A Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From pro football’s Super Bowl to baseball’s World Series, from dynamic soccer’s World Cup to golf’s and tennis’ U.S. Open, major auto racing, plus NCAA Final Four connections, Tour de France cycling, more major tennis like Wimbledon, tiny connections to that NBA and a little NHL, major college football, Kentucky Derby, aquatics and Olympic Games, that sparkling little city sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10. An Olympic-bound athlete used that road to take some real track travels. – Obrey Brown
Clay Brooks raved about Ruth Kleinsasser, a future Olympian.
So did Ted Runner.
Brooks, who spent years as a University of Redlands track & field coach, was a true professor of his sport.
Runner, whose presence on that campus as an athlete, coach and, ultimately, director of athletics, was fond of track. He’d competed. For years, he coached. It almost seemed like he kept a close eye on that sport.
When Kleinsasser – eventually Ruth Wysocki – stepped onto the track at the Los Angeles Coliseum nine years after spending her freshman season at Redlands, those two men – Brooks and Runner – watched with those 1984 Olympics with great interest.
Alhambra-born Kleinsasser, who ran at Azusa High School, was a prized performer at Redlands. What made Kleinsasser special was her true dedication. In track, she turned out to be a lifer.
She started in age-group races, late 1960s, kicking off an eventual period of 30 years, or so, until she became a Masters (over-40) runner in 1997.
As an Azusa High senior in 1973, she ran a 2:16 to win the CIF Southern Section 880-yard championship. She also sped around the track to win the 440 (57.3). That’s as tough of a double as in any championship meet.
Since there was no State meet held for girls that year – one would start in 1975 – Kleinsasser never had a chance to prove her prep domination.
By 1975, Kleinsasser was running at Redlands, primarily because internationally-renowned Bulldog coach Vince Reel had come out of retirement. Reel told me, in fact, he’d meet Kleinsasser halfway along Interstate 10 for training in Claremont.
It worked. At age 19, she ran a 2:03, qualifying for 1976 U.S. Olympic Trials. Kleinsasser took eighth in those Trials.
THAT YEAR IN REDLANDS,
JUST A FRESHMAN RACER
Reel, married to Chinese track star Chi Cheng, had international status, especially since he’d lured top talent to Redlands – sprint star Lee Shiu-Chia, middle distance runners Chee Swee Lee, plus Americans Donna Fromme and some dandy runners like distance star Molly O’Neil, hurdler Pam Ashe, sprinters Gloria Kennedy, Lynn Jones and Denise Becton.
Throw Kleinsasser into that mix. If only she’d lasted four seasons in a Bulldog uniform.
Reel let me know about Kleinsasser, her own Redlands season a few years after she left. I arrived at Redlands’ newspaper three years after her departure, Reel’s final season as Bulldogs’ coach. There was a solid reason for her departure.
Reel spelled it out. “She told me ‘that was before the NCAA for women.’ She wanted to run NCAAs. Competition was so much better than AIAW,” Reel said.
NCAA events were far more competitive than either AIAW or NAIA.
Truth is, in those days, Redlands’ men were NAIA connected, not NCAA. It was easy to spot why Kleinsasser left Redlands.
She told me, “I realized I had chosen the wrong school. Not that it isn’t a wonderful place. It was not just the right place for me.”
During her frosh season, Kleinsasser wasn’t even Redlands’ fastest half-miler. Chiu-Shia ran 2:05.36 in a meet at track-rich Occidental College, just outside of Pasadena.
What made her a Redlands Connection was 1975, a freshman, hitting 2:07.6 over 800 in Bakersfield, plus a school record 56.80 over 400 in Long Beach.
She left Redlands, though, for Citrus College.
More domination. At Citrus, known as Ruth Caldwell, she scored victories in California’s cross country championship for both 1977 and 1978. During spring track seasons in 1978 and 1979, Ruth was State junior college champion in both 800 and 1500.
There was a pattern here. Like many international competitors, she was still laying groundwork for Olympic participation.
