Sports Leads

Coach Doug Sims was not surprised to learn that his team, the Golden Dukes, had won Best Local Youth Sports Team in the Sun’s annual Best Of poll. Happy? Yes. Surprised? No. “It’s our parents,” he said, explaining how they got the votes. “We have great parents.” The Golden Dukes is a basketball team. They […]

Rod Garcia didn’t even know about a job opening at Allan Hancock College, until he started getting the calls. “A lot of folks over there had been kind enough to let me know about it,” he said, “and they told me maybe I should take the job.” So he did. Rod is now the new […]

Michael Phelps is cool and all, but Jason Lezak is my new hero. By the time you read this, you’ll have heard all about him. (If you follow the news at all, that is.) The 32-year-old veteran swimmer had the race of his life the night of Aug. 10—otherwise known as the morning of Aug. […]

On a normal day at the track, there might be 40 go-karts. Last weekend, at the Santa Maria Karting Association track, there were more than 300. It was the International Karting Federation Grand Nationals, held at the Santa Maria track for the third time, and the smell of gasoline and burnt rubber filled the air. […]

Break out some gloves, a helmet, and that small-ish bike stashed away in the corner of the garage: It’s BMX time. The sport, which can best be described as a group of bike riders rolling over hills and berms at incredible speeds, has found its way to Santa Maria—and it’s just in time for a […]

In my mind’s eye, I am gliding like a deer across center field—smooth, swift. Or I am bending a curve ball past a swinging batter—crafty. It’s easy to imagine those things because I did them once … a long time ago, way before computers and cell phones. It was the Kennedy Administration, 45 years ago. […]

Two nights ago, I made the most marvelous chicken. It was a joint effort, actually, between my friend Suzie Weir and me. We were cooking up some protein for our racers at the Downieville Classic—my boyfriend Anthony, her husband Mark, and assorted others—and somehow we stumbled upon the perfect barbecuing technique to make moist, flavorful, […]

In sports, there are two distinct categories of play: the season and the off-season. It’s the off-season when Eliseo Munoz and John Malinowski really shine. Munoz and Malinowski are athletic trainers. They’re also friends and colleagues (both work full time at Sim’s Physical Therapy). But here’s where it gets exciting: In their scant free time, […]

The Fields to Fair 10-mile run is no more. Instead, the annual race has been reinvented as the Guadalupe Half Marathon. It’s got a new name, a new distance, and a new beneficiary—the Guadalupe Sports Hall of Fame, Inc.  Savvy observers, or just hard-core runners, may have already heard of the Guadalupe Half Marathon. This […]

Each year, The National Trust for Historic Preservation comes out with a list of the most endangered historic places in the United States. Most years, this includes buildings, houses, and locations that are at risk for destruction or irreparable damage. This year’s list includes among other things, an airplane hanger built in 1932, an old-fashioned […]

“Hey, don’t downplay my achievement strange man,” I said to the portly, middle-aged tourist standing in front of me. It was 4 o’clock in the afternoon, and I had just finished hiking up the Yosemite Falls trail to the top of the upper falls and then down again—all during a continuous drizzle and, at the […]