Just one year removed from retirement ” and a boys’ track title in his 29th and final season ” Chuck Boyer’s coaching influence remains an amazing story with global reach. From the U.S. East Coast back here to the West, even to the far distant lands of the former Soviet bloc, the La Jolla High School coach’s legacy lives on. And so perhaps that is why he will be enshrined Nov. 15 into the San Diego Hall of Champions as a “High School Coaching Legend” at a Nov. 15 induction banquet. The Hall of Champions Sports Museum in Balboa Park will also feature a permanent exhibit.
“I was surprised it happened that quickly because I just retired from coaching,” said Boyer, 63, who still hits the gym daily. “I felt humbled. Growing up in San Diego, I used to take visitors to the Hall of Champions all the time. Now I’ll be in it.”
A former long jumper and javelin thrower at Point Loma High, Boyer joined La Jolla High in 1971 to build its track and cross country programs that had been in the doldrums years prior. By 1974, he’d helped the girls track team to second place in the state meet and was named CIF Track Coach of the Year.
But his biggest success came coaching boys track and cross country ” especially track, in which he led the Vikings to 21 league titles and a 44 consecutive dual-meet win streak from 1985 to 1992. Fittingly, Boyer went out on top in 2005 as the boys track team won the CIF championship, after finishing as runner-up in 1986, 1998 and 2004. His cross-country teams won six CIF titles and finished in the state’s top 10 a total of 10 times, including a second-place finish in 1989.
Yet for all his success, Boyer’s legacy is not just wins over losses but on the impact he has had on the student-athletes themselves, who are all over the place making their own impacts today.
“A lot of times he won with a lot less talent than his competitors,” said Dave Ponsford, La Jolla High athletic director and head football coach, who worked with Boyer for two decades. “Track is disorganized and difficult to coach but he was so focused. He always had a good sense of humor.”
During his career, Boyer had at least one athlete advance to the state final in each of the 14 individual track events. Countless others have competed in Division I collegiate programs.
At the 1984 Summer Olympics, La Jolla High grad and javelin thrower Karin Smith exclaimed, “Coach, Coach!” when Boyer met her on the track at the Los Angeles Coliseum. And some two decades later “” thanks to e-mail ” Boyer keeps in touch with other former student-athletes, like Stepan Strejcek studying in the Czech Republic.
Back in the U.S., in the Crossroads of America, the Coover brothers, Jeff and Paul, compete in track for the University of Indiana. Other Boyer/La Jolla alums include Yale pole vaulter Murat Kayali and USC’s Nathan Gwozdz, to name just a few. In fact, Boyer still has dinner and keeps in touch with athletes he coached decades ago.
“What stands out to me is how lucky and privileged I was to be a small part in the lives of so many exceptional kids,” Boyer said. “That’s what kept me going. And I was also fortunate to teach and coach at La Jolla High, where the administration and the parents were very supportive.”
In the mid-1990s, Boyer was pried out of retirement when La Jolla High added a slick all-weather track as part of a major funding campaign. He said he also was buoyed by finding a staff passionate about track that included Gold Medalist Joaquim Cruz, and the talents of Ed Oleata and Roger Karnoff, the latter the Vikings’ current cross country coach.
Today, while Boyer may finally have stopped coaching, the relationships he built with his student-athletes show no signs of slowing down. And that could result in some well-deserved travel soon to here, there and everywhere to relive some of the magic of the coach-athlete bond ” even perhaps to the far reaches of the Czech Republic.
The Nov. 15 coaching legends banquet begins at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 15, at the Scottish Rite Center, 1895 Camino del Rio South. For tickets and information, call (619) 234-2544.