Sacrilege

[Marlow]

from a home-page-linked article:

Most of the San Jose community remains unaware of the history of the decrepit piece of land on the corner of Alma and Tenth streets. That piece of land is Bud Winter Field, the practice space of some of the world's fastest runners. Lloyd "Bud" Winter was SJSU's track and field coach from 1944 to 1974 and coached 37 world record holders, 102 NCAA All-Americans, 49 NCAA record holders and 27 Olympians, according to the SJSU Track & Field Web site.

I visited Speed City when I first arrived in the Bay Area in 1969. That was hallowed land . . . and now . . .

Bud Winter Field is a ghost of its former self. The all-weather track is filled with holes, while weeds and bits of trash litter the field area. The university uses the field as overflow parking during baseball, football and soccer games.

The Echo Summit track had similarly fallen into disrepair, but was resurrected by the community. Any possibility the same could happen here? That part of San Jose could use the facility.

[gh]

The "Echo Summit" track was moved down the hill to South Lake Tahoe HS after the OT; it was after many years of use there that it began to die a gruesome death, but it, as far as I know was still a fully functioning facility used by the school and hosted meets.

The SJSU facility, on the other hand, hasn't hosted a meet in years and is used by the university club, not team, and that means a world of difference.

Ressurection "by the community" didn't happen at SLT and it certainly won't happen in San José.

[bad hammy]

I'm surprised they haven't just paved over the SJSU track already. What is there is a disgusting mess.

[gh]

Of course, one must remember that even in its heydey, the SJSU track was a minimalist bit of work stuck on a far corner of campus (or was that even on campus?) in a quasi-industrial area with a small set of high-school-type bleachers on the homestretch and nothing else, and with an infield whose grass cried out for some horticultural attention. It didn't have all that far to fall in the aesthetics department.

But it was still a great place to have a meet!

[bad hammy]

(or was that even on campus?)

It is located next to Spartan Stadium about a mile and a half south of the campus. Your description is correct - a million (maybe a slight exaggeration) high schools around the US have better T&F facilities than SJSU ever had.

[SQUACKEE]

As the site of the nation postal meets, this track is one of my most intense memories from high school. Also saw Carlos run a windy 9 flat 100 yarder there.

[unclezadok]

Since they're tearing down Yankee Stadium, there's probably not much hope for the track.