GREG WAHL-STEPHENS/For The Columbian
Bruce Flanagan, center, gathers the current edition of his long-running Flanagan Clan Girls Track Team for a workout last week inWoodland.
GREG WAHL-STEPHENS/For The Columbian
Bruce Flanagan, longtime coach of the Flanagan Clan Girls TrackTeam.
GREG WAHL-STEPHENS/For The Columbian
Bruce Flanagan, left, and McKenna Flanagan, right, help MeganShubert over a line of hurdles before the start of Flanagan Clanpractice. Both girls are his granddaughters.
WOODLAND Bruce Flanagan has always been a track and field man.
Sure, he played the team sports at Raymond High School. But whenyour dad is the principal, well, some peers might think your placeon the team was secured by something other than ability.
In track and field, its about what you do. Its measured by theclock or a tape, he explained. So that really gave me a passion fortrack.
Five decades teaching girls in Southwest Washington how to race,jump and throw is the legacy of that passion.
In 1963 Bruce Flanagan was a young physical education teacher atthe elementary school in Woodland when he formed the Flanagan ClanGirls Track Club.
There was nothing for girls back in 1963, recalled Barb Boswell.From out of nowhere, this track club rises up.
Flanagan Clan was the first girls track club to join the OregonAAU, which included Southwest Washington.
Neither Bruce nor his wife Alyce was surprised when the clubquickly became popular.
There was nothing for girls, so they really jumped at theopportunity, Bruce said.
Alyce sewed the red Flanagan Clan logo onto the blouses thatthose girls wore to competitions in Seattle and Portland. Brucemelded a team from girls in his physical education classes andothers who showed up to train at the simple four-lane Woodland HighSchool track.
That track was rock hard in the summer and youd sink in when itwas wet. It was only wide enough for three hurdle lanes, Flanaganremembered. Even when we had one of the best track programs in thestate, we had that crummy track.
Boswell Barby Brewster, back then was one of the first bigsuccesses. She still has the medal she won on June 8, 1963, at GrantHigh School in Portland the first of hundreds of state JuniorOlympics medals that Flanagan Clan athletes have earned.
Boswell also has fond memories of the first high school statechampionships for girls, an invitational meet in 1969 where she wonthe discus throw and along with three Woodland teammates finishedsecond in team points.
Clan accomplishments
Flanagan, now 73, is certainly proud of the many victories girlshave won while competing for the Clan. Tara Wards 1998 nationalcross country championship for girls ages 11-12, and Laura Allens1969 national best in the triathlon for girls ages 10-11 are the twonational titles.
But success for Flanagan Clan athletes has never been measured inmedals.
If you get PR (personal record), youre a winner, no matter whatplace you finish in that day, said Flanagan, who has used thechallenges offered by track and field to teach skills that apply tolifes hurdles.
The Flanagan Clan Girls Track Club was formed a decade beforeTitle IX became law, ushering in new opportunities in sports forgirls and women. Bruce Flanagan said he always had the enthusiasticsupport of the school board and the Woodland community. Ironically,Flanagan said he remembers that after Title IX became law, he gotoccasional flak for restricting his program to only girls. Hisresponse was simple: I was thinking of girls athletics before thegovernment was. Being the P.E. teacher at the grade school a job heheld for 30 years helped Flanagan establish and sustain the club.
I knew who could do what (events), and Id talk it up. When youget the in girls, then everybody wants to be part of it, he said. Weused to just dominate the (Presidents) physical fitness test. We hada core group of girls, and the rest of the girls thought that wasthe norm and would just follow along and the whole level of fitnesswould be out of sight compared to the national norms.
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated the year Flanaganformed his Clan. Because Kennedy championed physical fitness,Flanagan named the annual award given to the clubs most outstandingathlete in memory of Kennedy.
The list of winners of the Kennedy Award is a whos who of femaleathletes from Southwest Washington, a testament to the reachFlanagans Club has had from its modest Woodland perch.
The first Kennedy Award winner was Gina Miller of Kalama, astudent in Alyce Flanagans sixth-grade class that first year.Boswell won the award twice, the first of many Woodland students sohonored. But Kennedy Award winners have also hailed from WhiteSalmon and Cathlamet.
Staying same despite changes
Dwindling emphasis on physical education in school was theprimary reason Bruce Flanagan retired after 30 years as the P.E.teacher at Woodland Primary School. His disappointment is clear whenhe talks about the days when every student would be in his gym classfive days a week.
Those days are long gone, and Bruce Flanagan has been retired for20 years (his son Glenn has been the schools P.E. teacher for manyyears).
But Bruce Flanagan still coaches hurdlers for Woodland HighSchool.
And the Clan is going strong.
Over the weekend, Flanagan Clan athletes won five championshipsat the Junior Olympics meet for Western Washington. Many morequalified for the upcoming regional Junior Olympics.
When the Flanagan Clan was formed, 880 yards was the farthest theAAU allowed girls to run.
Bruce has guided his club through five decades of change, andthree governing bodies for track and field. He has seen racedistances chanced from yards to meters. Despite his protest, TheFlanagan Clan was forced to shift its affiliation from Oregon toWestern Washington for championship meets.
Because the Clan Van he used for transporting girls to crosscountry meets died in December, Bruce has decided to forego crosscountry this fall. But his finish line is nowhere in sight.
Still kickin, Bruce says with a smile. Planning on keepingkickin.
