Cal Track and Field: Coach Robyne Johnson's Wait Continues Amid Pandemic

Fifteen months after being hired, Johnson still waiting for her sport to crank up

Track and field once was a marquee event at Cal’s Edwards Stadium. The facility was jammed with 22,000 spectators for the nationally televised Day 2 of a two-day USA vs. USSR dual meet in July 1978.

“I was actually in the stadium that day,” said Cal coach Robyne Johnson, who had just finished her freshman year at Berkeley High.

She watched as American stars Evelyn Ashford and Marty Liquori helped the USA win both the women’s and men’s titles. For Cal fans, there was a crowd-pleasing appearance in the 4x100 relay by sprinter Eddie Hart, a Cal graduate who suffered heartbreak at the 1972 Olympics after a scheduling snafu.

“I look forward to bringing some larger track meet to Cal,” said Johnson, discounting the likelihood there ever will be another meet in Berkeley that draws 22,000 fans.

For now, Johnson would settle for any meet.

Hired in June 2019 to replace Tony Sandoval, who was retiring as the Bears’ director of track and field and cross country, Johnson’s return to Cal has been mostly a waiting game.

She was on board for the 2019 cross country season, but indoor track and field was interrupted by the emergence of COVID-19 at just the key moment last March.

“We actually got the news when we were out indoor nationals with McKay Johnson and Joshua Johnson,” she said, referring to a pair of shot putters she expected would compete for All-America honors.

“Maybe even have a national champion,” she said. “I can’t even explain how that feels.”

The winter indoor and spring outdoor seasons overlap slightly and the Bears had held a single, low-key outdoor meet before sports were shut down. That meant, among other things, that Cal junior Camryn Rogers would not get the chance to defend her NCAA hammer throw title.

For Johnson, it meant waiting.

An All-American long jumper at Texas, she began her career training at Edwards Stadium daily while part of a Berkeley High powerhouse program that won both the boys and girls state meet titles her senior season of 1981.

After college, Johnson served as an assistant coach at Cal under Erv Hunt from 1995 through 2003, then was head coach at Boston University, where she won nine conference titles and was named America East Coach of the Year seven times.

Now, with the 2020 cross country season also scrapped, Johnson hopes the world returns to normal in time for the 2021 spring outdoor campaign.

“It is definitely crazy. Who would have ever thought something like this could happen?” Johnson said of the pandemic.

She has ambitious, long-term plans for the Bears. The Bears are recruiting in hopes of creating balance on their rosters, allowing them to score across the 21 events in track and field.

“I see us as a force in the Pac-12 and nationally,” Johnson said.

*** Here is Cal's newly announced 2020-21 T&F recruiting class.

It won’t be easy. Cal hasn’t posted a top-4 finish at the Pac-12 meet since 2008 on the men’s side or 1995 in the women’s meet. At the NCAAs, the Bears have not cracked the top-15 since their men were 14th in 1993 and their women 11th in 1990.

“It’s not an easy process,” Johnson said. “I think we can do it and we’re working very hard to get it done.”

Johnson says she has received only encouraging news from athletic director Jim Knowlton about the status of track and field at Cal and Edwards Stadium. Knowlton has said cutting sports is a last resort.

But as the pandemic strains college athletic departments across the country, she watches as some schools cut sports, primarily non-revenue, Olympic sports. At least four Division I schools have announced plans to eliminate track and field and four others are shelving their swim programs.

An assistant coach for the 2016 U.S. Olympic team, Johnson worries about the long-term impact those cuts could have.

“College is the feeder to all these Olympic sports that aren’t huge money makers,” she said. “If we don’t do what we do, it’s hard to get kids to that next level.”

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Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo

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