Name? She’d gone from Ruth Kleinsasser to Ruth Caldwell and, eventually, to Ruth Wysocki. She married top U.S. distance runner Tom Wysocki, a 1980 Olympic seeker in a year the USA did not participate in Moscow.
WYSOCKI RACED DECKER,
RUTH TAKING ON MARY
Ruth Wysocki upset highly-touted USA star Mary Decker, running 2:01.99, to win an 800 showdown at the 1978 U.S. Championships. Wysocki scored another upset victory against Decker in 1984 U.S. Olympic Trials, this time over 1500 meters.
Wysocki outsprinted Decker to win that 1500-meter Olympic Trials in 4:00.18 – her lifetime best, edging Decker by less than a half-second. By The Games finals, Wysocki in 4:08.32 – no medal.
That 1984 over 800-meters? Kim Gallagher’s 1:58.63 took silver. Wysocki? Her 2:00.34 wasn’t up to her 1:59.34 in Trials. She took sixth.
Ruth claimed it was “my husband, Tom … training for the Olympics who convinced me to train.”
Brooks, who was Reel’s coaching successor at Redlands, and Runner, each closing their Redlands careers, watched with curiosity as that one-year Lady Bulldog star made her way into those 1984 L.A. Games.
Brooks and Runner, meanwhile, called it a “Redlands victory.”
Why not? Qualifying is amazing.
Brooks, who coached at nearby Yucaipa High School before showing up at Redlands, smiled.
“I heard a lot of great stories when she was here,” he said. “Vince, Ted, (current NFL wide receiver) Brian DeRoo, some others that ran with her … they couldn’t get enough of Ruth. She set examples here, even when she was a freshman.”
Said Runner: “All she did was work hard. Vince was good for her. Real good coach. Got close to her, doing what Ruth needed. I see why she left Redlands. There’s nothing to complain about her leaving here. She just kept getting better and better.”
RUTHIE AT ANOTHER
TRACK MEET SHOWDOWN
It wasn’t going to be easy. Despite Eastern Bloc nations that boycotted those L.A. Games, led by once-known Soviet Union, still had plenty of international talent.
At a different meet in Europe, during August one year, Romanian Doina Melinte, an 800 silver medal winner in L.A., circled that European track twice to score gold in 1:57.60. Gallagher, whom Wysocki had encountered on plenty of occasions, took silver in 1:58.63.
Wysocki had to be thinking if she’d matched her lifetime best – that 4:00.18 at the Olympic Trials – she’d have won in Europe.
She told Reel, “Even though the Olympics were really great for me, when I got to Europe after that, I beat everybody that beat me in the Olympics, including (Doina).”
Reel shared that with me shortly afterward.
It was, he noted on her behalf, some vindication.
Brooks, for his part, sent plenty of half-milers out to do battle in Lady Bulldog colors. Not a single runner during his coaching years ever surpassed Kleinsasser, either over 400 or 800 events.
Runner, meanwhile, often reflected on that year that Kleinsasser ran at Redlands.
“She was not just a hard worker.” Observers could easily tell, Runner said, “that she had a game plan in any race she ran. Remember … just a freshman. She knew what she was doing that year.”
Wysocki, incidentally, made one last attempt to qualify for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, age 38, around a couple decades after that Redlands season.
*****
That Redlands Connection kept going for years. Over a decade later, in 1995, Wysocki ran seventh in the 1500 at the Championships in Athletics in Gothenburg. That’s Sweden.
In 1997, Ruth set several Masters records at distances from 800 to 5000 on the track, plus 5K and 8K road races. She was surrounded by distance runners. Her dad, Willis Kleinsasser, was a successful Masters athlete.
Alan Kleinsasser, her brother, ran a 1:50.5 over 800 meters and a 3:52.2 clocking in the 1500 – both school records at Caltech Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Then, of course, her one time husband, Tom Wysocki, pounded 13:35.33 runs in the 5000-meter and 28:19.56 in the 10,000.
That one season, 1975, Ruth was A Redlands Connection.
