2 irreplaceable leaders of the South Bay sports scene

The South Bay sports scene will miss two remarkable figures in the future: Jan Elix, who recently died of bladder cancer, and Ted Leland, who leaves Stanford at the end of the year for the University of the Pacific. Both left indelible marks here.

Jan was an accomplished diver by age 11, but a diving accident left her a quadriplegic. Nevertheless, she graduated from San Jose State and worked for the city parks, recreation and neighborhood services department for 31 years in the Office of Adapted Sports, where she worked on wheelchair sports, including the Far West Regional Games, and was founder of the Northern California Junior Sports Camp. She was inducted into the Wheelchair Sports, USA Hall of Fame.

Our staff worked closely with Jan, who was an exceptional person and who will be dearly missed.

Ted accomplished the unprecedented in his 14-year tenure as Stanford athletic director, making Stanford the top college athletic program in the country and winning the Directors’ Cup, emblematic of that honor, the last 11 years. Under Leland, Stanford teams won 50 national championships and 173 Pac-10 Conference titles. He did this by maintaining the highest standards in the country for academics and integrity.

We enjoyed working with Ted and his staff in co-hosting the 1999 NCAA Women’s Final Four as well as the Bay Area’s bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games. His wonderful personality, gentlemanly style and sense of optimism were qualities that made an immediate impression and will not soon be forgotten.

Best of luck to Ted in his new position of vice president of university advancement at his alma mater, the University of the Pacific.

Dean Munro
Executive Director

Five South Bay sports personalities who made their marks in the NFL, tennis, high school football and golf will be inducted into the San Jose Sports Hall of Fame at its annual dinner ceremony Thursday, Nov. 3 in HP Pavilion.

The 2005 Class, which begins the Hall’s second decade and raises the membership to 54, includes:

• Brent Jones, a football star whose entire career – from Leland High to Santa Clara to the San Francisco 49ers – was spent in the Bay Area,
• Sisters Barbara and Kathy Jordan, national championship tennis players at Stanford before going on to win singles and doubles titles at Wimbledon and in the Australian, French and U.S. Opens,
• Benny Pierce, football coach at Saratoga High for 34 seasons and winner of 17 league championships,
• Ken Venturi, former San Jose State golfer whose professional titles include the 1964 U.S. Open.

The induction ceremonies begin with a reception and silent auction followed by the dinner. Sponsorship packages and dinner tickets may be reserved by calling (408) 288-2936.

Visit the San Jose Sports Hall of Fame’s new website.

Runners will take to the streets and trails Sunday, Oct. 30 in the Metro Silicon Valley Marathon.

The eighth running of San Jose’s only marathon also includes a half-marathon, 5K run/walk and kids races. The scenic out-and-back course begins in downtown San Jose, runs through Willow Glen and then follows the paved Los Gatos Creek Trail to Los Gatos before returning. Dean Munro, the Sports Authority’s executive director, serves on the marathon’s six-member board of directors with Vice Mayor Cindy Chavez.

Register online at www.svmarathon.com/index2005a.html?registration.html.

The U.S. Senior National Taekwondo Championships in San Jose will feature the top American athletes, including future Olympians for the 2008 Beijing Games.

Approximately 1,300 athletes and coaches will participate in the event Oct. 27-30 in the McEnery Convention Center in downtown San Jose. Some qualified for the annual competition, which is the first step toward making the 2006 U.S. Senior National Team, last March when USA Taekwondo held one of six national qualifying events in San Jose.

The event, and the accompanying Taekwondo Assembly on Oct. 29, will fill nearly 3,000 hotel room nights downtown.

Are you up for a 13.1-mile party? You’ve got a year to get ready for it.

That’s when the Oct. 8, 2006 Rock ’n’ Roll Half Marathon is coming to San Jose. "What you're going to see here is essentially a 13.1-mile party," said Tim Murphy, president of Elite Racing, Inc., which created the rock ’n’ roll concept in San Diego and has spread the successful foot race franchise to Nashville, Tenn., Virginia Beach, Va., and Phoenix.

Murphy predicts a first-year entry total of 15,000 runners for the race, which begins and ends downtown, the two-day Health & Fitness Expo that precedes it on Friday and Saturday, and the rock and roll concert afterward in HP Pavilion. It’s anticipated that 7,000 to 8,000 runners will be from outside the area and stay overnight in San Jose.

Julie A. Frambach is an attorney in the real estate department of Hopkins & Carley, a San Jose law firm. Most of her life has been spent in the Bay Area.

She’s active in community sports. In addition to serving on the Sports Authority board she is on the executive advisory board for the Taylor Woodrow Grand Prix of San José and the local organizing committee for the State Farm Pac-10 Women's Basketball Tournament. She’s also a member of the National Charity League.

As a lawyer, Julie is a member of the American Bar Association and serves on the executive committees of the real property section of both the State Bar of California and Santa Clara County Bar Association. She is a board member of CREW, Silicon Valley (Commercial Real Estate Women).

She received a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology from UC Santa Cruz and earned her Juris Doctor Degree magna cum laude from the Santa Clara University School of Law.