, finished third at NXN, ahead of, among others, Shelby Houlihan, a future American record-holder and World Indoor Championships medalist.
The Mira Costa girls were back in Portland a year later. Redondo Union’s girls made it in 2011, Palos Verdes Jonah Diaz placing sixth in the boys race that year. Palos Verdes made the 2016 girls race and the Sea Kings and Mira Costa continued to qualify individual girls. A couple blocks from Redondo Union, Jason Druten was building a powerhouse at West Torrance.
“Right next door,” Leetch said laughing.
All of which has created a dynamic where South Bay runners knew that some of the runners they lined up against in a Bay League meet or local invitational in early October would also be there at State or NXN.
“Week after week you’re racing against some of the best in the state, best in the country,” said Abby Hong, a former Mira Costa standout who later won four Ivy League titles at Penn.
“It’s tough because other schools (in other leagues) can just pack run and get through.
“I think it really does shape you, gives you a competitive edge. You have to show up and be at your best every time. With Costa, PV, Redondo, it’s week after week.”
But there is a downside of competing week in and week out in one of the nation’s most competitive leagues. While most of their NXN rivals competed in their state championships a month ago and have been off for two or three weeks after the Nike regionals, Redondo Union and Mira Costa have already run a four-week gauntlet of the Bay League finals, the CIF prelims, the CIF Finals, the toughest regional or district meet in the country, and then last weekend’s State championships, the deepest state meet in the nation.
“It really is a grind,” Leetch said.
Leetch’s team earns state title
He couldn’t look.
A little over 15 minutes earlier, Leetch had sent his boys cross country team into the CIF State Championships Division I race at Fresno’s Woodward Park last weekend with his now familiar mantra: “You run the first two miles with your mind, the last mile with your heart,” a sort of Saturday morning version of Friday Night Lights’ “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.”
The thing is this sport, Woodward Park’s rolling final mile can break even the sturdiest, the hardest of hearts.
A year earlier, Redondo Union was leading the State Division I boys race by 24 points with a mile to go in the 5,000-meter (3.1 miles) race, only to have its No. 4 runner suffer a serious knee injury, falling from 48th to 195th place, and the Sea Hawks dropped to third in the final standings.
So even after Redondo Union dominated the early stages of Saturday’s race, sophomore standout Mario Montoya, Super Mario, leading the field through the first mile of a race for not only the state title but a likely spot in NXN, prep cross country’s most prestigious event, the one true national championship in high school sports, even after the Sea Hawks led by 31 points at 2.1 miles, even as his cell phone lit up with incoming texts as the last of the more than 200 runners crossed the finish line, Leetch could not bring himself to look at the live results app on his phone.
“Couldn’t look at the app the whole race,” Leetch said. “I was too heartbroken from last year. We’ve had so many close calls over the years. So I couldn’t really bear to look at the result on the app.”
Finally, as he walked toward the post-race spot where his team had gathered, he noticed an incoming text from Loyola-Marymount head coach Chloe Curtis, a former state 1,600 champion for Leetch at Redondo Union.
“Woo hoo. Way to go!” Curtis, who was at the meet recruiting, wrote in a text that also included a victory sign text.
“How do we do?” replied Leetch, almost too afraid to ask.
“You won,” Curtis said.
Still Leetch remained skeptical. It wasn’t until Curtis sent him a screenshot of the team standings on the course’s scoreboard that Leetch could almost relax. The Sea Hawks, with 101 points (to San Clemente’s 108 and Mira Costa’s 117), had won the one prize that had eluded Leetch in his 20 years coaching at his alma mater.
“So then it was really, it was really, really emotional,” said Leetch, that emotion still present in his voice three days later. “It means everything.
“I grew up here, K through 12 at Redondo Beach. Grew up in this school system. I love the city, I love this community. And when I took the position, I really wanted this to happen. I felt this school deserved to have, really a top, top, top-tier track and cross country program. I felt this city and this community deserve it. So to do that, and to be able to compete at this level, and then, of course, win a state championship, is amazing to be representing the school at the nationals, which you and I know, this is really the one true national championship of the high school.”
No one other than maybe Leetch envisioned state titles or NXN appearances when he returned to his alma mater prior to the 2005 season.
