Hall of Famers

CAL STATE L.A. TO INDUCT QUARTET
INTO ATHLETICS HALL

LOS ANGELES – One ran lightning-fast. One ran far – and fast. One jumped, jumped and jumped. And, one guided his basketball teams to eight California state titles – and a world tournament championship.

“Talk about a fantastic four!” said Dan Bridges, athletics director at California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA), announcing the 2007 inductees into the University’s Athletics Hall of Fame.

The 2007 CSULA Hall of Fame class includes:
- Sandra Farmer-Patrick, an Olympic sprinter in 1984, 1988 and 1992;
- Sylvia Mosqueda, the 1987 NCAA cross-country champion and, in a Division I-record time, the 1988 NCAA 10,000 meter champion;
- Jonathan Jordan, two-time All-American triple jumper;
- Willie West, legendary basketball coach at Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles.

The four will join 95 others in the Cal State L.A. Hall of Fame, which honors standout coaches, athletes and administrators for achievements on and off the field. The induction ceremony will be Thursday, March 15, 2007, in the University’s Golden Eagle Ballroom, with the festivities beginning with dinner at 6 p.m. For details, contact Charles Guthrie at (323) 343-5466.

Sandra Farmer-Patrick

It was clear that Sandra Farmer-Patrick would become one of the best American women 400m hurdlers when, at the age of 14, she set an American Junior record. As a member of Cal State L.A.’s track and field team from 1983 to 1985, she had many top finishes sandwiched around an eighth-place finish for her native Jamaica in the 1984 Olympics.

Then Farmer-Patrick’s career really accelerated. In 1987, she just missed a medal in the 400m hurdles at the World Championships in Rome. As a 400m hurdler for the U.S., she won a silver medal at the 1992 Olympics, gold medal at the 1989 and 1992 World Cups, gold medal at the 1990 Goodwill Games, and numerous other medals.

Competing in glamorous skirt-outfits, she launched a side career starring in many television commercials. She also earned a bachelor’s degree in industrial psychology and a master’s degree in human resources.

At the 2004 summer Olympic Games, she served as the lead athlete services coordinator for all sports. She currently chairs the USA Track & Field's Athlete’s Advisory Committee and serves as the United States Olympic Committee’s athlete representative.

Farmer-Patrick is married to another Olympic hurdler, David Patrick. They have a son and a daughter.

Sylvia Mosqueda

A graduate of San Gabriel High and one of the most versatile runners of her generation, Sylvia Mosqueda holds five Cal State L.A. school records: 800m (2:04.55), 1500m (4:15.12), 3000m (8:59.0), 5000m (15:30.5) and 10,000m (32:28.57).

Running for the Golden Eagles, she claimed two individual NCAA titles: in cross-country in 1988 and in the 10,000m in 1988. Eight years later, she was ranked the top 10,000m women runner in the country.

She earned seven NCAA titles, competed in three Olympic trials (’88, ’92, and ’96), and was named the Billie Jean King Woman NCAA Athlete of the Year.

Her personal best times include 4:11.17 in the 1500m, 31:54.03 in the 10,000m, and 2:33:11 in the marathon, which she achieved in New York City in 2004.

Jonathan Jordan

Jonathan Jordan earned All-America honors in track and field in 1996 and 1998.

In 1996, he won CCAA championships in the long jump and triple jump and claimed the NCAA Division-II titles in the indoor and outdoor triple jump. He also claimed the 1998 NCAA Outdoor Triple Jump championship.

In Cal State L.A.’s record books, he is listed second in the triple jump (54 feet, 3.25 inches) and third in the long jump (25 feet, 6.75 inches).

After graduating in 1999 from Cal State L.A. with a degree in criminal justice and health science, Jordan received a doctor of divinity degree from Tabernacle Bible College and Seminary in Tampa, Fla.

Since 2000, Jordan has been youth pastor of St. Mark Missionary Baptist Cathedral, where his father, Bishop Willie L. Jordan serves as pastor.

He has taught Bible study to youth, facilitated the youth prison ministry, initiated the Big Brothers Mentoring Program, provided pastoral care, heightened volunteer recruitment, and implemented the annual Youth Explosion. He will be consecrated as a bishop later this year.

Willie E. West Jr.

A basketball and baseball player during his student years at Cal State L.A., Willie West gained greater athletic recognition through his 37 years of coaching Crenshaw High School’s boys basketball team, a career in which he amassed 802 victories (as of the end of the 2006-07 regular season) and 139 defeats. Only three other coaches in California history have more victories.

His teams went won a record eight state titles, 16 Los Angeles City Section titles and 28 league titles. The 1985 team, which finished 31-0, traveled to Denmark and won the High School International Tournament Championship.

He has coached several players who made it to the NBA, including Marques Johnson. More than 40 of his former players later competed at four-year colleges, including current Cal State L.A. men’s basketball coach Stephen Thompson, who starred at Syracuse.

In 1995, the Crenshaw High School physical education complex was renamed the Willie E. West Jr. Pavilion. In 1999 and 2000, West was selected as head coach for the USA High School Basketball Olympic team in Colorado Springs.

In his first year, 1971, his team claimed the city crown and he was named the city’s “Coach of the Year,” an honor he would receive nine more times. He was named California “Coach of the Year” twice and Region 8 “Coach of the Year” twice. In 1990, the L.A. Sentinel newspaper named him “Man of the Year.”

Working for California since 1947: The 175-acre hilltop campus of California State University, Los Angeles is at the heart of a major metropolitan city, just five miles from Los Angeles’ civic and cultural center. More than 20,000 students and 190,000 alumni—with a wide variety of interests, ages and backgrounds—reflect the city’s dynamic mix of populations. Six colleges offer nationally recognized science, arts, business, criminal justice, engineering, nursing, education and humanities programs, among others, led by an award-winning faculty. Cal State L.A. is home to the critically-acclaimed Luckman Jazz Orchestra and to a unique university center for gifted students as young as 12. Programs that provide exciting enrichment opportunities to students and community include an NEH- and Rockefeller-supported humanities center; a NASA-funded center for space research; and a growing forensic science program, to be housed in the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center now under construction. www.calstatela.edu