FROM THE SPORTS DESK:Sea Kings lucky to have Sumner

There have been several stories written about Bill Sumner in The Daily Pilot, but there’s one that he would probably rather not have published.

It’s not his style to talk about himself. Talk about his teams and his athletes? Yeah, he’ll do that. But to talk about that one early morning back in mid-December, he would rather leave that story untold.

But there’s too much drama there, too much symbolism of a man who has been a special coach at Corona del Mar High.

On that early morning, Sumner lay alone, flat on his face, helpless in despair because of a kidney stone that enveloped the 59-year-old man in extreme pain.

“It doesn’t make for a good story,” Sumner said on Saturday, when his girls track and field team won its third straight CIF Southern Section Division III championship.

Sumner’s leg was folded beneath his lower body. He could hardly move, and struggled to make an emergency phone call. Finally, he had to go to the hospital. For the previous two weeks, he had been ignoring the ache. He could easily overcome it, he thought, but it eventually knocked him to the floor.

But Sumner, like he has taught his athletes for so many years, eventually got back on his feet and continued to run the race.

To say that this school year has been meaningful for Sumner and the Sea Kings would be an understatement. And it’s not all related to Sumner’s bout with that kidney stone and, eventually, arthroscopic surgery.

Much of it has to do with the fact that most people counted out his girls’ team in cross country and in track and field. Hardly anyone thought the Sea Kings would win a state title and CIF Division III championship in the fall. Not when phenom Annie St. Geme graduated in the spring of 2006.

The track and field team, as you know, would win, too. There were four girls who made national history as well. In the 1,600 meters, Shelby Buckley, Sarah Cummings, Allison Damon and Hilary May completed the race in less than five minutes.

In the background, Sumner was clapping for his athletes, instructing them along the way. If they needed more illustration for an example they could just look to his recent experiences with health and how he bounced back.

“[Being in the hospital] was hard for him,” said Ceci St. Geme, Annie’s mother who’s a volunteer coach for CdM and led the team practices while Sumner recovered. “He doesn’t like to talk to about it. He would rather talk about the kids than himself.”

Ceci St. Geme expressed gratefulness when talking about Sumner recently. A star runner herself, she said she wishes she could have had him as a coach when she was younger.

“He just keeps getting better and better,” she said. “He just really understands high school kids, how far he can push them … He’s really good with people. I’m amazed with how he handles the families. He’s so patient. You have to deal with so many people. Here, you have probably the best coach in the U.S.”

Paul Orris, the longtime boys’ basketball coach who is in his first year as the Sea Kings’ athletic director, also has high respect for Sumner. For over 20 years, Orris volunteered to help the Corona del Mar track and field program, manning the high jump, jotting down shot put marks or striving for accuracy with a stopwatch.

Throughout that time, especially within the past 10 years, Orris’ regard for Sumner increased.

“He’s amazing,” Orris said of Sumner. “The program he has built, the track he has put in, the consistency he has had is just great. Every now and then you’re going to get good athletes that make you look good. But when you are consistent year in and year out, it’s more than about the athletes. It’s about the program and a system you have in place. It’s an attitude philosophy.”

For the past three years, even more this year, Sumner got his girls’ teams to believe. Those girls accomplished a remarkable feat. They’ve won a CIF title in every fall and spring, dating back to the fall of ’04.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do next,” Sumner said. “Six titles in a row! We’ll lose Tiffany [Liu], Hilary and Sarah, that’s three big guns.”

I’m sure next year, Sumner will just reload.

STEVE VIRGEN may be reached at (714) 966-4616 or [email protected].