Rich Gonzales too much power in CA?

Yeah typical Rich. He plays favorites often to private schools, schools that pay more entry fees, etc. Look at the 800m. How does the jserra kid get into invite with one race and 153 in 2026? Rich says he prioritizes 2026 marks. That's bs. Same with 1600m.

Cmon Rich do better.

1. it's just a high school invitational. if you're any good, you focus on meets where you control your own destiny. your coach should do the same.

2. if your definition of "unchecked power" applies to being the director of a h.s. meet, you need to re-check your definitions of both "unchecked" AND "power."

3. 4:10 at altitude (not to mention 4:10 in oregon) > 4:13 at stanford (btw, i'm an aidan fan, and am good friends with his coaches, and i bet aidan will do fine when cif/state comes around). if you're going to give examples, find better ones that may actually prove your point.

4. i'm a coach. i like rich. so "all coaches" is a bit of an exaggeration. even though he hasn't done me any favors recently, he's treated my athletes fairly. no, i don't think he's perfect, and i gave him crap about charging coaches at the winter championships; maybe someday when i grow up to be a meet director i'll let coaches in for free...

until then, that's my story and i'm sticking to it,

cush

He took over Arcadia from Speck and he gamed the system.

Every meat director has favorites.

And his website is lousy

I'm one of aidan's teammates and it definitely feels like rich wasn't considering everything when choosing what he would race. Some important background info is that Aidan was super fit late February and was able to split his 1600 pr as the anchor for a DMR completely solo, but strained his back in a workout and was out of running for a couple weeks, so he's had to DNS a bunch of March races. He just came back to full mileage, did a full workout with us on Wednesday, and ran 4:13 on Saturday. While Jude ritzenhein is a freshmen that ran 4:10 at altitude and could likely run several seconds faster as the season progresses, the same argument can be made for Aidan. 4:13 is only a smidge off off what some other guys in the invite section have run, and Aidan has beat many of them in the past. I'll admit that before saturday I was kind of expecting him to put up an insane comeback performance, so 4:13 seemed disappointing, but in some retrospect it's a great starting point for just being back to full training, and I think he'll be in shape to run at least under 4:10 at Arcadia. I thought rich would also see Aidan's potential and move him up to the invite, but I guess Aidan will just have to dog it out in the open section. Sorry that half of this reply is just kind of venting about aidan's experiences, but Aidan is absolutely a huge miler talent and I think he'll be able to prove rich wrong in the postseason.

Arcadia is clearly the most significant prep meet in the world, including Winter Track, Cross Country, Spring Track,

Ben Dover

Love from Malaysia 🇺🇸🔥

typical track stuff. ive had a kid who was defending state champ and defending champ of a particular large invite, and they wouldn't put him in top heat in that particular invite the next year because he hadn't hit a time yet that season.

lol meat director

I have a lot of respect for his contributions to California track over the last few decades.. but you won't find many people that have something nice to say about him. Certainly not from me - he's been incredibly rude and unambitious malevolent towards me in our interactions.

unambiguously malevolent*

1. You're right, it is "just a high school invitational". it's also "just" the most important high school invitational in the country, one where a better heat can promise exposure to the many, many college coaches to that show up to watch. Arcadia is a really, really important meet - let's not try and pretend otherwise.

2. I think "unchecked power" is a little dramatic, but in addition to serving as the Arcadia meet director, he's also on the NXN management team, a huge part of the player of the year program, serves an important role in the California track and field media ecosystem, and knows people all over the state. He has a huge influence in basically everything running-related that happens here.

4. "all coaches" is definitely an exaggeration, but I honestly don't know any coaches in my league who like him.

Riich in CA?

Charity Meets are staffed by gracious volunteers at high schools, colleges, Olys, WA, DL, NCAA, etc. Almost no one is paid a dime. CEOs often take $1 per year. Officials normally donate their gasoline stipends to buy hurdles for local high schools.

i'm not trying to understate just to be contrarian, and i don't have to pretend: in the scheme of these things, arcadia just won't matter. do you think jane hedengren or any of the newbury park kids needed this meet? for that matter, aidan antonio won't need this meet. neither do any of the jserra girls. the kids i've coached to d1 schools never needed arcadia--they needed post-season; in fact the kid i'm coaching now who's signed with usc has never run arcadia, though she will for the first time on friday night.

fast kids will find the college they need, and/or the colleges will have no problem finding them. we benefit from a sport that has fairly unambiguous times/results, and in socal we have almost weekly opportunities for virtually everyone to achieve them. college coaches who are at arcadia are likely looking at the out of state competitors, so rich is indeed doing them a favor, but any cali kid better show up at cif/state in x-c and track to get real attention...

still my story, still sticking to it,

cush

Are you the same guy who has made it his life's priority to thrash the J Serra coach and his runners?

I hear what you are saying. For the top tier kids it doesn't matter long term in their journey. Jude Ritzenhein is going to get in the fast heat going forward no matter what. He doesn't need the 'help' and if he were to be in a slower section one day, it won't have much impact on his career.

But there thousands of kids competing who aren't named Ritzenhein. Running 4-5 seconds faster in one heat over another can impact scholarship opportunities whether you want to admit it or not. Especially when you're talking about boys and their trajectory (sophomore/junior) with all the roster spot limits.

Lucas Alberts (Jesuit) ran 4:07 and posted "4 more seconds" -- because that's what it takes for him to get a scholarship/roster spot at one of the schools he's looking at. This is a 4:07/1:51 (junior) guy that's legitimately worried about getting his spot.

And for many, this is the PREMIER race where you'll set your season PR. So every second counts. I think that's the point made. The stakes are high for a lot of these atheltes.

And the point I made about no HS coaches liking Rich was a genuine thought/question. I was thinking maybe I could ask for a favor vs. one of my contacts. But everyone I know seems to think poorly of him or vice versa.

Rich? In CA? woah

In defense of Rich Gonzalez, he has been a relentless supporter of high school track and field for decades covering the sport and providing opportunities for generations of high school athletes. I knew him in the 90's when he was developing the PrepCalTrack website. I've often wondered how he balances having a life outside the sport. Meet directors are bombarded with requests and demands from (aggressive) people who think they know better. Also there are fewer and fewer people willing to put in the time required to build what he has, and it's much easier to criticize from the sidelines. He's not perfect and no one is. If you want to contribute to making it a better offer to volunteer and work the meet.