SportStories

In late June, SportStars Magazine set out to honor a NorCal Team Of The Year for both boys and girls. Over two weeks, the field was narrowed from eight teams to two — and the one constant was the dominant performance of the Oakland Tech Girls Basketball team. Which wasn't unlike its 2022-23 season, we might add.

The Bulldogs' win earned them their own SportStories episode to look back and share their favorite memories and stories from a 30-win, state-championship season. SportStars' editor Chace Bryson is joined by coaches LeRoy Hurt and Jasmine Braggs, as well as three players, for the walk down memory lane.

For our final installment to the CA Track & Field series that we've used to open Season 2, we host our fourth consecutive Olympian and our first distance runner. This week we glean stories from the great Meb Keflezighi.

Host Chace Bryson and Youth Runner Magazine publisher Dan Kesterson talk with Keflezighi about his early childhood in the small war-torn nation of Eritrea, his immigration to the U.S. where he first discovered running in junior high, and his incredible career that included CIF State titles, NCAA championships, four Olympic Games and multiple major marathon wins.

Keflezighi's career could fill 10 hours of episodes, but we crammed as many SportStories in as we could. Enjoy!

Our California Track & Field-themed series continues this week as we’re joined by another former Olympian. One with quite the unique experience.

Imagine setting the high school national record in your event and then making the US Olympic team - then competing in the Olympics - and THEN returning to high school. That’s what Compton-native Reynaldo Brown did in 1968.

Reynaldo Brown was a basketball standout and high jumper for Compton High. He won three state championships in the high jump, and was also part of a state championship basketball team. He became the first high school athlete to high jump 7 feet and attended the 1968 Mexico City Olympics as a 17-year-old. He went on to help Cal Poly win an NCAA Division II National Title and briefly held the American Indoor High Jump record at 7-foot-4-inches in 1971. He shares stories about all those experiences in this episode.

Eddie Hart was the standing world record holder in the 100 meters heading into the 1972 Munich Olympic Games — the "World's Fastest Man." But a small scheduling oversight led him to completely miss his Olympic quarterfinal race, costing him what would be his one chance at individual Olympic gold.

Hart, a 1965 Pittsburg High graduate and standout at Cal, sat down with host Chace Bryson and longtime track and field coach/historian Lee Webb to continue the SportStories CA Track & Field series.

Hart shares stories about growing up in the East Bay and the high school track scene in the mid-60s, his time at Cal, setting the world record at the Olympic trials — and following that with most devastating moment of his career. Hart talks about what it took to overcome that, how it revealed and ultimately defined the person he is, and how he still came home with a relay gold medal. 

The fourth installment of our track & field series to open Season 2 is the first of back-to-back episodes featuring Olympic Gold Medalists. Today's guest is Kenny Harrison — the Olympic record holder in the triple jump which he set at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Games. Unlike our other guests in this series, Harrison is not a native of California, but it IS where he put his name on the map. He leapt 52 feet, 4 inches as a senior in high school when he came out from his home state of Wisconsin to compete at the Golden State Invitational in Sacramento.

Host Chace Bryson is once again joined by Youth Runner Magazine founder and publisher, Dan Kesterson, as well as retired longtime James Logan High track and field coach Lee Webb.

Harrison’s stories cover growing up in Wisconsin, his breakthrough trip to California, his incredibly decorated career at Kansas State University, missing his chance at the 1992 games due to knee surgery, and then finally making the team in 1996. And, oh by the way, his finals were held the same day the bomb went off in Olympic Park. Join us as we jump, er, triple jump into some SportStories. 

One week after speaking with pole vault coach and mentor, Gary Muhammad, this week the SportStories Track & Field Series spotlights another coach, SoCal-based Keinan Briggs.

Briggs was a hurdler and jumper for Valencia High and eventually competed for Cal State Los Angeles. He’s made his biggest impact as a coach, however. He was the jumps coach at Mater Dei High from 2010-2019 while also building his own track club called LEAP Squad. The club has its own virtual component that allows Briggs to train and work out athletes from anywhere.

