Aggie Beginnings & Lore

Back in the early ages, before Air, Lycra and VaporFly, there was plain old running. It was in the year of our lord one thousand nine hundred seventy-six that the Aggies Running Club was unleashed upon the state of California. Roots trace the club to four souls from UC Davis and four others who banded together in August 1976 for a stab at the DeCelle Memorial Lake Tahoe Relays, 72 miles around the mile high lake. Some say it was the altitude, others say it was the beer, but the result was as clear as the lake is cold, the Aggie embryo was born. The intrepid Elite Eight who started it all were: Ed Schelegle, Pete Sweeney, Mike Sweeney, Angel Martinez (all of UC Davis), Mike Killeen (Humboldt State), Bryan Tracy (Cal Poly SLO), Brian Hunsaker (UC Irvine) and Hal Schulz (Redwood HS). That historic day the original Aggies team finished second, clocking 6:37:57 on a cool and rainy day.

Fun Fact: Due to cumbersome AAU rules at the time, the Aggies club application had not been officially approved by the time of the Lake Tahoe Relays race. So we were forced to enter as an Open, not club team, and thus, we could not use the name "Aggies Running Club", so we raced as the "Flying Plows"!

From Pete Sweeney:
”Here’s the story behind the 1976 Lake Tahoe Relays photo below. On race day, Brian Hunsaker could not be found at the start, but we did see talented teen Hal Schulz. So we quickly added Schulz to the team, but whoa, hold the phone, as the race starts with Schelegle leading off, Hunsaker appears. We decide to add him onto the team. Mike Killeen and Bryan Tracy, from the pre-Schulz team, will now both run the fifth leg. The fifth leg ran from about Dollar Point through Tahoe City to about Homewood, about 10-plus miles. The picture below is of Angel Martinez finishing the fourth leg, in his homemade Aggie RC t-shirt, and handing off to both of them. Killeen ran a bit faster than Tracy to “make” the scoring team to hand off to Hunsaker, the sixth leg.

Dwayne "Peanut" Harms has been a bubbling spring of Aggie consciousness during the early stages and beyond. Other luminaries in the club include the mighty Killeen family, the brothers Sweeney, and the Paleo Ags, Jim VanDine and Angel Martinez. Dedicated members like Joe "Justin Tyme" Fabris, Terence "One-Man-Down" Boynton, Stacy "Stick" Geiken, Melissa "Tequila Queen" Martel, Dave "Papillion" Frank, Joe Rubio, and Kevin Searls have maintained the club infrastructure and preserved that Aggies club spirit.

Sponsorships

On or about the year 1978, the Aggies collaborated with Converse for equipment. From then until the mid-1980s, they were known as, the Converse Aggies. Lo and behold, core Aggies, Martinez and Van Dine, were busy climbing the corporate ranks at Reebok. When the time was right, they made their play and in the bloodless coup of the century, converted the Aggies from a basketball team to a set of finely tuned cheetahs known throughout the land as the Reebok Aggie Running Club, later the ASICS Aggie RC to the HOKA ONE ONE Aggies RC and now HOKA Aggies RC.

Aggie Tradition

Sometime around 1978, the Aggie Centipede was born of late-night road-tripping and sleep deprivation. Some say it was Steve White, Doug Peck & Kevin Kirby, others say it was Peanut & Angel, and nobody says it was Sweeney & Tuna, who came up with the original idea to link 13 brothers together to run the world's craziest run, the Bay to Breakers. Regardless, the Aggie Centipede is now world famous & infamous, with stories of their exploits reaching august publications such as Runner's World, Sports Illustrated, and the Wall Street Journal.

Now

The Aggies have grown to over 200 men and women as elite and social members. Each year, stalwart veterans along with a new crop of able bodies toe the line locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally to continue the Aggie tradition. The Aggies annually compete at PA/USATF events, USA Cross Country Championships, and USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships. Our beloved Aggies have done great things including Mark Conover, Linda Somers Smith, Carmelo Ríos, Danny Gonzalez, Ivan Huff, Jamey Harris, Kara June, and Sergio Reyes–just to name a few.

Plow, plow, plow!