Augustine (Augie)  Escamilla, whose voice was heard at major track meets in San Diego  for more than 30 years and who was a respected educator and coach for five decades, passed away on  May 1 at age 90.  A  service will be held at Greenwood Mortuary on May 21.

Virtually every outstanding San Diego High or Lincoln  athlete in the 1940s and ‘fifties came under the guidance of coach Escamilla, who served 14 years in administrative capacities at the Boys’ Club of San Diego and at Memorial Junior High in Logan Heights.

Augie also was a counselor at  junior and senior high schools for the San Diego City Schools’ Health Department for 10 years  and was an academic counselor for 21 years at San Diego City College.

Escamilla was well known for his calls at the annual San Diego Section track championships.  When an  outstanding performance took place on the field, you could depend on Augie to begin an announcement, “Listen to this one, ladies and gentlemen!…”

He also usually informed the crowd that “Your announcer had the pleasure last night of attending the Southern Section finals at Cerritos College….”

The Southern Section championships on Friday night preceded the next afternoon’s San Diego Section meet.

Escamilla was born in the Mexican state of Jalisco. His father immigrated to New Mexico in search of employment, then was followed by Augie, age 6;  his mother and two sisters in 1929.  The family eventually settled in Fillmore in Ventura County.

A FUTURE AZTEC

Augie ran track at Fillmore High and was a student leader in the class of 1940.  His senior class advisor and one of the school’s track coaches saw promise and contacted C.E. Peterson, San Diego State’s legendary coach, who invited Escamilla to attend the school and turn out for track.

Augie was a distance runner who never stopped running.  He still was competing in his fifties.  Escamilla was running the mile in under five minutes on the Masters track circuit, which was popular in the 1960s and ‘seventies.

One of St. Augustine’s vagabond teams finally was getting a home.

A 330-yard track and field oval would provide the Saints a facility for dual-meet, track-and-field competition beginning in 1960.

Football and baseball would still have to travel to  games. Basketball teams had a home since a gymnasium/auditorium was constructed in time for the 1951-52 school year.

That the running surface of the track was short of the standard, 440-yard oval was  result of property lines and geography. The expanse surrounded by Palm Street on the North, Nutmeg on the South,  32nd Street on the West and 33rd on the East was not large enough for a regulation track.

The football team, which was about to enjoy the first undefeated season in the school’s 37-year history, was forced to move practice to the intramural, lower field.

The track’s circumference created some oddities and posed a challenge to those responsible for staggering lanes and chalking for various events.

The most obvious adjustment was required for hurdlers.  They would start the 120-yard high barriers on a curve and would be required to cover more than half the oval in the 180-yard lows.

Years later the Saints were able to close Bancroft Avenue from Nutmeg to Palm and widen the field into a soccer venue.

The Saints hit the road again for their track meets.

A West Hills athlete dominated Saturday in the Arcadia Invitational, but it wasn’t state-leading discus thrower Brenden Song.

Sophomore Melissa Mongiovi, running in the afternoon seeded session, blew out a :55.28, for the overall first-place finish in the Girls’ 400-meter run.  The best the invitational runners could do in  the evening was :56.18.

Song, who increased his state best to 191-5 on Friday in a dual meet with Helix, was fourth in the discus in the evening invitational session with a best of 181-7.

Song trailed Damon Unland of Washington’s Spokane Ferris (190-3), Marty Taylor of Newport Beach Newport Harbor (186-4), and Dylan Fischer of Phoenix Desert Vista (182-7).

Mongiovi now ranks 10th in the country this year and San Diego Section No. 9 all-time.  She ran in the 2012 state meet and had a best of :55.72 as a freshman.

Carlsbad’s Christian Freeman was ninth in the 3,200 run but his 8:52.65 is eighth all time in San Diego, just below the 8:51.94 by San Diego’s Meb Keflezighi in 1994 and the 8:52.44 by Chula Vista’s Tim Danielson in 1966.

Alex Grigoriev of Rancho Bernardo ran 1:52.71 in the Boys’ 800 and was fifth.

