LJ track: Comparing runners from different eras

Janice Wiser, a senior in 1974, won both sprints

at the state meet. She held the LJHS record

for the 400 meters for 50 years.

By Ed Piper

Janice Wiser, whom I have written multiple pieces on lately, certainly was a trailblazer.

Payton Smith and her sister Olivia have been LJHS trailblazers, as well.

When I mentioned their names to Janice in our conversation at the end of June, she had not heard of them. "I didn't follow track over the years," was how Wiser, friendly and affable, put it. She was too busy "doing it" to be a spectator in her running years, then didn't suddenly convert to being a fan after her running days were over.

The three present a startling contrast: Janice, the state 100- and 220-meter champion in 1974, "knowing almost no one in La Jolla", by her own admission, having moved from the East Coast.

Payton and Olivia, on the other hand, having attended LJHS all four years, each serving as ASB president their respective senior years--the first African-Americans to serve in that office in Vikingland--parlayed their popularity and teammate status among their peers into a place in student government.

Payton finished in first place in the 400 meters in the state meet in 2024. Her time was 53.39, erasing Wiser's 50-year-old school record of 53.53.

Payton served as ASB president in 2023-2024; Olivia was elected for the just-completed 2024-2025 school year. Payton, a state-ranking speedster, is now running for the women's program at the University of Michigan.

Olivia stated to me this past year, "We have several girls of color serving in student government." She began to name them and their functions in her "cabinet". That, apparently, is a more recent phenomenon. All kudos to all of them.

Janice, who moved to California from high school

in Maryland, comes off the blocks in one of

her races. She ran the 100-yard, 220-yard,

and 440-yard races normally. The metric

distances were introduced in 1979.

There's something about the "drafting" phenomenon, where the lead runner or bicycler takes the brunt of the oncoming wind, and allows those following behind to glide with less resistance.

I remember when a Black man who had grown up in the South related to me years ago what that had been like. He said he had to step off the sidewalk onto the street to allow a white man to pass. If you didn't, you caught hell. That would only be the tip of the iceberg, as far as conditions in racism.

This isn't to cast aspersions on Janice. The three ran in very different eras: Wiser, an AAU runner without an LJHS girls track team to run for, ran in the first year that CIF held a state meet for girls' events.

Remember, Title IX, mandating equal access and opportunity for girls as well as boys for any program receiving federal funding, had just come into being in 1972. Ann Meyers Drysdale, the sister of Dave Meyers, a UCLA basketball player who teamed with then-Lew Alcindor/later-Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, was an early Title IX scholarship recipient in basketball at the same school.

Imagine being the guinea pig to enter the state meet in that time--amid the hoots of "ringer" sung out by opposing coaches and athletes. Janice had to run amid all the noise.

Payton, then Olivia, went where no one else had gone--into the head office of student government.

All of it takes courage.

The Smiths have been very gracious to me, and everyone else where I've witnessed them act and perform. Janice, no less in her interaction with me.

Janice Wiser (second from left) meets Wilt

Chamberlain, 7'1", 275 pounds, the former

NBA great. Wilt, as an underclassman at Kansas,

came within inches of the triple jump record

in his brief track career. At far right is Janice's

AAU coach, Tracy Sundlun.