LJ track: Wiser: 'I fouled out of every (basketball) game'

Janice Wiser, LJ track phenom in 1974,

in her red Viking running wear.

(Yearbook photo)

By Ed Piper

You've heard about Janice Wiser Pope's exploits as a one-person girls track team for La Jolla High in 1974--she is the only female athlete to win both the 100 and 200 (or equivalents) at the CIF State Meet in the history of the California event.

But there's a funny story about her, unrelated to running track.

Let her tell the story.

"I love basketball," said Pope in an interview Sat., June 28. "I fouled out of every game!"

In her aggressiveness and trying to get the ball, Janice would "try to get on top" of the ball in the hands of the player she was defending. 

"I wanted to stay in (the game), but I never did."

Confessions of a great athlete--though on the running oval, not on the basketball court.

Wiser Pope, who later married her husband, Robert Pope, thus the name addition/change, went on to run for four years at San Diego State and excel in the sprints.

Another thing she has excelled in: Robert and she have been married now for 49 years. Now, that's dedication. "She was 17, I was 18," her husband noted for the time they met, he a student at UCSD, she still in high school in her one year as a Viking.

She worked at the switchboard in the high school office as an elective. "It was just like you see in the movies," she said. "I had to plug the wire in to the correct connection." She learned it pretty well--there are a lot of students this former teacher of high school students wouldn't let work the telephones.

She must have exhibited good people skills, as she continues to employ now. Her manner during the interview was friendly, open, willing to engage, and informative, as she mined memories from 51 years ago--obviously a wonderful time for her, recollecting the coaching she received from coach Tracy Sundlun, her AAU coach who brought her from Northwestern High in Hyattsville, Maryland, to San Luis Obispo High while he coached at Cal Poly SLO, then La Jolla, where he coached at the La Jolla Track Club.

The rest is history.