Sterni Doesn’t Come Up Short in Track

UC Irvine’s Florence Sterni is deceptive.

Other sprinters must look at her and think, no sweat. At a shade taller than 5 feet, by her count, Sterni just doesn’t look threatening in such power-and-muscle events like the 100 and 200 meters.

“It’s a big mental game,” said Sterni, a junior. “I stand next to other sprinters, who are really tall, and I guess I’m not too intimidating. Sometimes that’s good. I catch them by surprise.”

Her opponents usually wake up to it in the first 30 meters.

Sterni’s burst from the blocks is a big reason she is among the top sprinters entered in this week’s Big West Conference meet, which begins Friday in Boise, Idaho.

She may not be as imposing as other sprinters, but Sterni has already run the eighth fastest 100 in Irvine history (12.05 seconds). It’s also the fifth fastest time in the conference this season.

That’s a lot of power from a small package. But, then, what you see isn’t necessarily what you get from Sterni.

“She doesn’t look like the type of person who can do that,” UCI Coach Vince O’Boyle said. “She looks kind of frail; she’s this little thing who can’t do much. But she’s not that at all. There’s a lot of power in those legs and a lot of heart in her.”

Sterni ran her 12.05 at the Big West Challenge Cup on April 4. Her best time in the 200 was 24.72 at the Cal-Nevada Championships on April 26.

She finished seventh in both events at the conference meet last season and hopes to drop below 12 seconds in the 100 this week.

“Most sprinters are 5-8, 5-9, 5-10,” O’Boyle said. “But once you see Flo’s competitive drive, you understand why she’s so good. Her first 20-30 meters are really, really good. That’s why she’s so strong in the [400-meter] relay.”

Sterni may look more like a distance runner, but she has always been a sprinter, from elementary school through Stockton’s Stagg High School. College, though, was another matter; she decided not to run for Irvine as a freshman.

For the only time in her career, she was intimidated.

“I imagined college track was really competitive, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to go against all these runners from big schools,” Sterni said.

Word reached O’Boyle that there was a sprinter on campus who wasn’t sprinting. That, he thought, should change.

Ed Crawford, then an Anteater assistant, had Sterni in a weight training class and coaxed her into returning. It didn’t take much arm twisting, as she was already leaning that way.

“I missed it,” she said. “It took some persuading, a lot of persuading. But every time I started to think I didn’t want to run, something good would happen.”

And the big schools?

“Sometimes I doubt myself,” Sterni said. “I start getting intimidated by the big schools. I just remind myself that it’s only the uniform they’re wearing.”

Sterni learned from former Irvine sprinters Toby Dean, who has the school’s second fastest times in the 100 (11.76) and 200 (24.09), and Popi Edwards, who has the fourth fastest times in the 100 (11.91) and 200 (24.24). Sterni also had a natural desire not to lose to go along with the techniques she picked up.

“You see this person with this soft smile that kind of melts you,” O’Boyle said. “Then you see her get into a competitive situation and kick butt. She’s not very tall, but she is pretty dynamic.”

Said Sterni: “I’m 5-1 . . . with shoes on. I don’t feel that short. Then I look in the mirror and, boy, I am short.”

And deceptive.

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Sterni first competed in track as a fourth grader, and it seemed all fun and games . . . for a while.

“Our school was really into track and field and the teachers would always have us do events,” Sterni said. “I would go out and run the 50-yard dash and think, ‘Oh, boy, this is fun.’

“Then I got to high school and learned about training. I found out quick there was some pretty hard work involved.”

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Irvine women’s tennis player Darian Chappell and her father, Bob, won the father/daughter indoor championship in Cincinnati last weekend.

It was their second consecutive championship together.

Bob Chappell is a former All-American for Irvine. They are ranked No. 1 by the USTA in the father/daughter division.

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Raimonds Miglinieks, former UCI point guard, became a father last week. His wife, Kriska, gave birth to a boy, Leonard, in Riga, Latvia.

Miglinieks, who had 475 assists in two seasons at Irvine, is playing professionally in Poland. He might return to Southern California to play in the Summer Pro League.

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Irvine assistant women’s basketball coach Jeff Dow will compete in the Palos Verdes Marathon on June 6. It will be his first marathon.

“I made a deal with [athletic trainer] Dave Ramirez,” Dow said. “He has to run step for step with me.”

That might be a short race for Ramirez, who is training for a 50-mile run.

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The Irvine women’s crew team won the third final in the Varsity Eights and the petite final in the Novice Eights at the Pacific Coast Rowing championships at Lake Natoma in Rancho Cordova last weekend.

The men had a second-place finish in the Varsity Eights, its best showing during the competition.