A Tribute to Rick Milam courtesy of Keith Conning and THE CONNING TOWER...

Rick was honored this past Saturday at the Stanford Invitational.  The following tribute was read at the Stanford Invitational by Keith Conning.  Link to Keith's blog posted below.  A well deserved award for Rick.

While attending San Jose State in the 1960’s,Rick started working with Dr. Bruce Ogilivie, the first person to study Sports Psychology. During this time Rick also worked with Bud Winters, the Track and Field Coach at San Jose State. For those who don’t know Bud, he was the coach of what became “speed city” and had many of his athletes became Olympic Champions, Lee Evans, Tommy Smith, and John Carlos to name a few.

Rick worked from Dr Ogilivie in many other sports besides Track and Field but Rick always gravitated back to the sport he really enjoyed, Track and Field.

After graduating from San Jose State, Rick spent 2 years in the US Marine Corps starting Operation Transition at Camp LeJuene, NC.

After being discharged from the Marine Corps Rick came back to San Jose State to get his teaching certificate. While student teaching he was hired as a substitute teacher at Homestead High School in their History Dept. He heard that they needed a track coach, so he volunteered for that job too. In his first year he took a rag/tag track team and won the CCS Championship.

At this time he also started officiating at some of the local meets because there were not many that would take time to do so.

During this time he married Margaret and they had one son, Brian.

Over the past 44 years Rick has officiated at thousands of Track and Field Meets in the Bay Area. Many times being the meet director.

He has been an official at 4 Olympic Trials, many NCAA finals, PAC 10 finals, and the Texas Relays.

In recent years he has been the meet director for the International Children’s Games, held in San Francisco, CA. This meet involved children for 87 countries from around the world. He was the meet director for Track and Field area of the Senior Games held here at Stanford in 2009 where 8000 runners competed over 9 days.

Last year Rick was honored with a Certificate of Recognition from the State of California Senate, Stating in part, “Through more then 45 years of service as a track and field coach, teacher, mentor, and advocate for children and young adults”

The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors also honored him with their Resolution that states , in part, “Rick was presented the Central Coast Section(CCS) Distinguished Service Award for his dedication and contribution to the positive educational growth of the student-athletes in the CCS”

Over the past 33 years Rick has been the driving force behind the Los Gatos High Schools “all comers” meets held in January and February just before track and field season starts and again in June and July..

1979 He started the Los Gatos Athletic Association All-Comers Meets with Willie Harmitz . They put on 16 meets a year.

1982 He started the CCS Top 8 Meet and Frosh/Soph Classic at Los Gatos High School.

1986 He became a Track Official at Stanford.

2001 He received the Dick Barber Meritorious Service Award from the Pacific Association of USATF.


Found at the following link:
http://theconningtower.blogspot.com/2010/03/tribute-to-rick-milam.html