Don’t roar by Fresno on Highway 99, especially if you’ve just come up from Bakersfield.  Head east on Highway 180 through a growing city then turn north on 186 until you exit and move into leafy suburban Clovis highlighted with custom homes and spotless stores and offices.  Then follow temporary signs where to park for the 2009 California State Championships in high school track and field, long a showcase for future college and Olympic stars.  Don’t worry the main lot is full.  The ambiance earns your confidence soon rewarded around the corner in a small lot attended by three prep girls attired in short pants and T-shirts.

While walking a long par five east to Veterans Memorial Stadium, avoid the sidewalk and step high on adjacent grass hosting a row of shady trees.  Turn your collar up to shield your neck from the sun. Head directly to the box office, buy a ticket – all are unreserved – and enter the largest facility you’ve seen at a high school in California.  Nod when told the capacity is thirteen thousand, not counting those seated on grassy banks at each end ringed by trees.  Get a program and climb clean concrete steps to see the best seats taken in shade near the finish line.  Admire the big press box.  Ignore memories of cracker boxes you sat in thirty years ago when covering high school football.  Gaze to the east at sunlit brown hills beyond which rise green mountains not so well seen, if at all, from downtown Fresno.

Notice it’s still a half hour before running finals start at six on June sixth.  Don’t fret you ate before coming.  Head for the snack bars.  They’re large and full of clean-cut students and adults.  Order tri-tip steak on a bun.  Go find a good seat about sixty yards back and thirty feet up from the finish time.  Gobble meat too good to eat slowly.  Don’t sit scorching in sun, though the temperature’s only in the 80s.  Get back to the snack bar and grimace when they say there’s no more tri tip.  Be thankful seconds are coming, but not for fifteen minutes.  You can’t wait and decide the line to the Chinese food is too long so compensate with nachos and cheese, two granola bars, and a bag of peanuts.  Eat about half that in the shade and say thanks for some cloud cover just in and head back where you were.  Study the program listing the top qualifiers from preliminaries the day before.

Time to start.  Note hurdles are no longer the first events as they were for many years and the last time you attended a meet.  Doesn’t matter.  The menu’s the same.  Legendary Long Beach Poly wins the girls 400-meter relay.  Groan with everyone else when the second and third boys from Cathedral drop the baton during exchange and eliminate your chance to watch Randall Carroll, the nation’s fastest prep sprinter, devour the anchor leg.  Politely clap for the blistering 40.65-second victory by Serra.

On the final lap of the 1600 watch Mac Fleet run like his surname, away from the others, and record 4:05.33, second best in the country this year, and admire him for saying – in the infield interview given by each winner – next week he’s going to Portland to meet up with several other swift preps to “run the first half mile under two minutes and see what happens.”  Remember all young milers crave to crack four minutes.  Then look into your crystal ball tuned to June 13 and see Fleet run 4:02.90, fastest prep-only mile since 1997.

Repress the desire to shout my god when you realize Reggie Wyatt yesterday set the national record of 35.02 in the prelims of the 300-meter hurdles.  In the 400, starting now, acknowledge he’s third best in the U.S. and an impressive winner in 46.13 despite tiring at the end due to exertions the previous day.  In the hurdles understand why Wyatt roars past everyone at the start but labors near the finish as others close in and he records a merely excellent time of 36.71.

Anticipate a burst when top sprinter Randall Carroll sets himself for the 100-meter dash but don’t despair he’s left in the blocks for he accelerates with superior horsepower and wins in 10.38.  Credit officials for a meet of punctual races and awards ceremonies creatively enunciated by the public address announcer.  A quick hour later Carroll is back on the track to trounce the 200 field in 21.08.  Commend the announcer for noting George Atkinson, Jr., in fourth place, is only a sophomore and son of the former (unpleasant) Oakland Raider safety.

Don’t forget the weight events, a Bakersfield bonanza, unfolding in the infield as well as a rink outside the stadium.  Applaud Matt Darr, a junior at Frontier, for winning the shot put and discus, and being the top punter in the country and already verbally committed to your favorite team, the talent-inhaling Trojans of USC.  Salute Darr’s cross-community counterpart and occasional training partner since childhood, Anna Jelmini of Shafter, for capturing the same events while in the discus coming close to her recent national record of 190-3.

Consider it a bonus the boys high jump winner cleared 7-1, the long jump champ sailed 25-1, and the pole vault titlist soared 16-5 while the girls champion flew over 13-4, and ask how many boys can do that.  Then wonder why track & field meets – wondrous collections of speed, jumping ability, and power – receive so little publicity.  Conclude this sport, like fine films and literature, attracts only an elite clientele.