Host Chace Bryson is joined by Youth Runner Magazine founder and publisher Dan Kesterson to chat with Briggs about his early career, how he found and shaped his coaching philosophies, and about some of the LEAP athletes from throughout the state who might make some noise at the CIF state meet.

In our second installment of this series highlighting great moments and names from California high school track & field, SportStories visits with former James Logan High-Union City pole vault coach Gary Muhammad.

Host Chace Bryson is joined by Youth Runner publisher Dan Kesterson and renown former James Logan track coach Lee Webb for a conversation with Muhammad that encompassed his time as an athlete, how he found his way to coaching a field event he was never a serious competitor at, his perspective on coaching one’s own kids, and some stories about those kids: Jathiyah and Khaliq Muhammad. Jathiyah won the CIF state title in girls pole vault as a sophomore last season, and Khaliq was the North Coast Section champion as a freshman. Both competed for Dublin High.

After a two-year hiatus, SportStars Magazine is finally bringing back its original podcast — SportStories. The oral history-style show carries a slightly different format in Season 2, but keeps its core goal — to have athletes and coaches tell their stories.

As it's spring, and the CIF State Track & Field Championships are about six weeks away, we are collaborating with Youth Runner Magazine to begin this new season of SportStories with a six-part series highlighting some of the state's best track and field moments. And we start it off with an all-timer: Michael Granville, who remains the national high school record-holder in the 800 meters 27 years after setting the mark at 1 minute, 46.45 seconds.

Granville is a two-time state champion in the 800 meters, winning the two-lap race in both 1994 and 1996 for Bell Gardenss High School from the Greater East Los Angeles region. In the 1996 event prelims he completed the race in 1 minute, 46.45 seconds. That mark remains the national high school record 27 years later. Granville attended UCLA before moving north where he's been the high school coach at Palo Alto and Gunn High schools, before stepping aside to focus on being a dad and running his fitness business: G-Fit.

He joined a roundtable discussion with Youth Runner publisher Dan Kesterson, former James Logan High-Union City coach and noted track historian/enthusiast Lee Webb, and SportStars Magazine editor Chace Bryson serving as moderator. They recount his early rise in the 800, his unique training methods with his dad, his state championship races (good and bad), and of course, the day he broke the record.

Just in time for the first true California high school football season in two years, SportStars Magazine is excited to announce its newest podcast: 7 Friday Night. 

SportStars editor Chace Bryson will be joined by longtime friend — and one-time video series collaborator (if you know, you know) — Ben Enos for a weekly discussion on NorCal high school football. Through wit, whimsy and maybe some wisdom, the pair will deliver wrap-ups, predictions, topical discussions and interviews with players and coaches from throughout NorCal.

Just to double down on the wisdom part, Ben and Chace will also be joined by recently-retired longtime De La Salle-Concord assistant coach Terry Eidson as a regular guest star.

It's a bonanza! Join us weekly for your high school football fix, as we all countdown to 7 Friday Night.  

Abby Dahlkemper and Maggie Steffens both graduated high school in the same year, as part of the Class of 2011. And for the past decade, they've been among the very best players in their sport. Both are competing in the Tokyo Olympics this summer. One has gone with a focus on stopping goals, while the other will be trying to score as many as possible.

Dahlkemper is a starting defender on the US Women’s National Soccer Team. And while she’s already a World Cup champion, this is Dahlkemper's first Olympics. Steffens — who graduated from Monte Vista High in Danville the same year Dahlkemper graduated from Sacred Heart Prep in Atherton — is now at her third Summer Games as a member of the U.S. Women’s Water Polo Team.

In the second of our two Olympian-themed episode, we revisited the rise of the two 2011 graduates through memories and tales of high school coaches who still remain in contact with their former players to this day.

Join us as we highlight two of the Bay Area’s most successful female athletes of the past decade. This is SportStories.

STORYTELLERS