After an All-Big 8 career at Kansas State, Leetch stayed in Kansas after college and began a career as a restaurateur. He was appalled when he returned to California in the mid 2000s and watched Redondo Union at a South Bay meet. The Sea Hawks didn’t have sweats. They didn’t have matching uniforms. They didn’t really have much of anything.
“When I took over the program, we were the laughingstock of the South Bay, and we had just been moved up to the Bay League, and people were telling us, like, ‘Oh my god, what a nightmare taking over this program,’” Leetch recalled. “And I would tell people, this is our, this is the best thing that could possibly happen.
“It’s like this is our quickest path to greatness, to have everyone realize that there’s a total barometer understanding what that level is. And I think it just raises that whole cliche about raising the tide.”
Leetch is known for emphasizing all-around athleticism in developing his runners, and for his ability to break down a race.
“No one else is as passionate as he is,” Curtis said. “He has a really good mind for competition and strategy.”
But perhaps Leetch’s greatest strength is his ability to instill belief in his athletes.
Curtis grew up literally next door to Bob and Kirsten Leetch.
“When you have to see it to believe it, well, I saw it in Kirsten Leetch,” Curtis said. “I saw how you have to live to be great. But got me to believe (I could do big things). When I was a freshman, I ran well right off the bat, and Bob said, ‘You’re going to be state champion one day.’ I just believed him.”
Curtis won the State 1,600 title as a senior in 2010. Sea Hawk sophomore Lyndsey Mull was third in the same race.
Leetch suffered a serious knee injury a couple years ago that later developed into further health complications. His runners, however, never doubted Leetch would continue coaching.
“Coach Bob,” Hasson said, “is one of the most resilient people you’ll ever meet.
“He’s a tough guy.”
Smith Williams started from scratch
If Leetch had to rebuild Redondo Union, Smith Williams built the Mira Costa team from scratch.
When Smith Williams didn’t make the Mira Costa soccer team her junior year, her English teacher suggested she try running.
“There wasn’t a girls team. I wasn’t the first runner, but I started the first team because I didn’t want to run by myself or with the boys, so I grabbed a bunch of my friends,” she said. “But there had been one or two other runners, female runners, throughout the years, but that was the first time we had a solid team.”
The team ran in hand-me-down uniforms from the boys teams.
“There was nothing, nothing girl-specific back then,” Smith Williams said.
After Smith Williams returned to Mira Costa in 2001, first as a volunteer assistant coach, she continued building one runner at a time.
“The main thing about Renee is she really cares about every kid on the team,” said Hong. “And not just about running. She really cares, and that’s what built this great team culture.”
Smith Williams’ runners see her as their coach for life, and that belief and the culture she has created every Thanksgiving. On the morning of the Mustangs’ final home practice before heading to the State meet, dozens of alums gather on the Manhattan Beach green belt and go for a three- or four-mile run and then go for coffee afterward.
“Reconnection is the biggest part of it,” Hong said. “And I think we want to stay connected to Renee.”
That connection is also evident in the current Mustangs squad on and off the course. Just 29 seconds separated Mira Costa’s first five runners at the State meet and the group is just as close when they’re not running.
“They just have fun wherever they go,” Smith Williams said. “They’re really different. There’s a lot of energy in this group. It’s all positive energy, but there’s a lot of energy, and that’s kind of connection, they just really connected with each other. And I’d say that happened probably in Mammoth at training camp. They really started to connect with each other.”
No one, however, might be having a better time than Smith Williams. She talked about retiring a few years ago. This week she insisted that she was just “an assistant coach.”
“Don’t believe that,” Kelley said. “She’s a head coach.”
This much Kelley and Smith Williams agree on: “I’m having fun,” Smith Williams said, chuckling.
It was at the team’s pre-season Mammoth training camp that Smith Williams and Kelley first heard NXN mentioned.
“They started just talking about these really lofty goals,” Kelley recalled. “And in my mind, I was thinking, ‘Wow, that’s aggressive.’ But as coach, I’m not going to smash those dreams if they want to go for those goals, who am I to say, ‘Oh, that’s unrealistic.’ Or, you know, why not reach for the stars? And here we are.”