When Poway High track coach Ronnie Harris makes plans for the 2024 season, he its he’ll need two separate strategies.
The first will be for the entire team and its annual quest for Palomar League, Section championships and top performances in the state meet.
The second will be for Tessa Buswell.
The BYU commit has the usual goals of section records, championships and as the fastest returning girls 800-meter runner in the state, hopes of climbing to the top steps of the victory stand with a gold medal draped around her neck.
But, truth be told, Harris firmly believes that if everything goes well, those achievements could just be steps toward the larger goal — qualifying for the U.S. Olympic trials in Eugene, Oregon, where she could battle for one of the three Paris Olympic Games berths.
Harris knows first-hand just what a challenge that is but won’t sell Buswell short.
In 1996, Harris finished third in the men’s 5,000-meter run at the Olympic trials, which normally would have qualified him for the U.S. team at the Atlanta Olympics.
But the conditions in Atlanta for the trials — hot and oppressively humid — were not conducive to fast times, which meant because he ran 13:57.75, he had to try to get a Games qualifying standard of 13:29.0 somewhere else, and quickly.
“I chose to go to Belgium, where I’d run great before,” said Harris, who starts his second year as the Titans head coach. “I knew the Kenyans would be there to push me.”
Indeed, there were numerous runners who had already met the Olympic standard and with a mile to go, he made his move, ing the lead pack.
As he crossed the finish line in fourth place, he looked at the clock — 13:29.25. He’d missed by 25-hundreths of a second. Since Jim Spivey, who finished fourth in the trials, already had an Olympic qualifying time, Harris was bumped.
It was too late to try again.
“I ran for Al Cantello (who recently ed away) at the Naval Academy and for the Reebok Enclave,” said Harris, “and his theory was you always go for the win. When I moved up with a mile to go, I raced against the Kenyans and came up just short.
“In retrospect, maybe if I’d just settled in on an inside line and then used my kick at the end, I think I would have gotten the time I needed.”
Harris was disappointed but far from devastated.
“I improved 11 seconds,” he said. “That’s almost a second a lap. It was amazing, a massive PR (personal record). I was one step away from making the Olympic team.
“At the trials there were a lot of runners with better times coming in, but I had the race of my life.
“Yes, I was disappointed and although I took my family to the Olympic Games to watch other events, I wouldn’t watch the 5,000. When I read that 14:30 made the final, that got me sick. I was disappointed not getting to wear the U.S.A. uniform and all, but I didn’t hide in a dark room. It is what it is.”
That experience, not to mention his success at the trials, helped Harris look at things in a new light and to find a positive. It carried through to last year’s track team and last fall’s cross country squad, which excelled.
But Harris, 58, who works for Accenture, believes that his experience will count to help Buswell accomplish her goals.
“In a way, if Tess manages to get a trials qualifying time (2:02.50) early in the season, she can train through the section and state meets in preparation for the Olympic trials,” he said. “If she gets that qualifying time, she’ll also get the section record (2:06.69 set by Del Norte’s Hannah Riggins last year).”
But the trials will be loaded, including former Rancho Bernardo star Nia Akins who last summer in the World Championships clocked a 1:57.73 to place sixth.
Asked if he had any advice for Akins, Harris chuckled and said, “don’t get sick. That’s the biggest concern of all the Olympic-level athletes. Because she’s already qualified for the trials and Olympics (1:59.50), she can pick her races.
“But I also like Tessa’s chances. I told her Morse’s Monique Henderson made the Olympic team as a high schooler, so why not her?
“When Tessa finished third in the state 800 last year, I got that same adrenaline rush I got as a runner. I love her chances.”
