THE VERGARA TWINS

By ELLIOTT DENMAN

 

   Roberto and Ricardo Vergara are identically excellent.

 

  The fastest scholastic racewalkers in America walked to a near dead-heat last year in Landover and it would be no surprise to see them separated by some equally incredibly infinitesimal margin this time around, as well.

 

  "Roberto is just a little more muscular than Ricardo, that’s about the only difference I can see," says A.C. Jaime, the coach-organizer-fund raiser-major domo-guiding light of the South Texas Walking Club, America’s leading youth walking organization, whose members proudly call themselves "The Fighting Turtles."

 

   Roberto also says he’s a tad taller than Ricardo, but few can even detect that.

Jaime is a very big fan of the Nike Indoor Nation als, which annually gives racewalkers the chance to bask in the spotlight monopolized by the athletes of track’s more standard events the balance of the year.

 

   When Roberto won the 2006 NIN one- mile walk title in 6:49.20 with Ricardo second in 6:49.56, as sophomores, boys event expert analyst Pete Cava suggested it might take a fingerprint expert to separate the pair. They are juniors at Texas’s Edinburg High School and will be joined by South Texas Walking Club teammates Abraham Villareal, another junior, and Alex Chavez, a highly promising freshman, on the starting line in Landover.

 

   Roberto already holds the NIN freshman mile walk record of 6:49.50, set in 2005. In 2006, the twins couldn’t nudge Kevin Eastler’s NIN sophomore-record 6:29.96, dating to 1993, but now aim at Zach Pollinger’s junior-class record of 6:17.96 in 2003 and might even scare the all-time National record of 6:11.00 by Paul Tavares in 1990.

 

   If only America had a few more gentlemen like A.C. Jaime, and a few more communities as enthused over walking as those in the South Texas Walking Club’s home base, just seven miles from the Mexican border, the nation would surely be developing a deep pool of international racewalking team candidates to match the depth it has in virtually all the other events on the international and Olympic track and field calendar.

 

   With racewalking an official event in the state championships of just one of America’s 50 - that’s Maine - and just a girls event in New York State, and absent from state programs just about everywhere else, the nation must rely on community-based clubs, such as STWC, and the USATF and AAU Junior Olympic programs, to discover and nurture young racewalking talent.

 

A.C. Jaime and the South Texas Walking Club do far more than their fair share of developing the youngsters who will some day fill the shoes of Tim Seaman, Curt Clausen, Kevin Eastler, Philip Dunn and John Nunn, the nation’s top senior elite-level racewalking men in recent years.

 

   It all started by happenstance about a dozen years ago.

 

  In real life, A.C. Jaime is a successful certified public accountant in McAllen, Texas.

 But, like so many desk-bound Americans, his daily office routine tended to have a negative effect on his personal fitness.

 

 "I was getting a little overweight and I knew I had to do something about it," he recalls.

"I’d never been a runner before, and I certainly had never been a racewalker, either.

"But I decided to enter a 5K running race in Brownsville anyway.  "I was at the tail-end of the pack and at one point the course went over a major highway and I needed a police escort, one on each side of me, to get me safely across."

 

 He nevertheless finished it in 38:50, not all that far behind the slowest of the runners, and was immediately enthused.  The walking bug had well and truly bitten him.

 

  He brought the message home and in short order was recruiting others, youngsters as well as adults, to the walking sport.   One thing led to another and another and another.

And just look at the South Texas Walking Club now.  It boasts over 200 members and has made the South Texas area - such communities as Pharr, San Juan, Edinburg, Alamo and McAllen- hotbeds of racewalk interest.

 

  Tim Seaman,the Long Island-raised, now Chula Vista, California-based

two-time Olympic 20K racewalker is, in fact, one of the South Texas Walking Club’s biggest fans and helps out on the coaching end of the group whenever he’s in their vicinity - and even when he’s not - thanks to the marvels of modern communications.

 

   Not long after he walked to his 10th consecutive 5K title in the USA

Indoor National Championships in Boston, Feb. 24, Seaman posted this message to friends around the nation: "At this point in my career, it is certainly much tougher mentally to keep going. But I do this for the kids of the South Texas Walking Club and all the kids who aspire to this sport."

 

  Those South Texas kids are already chasing Seaman to finish lines around the nation. Most recent example: The Susan Rudin One-Mile Walk , which doubled as the USATF Championship, at the Millrose Games at Madison Square Garden, Feb. 2nd. As Seaman was winning in 5:51:18, Ricardo Vergara was edging twin Roberto for third place, 6:29.70 to 6:30.61. Another past NIN walking champion, Zach Pollinger, now at Harvard, was fifth in 6:35.66.

 

  In addition to its regular year-round events, the STWC staged the USATF’s Elite Racewalk Camp over the Christmas holiday period. Co-sponsored by the Pharr Chamber of Commerce, the USATF’s South Texas Association, local merchants and others, the event was a huge hit.   High praise for SWTC and the camp came from many quarters.

 

  "You and all the members of your team and community are fantastic people," wrote Ohioan Vince Peters, the USATF National Racewalking Chairman.  "My experience in Texas has been a turning point in my life and I will never forget it," wrote Stephanie Martinez, a promising young Illinois walker.

 

  Added New Jersey’s Bob Mimm, a 1960 USA Olympic 20K walker and still going strong as a world elite competitor in the Masters 80-84 division, "We need more programs like the South Texas Walking Club’s if we are to get more young persons involved in racewalking."

 

  With racewalking an intrinsic part of the NAIA national collegiate track program - but, unfortunately, not on the NCAA program - STWC products are now fanning out to NAIA schools.   Most prominent is Christopher Diaz, now starring for the Malone College team in Ohio.

 

  In 1995, Adrian Jaime, A.C.’s grandson, was the first STWC athlete to compete in the Texas AAU Junior Olympics.  By 1996, Diaz - then just 10 - was one of the first SWTC products to walk his way to national recognition, medaling in the AAU Junior Olympics along with teammates Delisa Guarama and Becky Pictardo.

 

  Guarama and Pictardo have now made their marks in the real world, too. Guarama is a graduate of the University of Texas at San Antonio and a Ph.D. candidate. Pictardo is a Texas-San Antonio undergrad music major, who already leads her own mariachi band.

 

   A dozen years after their club’s founding, STWC walkers have already carried their club’s banner to competitions all over North America and to Europe for the IAAF World Junior Championships, with such events as the Pan-American Juniors just over the horizon

 

  Like any modern organization, South Texas Walking Club maintains a state-of-the-art website.   One guestbook message read:  "Hi Racing Turtles, you are the best."

 

  Checking out recent years’ results sheets, few would dare to disagree.

 

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