September 8, 2004

STOCKTON'S JAMES RETURNS FROM OLYMPIC EFFORT IN ATHENS

OSPREY LEADER INSTRUMENTAL IN THE SUCCESS OF U.S.A. TRACK & FIELD

by Tim Kelly

G. Larry James, individual silver medalist in the 400 meters and member of the gold medal-winning 400-meter relay team at the Mexico City Olympics in 1968, recently returned from Greece where he coordinated the training camps for the highly successful track and field team at the Athens games.

"Stockton trained me well for what we set out to accomplish," said James, Associate Dean of Students and Director, Athletics and Recreation. "The key thing at the camp was taking what I do at Stockton and transferring it on a global basis."

James' camp for the highly successful United States track and field effort took place in the town of Georgioupolis on the isle of Crete, about an hour by air from Athens.

Perhaps the personal highlight for James came when the American 400 trio of Jeremy Warner, Otis Harris and Derrrick Brew swept the gold, silver and bronze medals just as Lee Evans, James and Ron Freeman had done it in '68, for only the fourth time in Olympic history.

Harris, a recent graduate of the University of Southern California came under James' wing during the training camp and took a strategy tip to heart.

"I saw during the Olympic trials that he liked to lay back and come from behind, but I knew he needed to be more aggressive at the Games," James said. After a discussion on strategy, Harris broke out of the blocks in first place before Warner edged him out for the gold medal. Without changing his style of racing, James doubts that Harris would have medaled.

Instead, he came away from the event with the silver, the same reward a 20-year-old Larry James earned that night in Mexico City.