Colton High School opened in 1895. It is one of the oldest high schools in the Inland Empire. In this daily feature, we celebrate Colton High’s rich history.

In 1983, Fred Campa coached Colton High’s Cross Country team to finish strongly in the Citrus Belt League. The varsity boys’ team shared first place with Redlands while the girls’ team placed third. 

The success that year can be attributed to Coach Campa’s approach to preparation. Instead of having his team work on building speed in a three-mile race, he had them working on distance. During the summer, his team was doing 12 and 13 mile distance runs to prepare for the season.

Times have changed a bit. Our current CHS Cross-Country coach, Roxana Lopez, has taken to employing both speed and distance training in developing her runners. Three days of the practice week, the team works on running distances of 3-5 miles. On the other two days, they hit the track to run wind sprints and work on shorter distance runs at a faster pace.

The Colton High Cross-Country team will show off how much work its done on September 3 at the annual SWARM event at Memorial Stadium.