It wasn’t just that the 2004 Ventura High girls cross country team won the Division 1 state championship.
Ventura posted one of the lowest team scores in meet history – 46 points – and it became Ventura County’s only school to win back-to-back Division 1 girls cross country championships.
Two of dozens of championships that its coach, Bill Tokar, has helped direct over a 30-year career.
His first Channel League championship took its place on the podium in 1986.
A Masters degree in Human Biomechanics served him well.
From 1996-2005, Tokar’s boys and girls teams accounted for 22 cross country league titles, 15 CIF-Southern Section finalists, 10 state qualifiers, 14 top 10 section finishers and seven top 10 state team placers.
Helping to set the pace for distance runners to follow, Josh Spiker won the 1999 1,600-meter run to anchor Ventura’s Division 2 team title. Spiker finished fourth at the state cross country meet the following fall and closed out his career section track titles in the 1,600 and 3,200 in 2000.
The 2002 girls cross country team was third in the Division 2 section final and finished runnerup at state.
Closing out the signature stretch, the Ventura girls placed third in the 2005 Division 2 state final and the boys team was the 2006 Division 2 runnerup by a scant five points.
As an assistant, Toker had a role in 15 league cross country and track and field team championships.
Tokar has been a lead instructor at LA 84 Foundation cross country and track clinics since 1996.
He and wife Cindy are the parents of Holly Tokar, a former county girls pole vault record holder and section champion.