Otay Ranch’s Alexander Law, who went 15-6 in the pole vault on Friday in a dual meet against Bonita Vista improved his season best to 15-9 and won the afternoon competition. Law’s teammate Carina Gillespie was fifth in the invitational 800 in 2:13.

La Costa Canyon’s Emma Abrahamson was 10th in the 3,200 at 10:36.01.

Granite Hills Jake Johnson ran :14.60 in the 110-meter high hurdles and Scripps Ranch’s Brian Thomas circled the 400-meter oval in :49.22.

A few San Diego athletes stood out in the Friday  portion of the Arcadia Invitational.

Doton Ogundeji of Madison led a group of discus throwers at 169 feet, 8 inches, third best in the County.

Four Mt. Carmel runners averaged 1:57.63 in each of their 800-meter legs as part of the 4×800 seeded races.  Mt. Carmel’s time of 7:51.052 was good for ninth overall, while four Del Norte runners averaged 1:59.5 and were 12th overall in 7:58.17.

Meanwhile in San Diego Section dual meets Friday,  state leader Brenden Song of West Hills wafted the discus 191-5, his all-time best, in a dual meet with Helix.  El Camino’s Jamal Newman moved into second place in the County with a throw of 177-7  against Vista. Xander Law of Otay Ranch cleared 15-6 in the pole vault against Bonita Vista to take the County lead.

Newman and Law now are sixth in the state in their respective events.

“Arcadia is the big one,” says Steve Brand.  “It’s the first real indicator of what to expect in the important, late-season meets in May and June.”

The Arcadia Invitational track meet at Arcadia High, east of Pasadena, begins this evening and by around 10 p.m. Saturday, April 6, more than 4,000 high school athletes will have trod its all-weather track and modern runways and pits.

Those that came before include 152 Olympians, many of whom were involved in the 25 national records that have been set in what has become the largest outdoor high school meet in the country.

“The elite compete Saturday afternoon,” said Brand.  “The elite of the elite compete Saturday evening,”

Brand should know.  He has covered almost every one for The San Diego Union and UT-San Diego since the first in 1968 and no one has a better  pulse of the area prep track scene.

The area’s outstanding track heritage is reflected in the three meet records  held by San Diego athletes, not to mention state-leading performances and all-time County efforts.

Monique Henderson set the girls’ 400-meter record of :52.51 in 2001.  Brent Noon of Fallbrook hurled the 12-pound  shot  71 feet, 4 ¼ inches in 1990, and Thom Hunt of Patrick Henry ran 3,200 meters in 8:42.30 in 1976.

No one has made those kinds of early impressions this spring and Brand describes the 2013 San Diego Section season thus far as “not very strong,” but he added that “someone always come out of the weeds at Arcadia.”

West Hills’ Brenden Song is the San Diego section’s lone state leader with a 188-foot discus throw.  Song was second in the state meet in Clovis in 2012 with a heave of 188-11, Section No. 11 all time.

Arcadia and its importance as a “coming out” meet of the season is symptomatic of the decline of dual meets, once the anchor of  prep track.

League dual meet champions are still decided but they receive almost no mention in daily newspapers.  Marks usually are available only in on-line services.

“There’s an invitational meet every weekend this year,” said Brand.  “I’ve seen some dramatic dual meets over the years, fans and students screaming as a meet came down to who wins the relay, but that’s not the way of the world now.”

On April 17, 1937, John Fawcett of Coronado High came out of the chute on the straightaway at Chaffey High in Ontario and traversed 440 yards in 49.5 seconds.

Fawcett handily won his one-turn race in the Chaffey Invitational and set a San Diego County record that would last nine years and a school record that stood for 24 years.

Mr. Fawcett passed away recently in San Diego at age 93.

Fawcett’s County 440-yard record was bettered by San Diego High’s Norman Stocks, who ran :49.3 in winning the Southern Section championship in 1946 in Balboa Stadium.

Scott Knox broke Fawcett’s school record and Stocks’ County record when Knox won the San Diego Section championship in :49.2 at Kearny in 1961.

Fawcett went on to play football and compete in track at Redlands University.

After more than 30 years in education and athletics in the Panama Canal Zone, Mr. Fawcett and his family returned to San Diego and he retired in Rancho Bernardo, according   to UT-San Diego.