Coaches
Dr. Michael Leong
Coach Mike began coaching in 1979 at Peralta junior high and the Orange Flyers track club leading beginning runners to second place at the AAU Regional championships. Coach David Japs head coach of the Rialto Roadrunners recruited Coach Mike to coach all of the Roadrunners in Orange county and several runners leaving the Orange County Blue Angels in 1980.
The team changed its name to Southern California Roadrunners in 1979. Coach Mike at the same time competed for UC Irvine in XC and track and graduated with a degree in Biological Sciences and Psychology in 1983 and receiving the PCAA scholar athlete award in 1981.
During the 1980s Coach Mike at that time Developed Villa Park HS into a distance power developing eventual sub 4-minute milers Kevin Green (Oklahoma) and Bill Meyer (UCLA) and NCAA All-American Laura Doering (UC Davis) and David Longyear (4:17 miler Villa Park).
Dr. Mike returned to Southern California in 1988 to begin his residency at San Bernardino county Hospital and began running and coaching the Roadrunners in the Inland Empire. In the 90s Roadrunners in the CBL dominated the league with runners from Eisenhower (Jaime Bastidas), Redlands (Jon Nelson) and Fontana (Sam Bell) went 1-2-3 in the league but all trained together. In the 1999-2006 era Roadrunners coached by Dr. Mike competed for Rialto Hs as the team dominated the Citrus Belt league and achieving 2 CIF runner-ups in Div 1 for boys XC.
Dr. Mike has personally coached 98 national champions, 32 national championship XC teams, 5 national championships teams in Youth track and field. In 2013 Youth 1 presented Dr. Mike the Youthee award as Fan Favorite youth coach garnering the most votes in a National poll.
Stewart Boden
Coach Stewart Boden has been a life long resident of the Inland Empire. His passion for running began in his youth while running for San Bernardino High School. He was inspired by Frank Shorter’s victory in the 1972 Olympics to run and get in shape. After graduating high school he continued running in college while coaching cross country at San Bernardino high school. Stewart went on to graduate from Cal State San Bernardino with a double major in Mathematics and Physics and became a computer programmer.
In 1974 he joined the Socal Roadrunners as an assistant coach and in 1980, Dave Japs, the founder of the club, got him started race-walking. After a few years, he also started coaching race-walking, which is my specialty. His main goals are to keep the kids he coaches safe, to inspire them to do their best and to have fun doing it.
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