Charlie Richesin

Charlie Richesin certainly can relate to the adage, “patience is a virtue.” Last night, 66 years after he won the Dipsea as a junior at San Rafael High, Richesin was inducted into the race’s Hall of Fame. He became the 26th member of the Hall, which honors the greatest figures in the 100-plus year history of the fabled footrace between Mill Valley and Stinson Beach.

            Richesin, who will turn 84 on August 4, was born in a small company town in the Texas oilfields, where his father worked. He has Native American roots from both parents, Delaware on his mother’s side, Choctaw on his father’s.

“I started running chasing our cow across the field,” Richesin says. “I did the milking.”

            In 1943, he saved enough money from picking cotton to buy a train ticket to California to visit his grandmother in San Rafael. His father called to tell him to stay, as the rest of the family was moving as well.

“The track coach at San Rafael High, Paul Miller, asked if I was the new American Indian boy and told me to run the mile in PE class,” Richesin says. After Richesin won handily, Miller asked, “You’re on the track team, aren’t you?” Richesin replied, “Well, I guess I am now.” He also joined the football squad.

            In 1946, the Dipsea Race was returning after four missed years due to military closures on Mt. Tamalpais. Bill McCurdy, the winner of the last (1941) Dipsea Best Time trophy and future head track coach at Harvard, recruited Richesin as a fifth man for his Mill Valley Athletic Club team. Richesin spent hours on work parties clearing the overgrown Dipsea Trail.

            Although he had just placed fifth in the California State Meet mile—his time of four minutes, 32 seconds would remain the San Rafael High school record for 28 years—the Dipsea handicapper awarded Richesin ten head start minutes. Only two runners in the field of 42 had more and to this day, Richesin calls his handicap “a gift.” He made the most of it, running an actual time on one hour, 22 seconds, and winning the Dipsea by 25 seconds.

            In 1947, Richesin’s head start was slashed in half and he finished 12th. The next year, Richesin ran 52:06, fastest of anyone in the race. But he missed catching winner Leslie McGregor by just two seconds in what remains the closest finish in Dipsea history.

            The legendary coach Amos Alonzo Stagg recruited Richesin to Stockton Junior College (now the University of the Pacific) for football and track. With the onset of the Korean War, Richesin joined the Marine Reserves. Upon his return, Richesin found his scholarship gone, so he transferred to Fresno State, where the track coach was world record pole vaulter Cornelius Warmderdam. Richesin earned a teaching credential in industrial arts.

            Richesin was part of the winning Dipsea teams in 1949, 1954, ’55 and ’56, the last three with the Flying “A” team which he organized with Darryl Beardall a star recruit. Richesin also made his mark on the roads, placing second at the 1954 Bay to Breakers and twice finishing third there. He participated in three Olympic Trials, in 1956 placing fifth in the multi-sport modern pentathlon.

            Joe King, a teammate of Richesin in the 1947 Dipsea who went on to win the race twice and earn a spot in the Hall of Fame, recalls an incident from spring 1948.

“I was in a three-way junior college track meet between Marin, Vallejo and Santa Rosa at Santa Rosa. But I forgot my track spikes. Luckily, Charlie was in a high school meet next door and loaned me his shoes. I not only won the mile wearing them, but noticed how cushiony they felt with extra foam rubber Charlie had put in them. So I began putting extra foam in all my running shoes afterward. Decades later, an orthopedic surgeon told me I had the cartilage of a much younger man because of Charlie’s foam rubber.”

            After graduation, Richesin taught and coached at Lincoln High in Stockton, then became the track coach at the University of the Pacific. He stayed until 1965, when his wife had an opportunity to teach in Hawaii. The family—which then included four children—relocated.

“It was supposed to be for two years,” Richesin says, “but I ended up staying 31.” He again taught and coached. One pupil was Duncan Macdonald, who went on to set the American record at 5,000 meters.

            Despite knee surgery and three heart surgeries, including one in 2012, Richesin has continued to run. He ran the 2010 Dipsea--64 years after his first, a span surpassed only by Jack Kirk—but was not allowed to officially finish because he misplaced his bib number. Over the past dozen years, Richesin has coached track at Clear Lake, Lower Lake and Justin Siena high schools. He now remains active organizing events at the Veterans Home of Yountville, where he lives.   

            “I had been criticizing the Dipsea handicap system for a long time, saying they were giving young kids brand new to the race too much head start, so I thought the officials were angry with me and that I’d never get into the Hall of Fame,” Richesin says. “This means more to me than any other honor.” After 66 years, all is forgotten and forgiven.