Quick Take
Like so many of his neighbors, retired Santa Cruz dentist Barry Staley is following the Paris Olympics with interest. But Staley has a special connection to the Olympics and its past and future in Los Angeles: He carried the torch locally ahead of the 1984 Summer Games.
The minute the applause dies down and the parking lots begin to clear in Paris at the closing ceremony on Sunday, the world’s thoughts will immediately turn to the next Olympic Games.
Are you ready for “LA28”?
Yep, the next Summer Games are slated for Los Angeles in 2028, marking the third time L.A. has hosted them. One local person who is especially looking forward to the next Olympics is retired Santa Cruz dentist Barry Staley.
The previous time the Olympics came to Los Angeles, in 1984, Staley was one of more than 3,600 Americans who carried the Olympic torch. In the run-up to the ’84 Games, the torch was transported across the country, from New York City to Los Angeles, in time for the Games’ opening ceremony, across a distance of more than 9,300 miles. That route actually came through Santa Cruz County, coming from the Santa Clara Valley into Watsonville before turning south. Staley got the chance to run with the torch for a mile or two between Watsonville and Castroville.
“It was heavier than I thought,” he said, remembering the moment 40 years after the fact. “And you had to hold it in the right spot or it would get pretty hot.”
Technically, it was not the Olympic torch that made its way across the entire continent that summer, it was the flame inside it. For his troubles, Staley got to keep the torch he carried, a relic he still has today.
Staley was chosen as one of those carrying the torch based on a charitable donation to the Boys & Girls Club.
As deeply meaningful carrying the Olympic torch was for Staley, it was not a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Astonishingly, it was the second time he had done it. He was a high school student during the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley (now Palisades Tahoe) in California’s Olympic Valley. As the torch relay made its way there from Los Angeles, it passed through the Central Valley town where young Barry was living at the time. As the son of a local community college track coach, he got the chance to carry the torch for the ’60 Games as well.
Is it possible that he could be a three-time torch bearer? Staley is now 80, and his next chance is still four years away. Asking anyone that age to make plans on something that far into the future is an exercise in uncertainty, especially if it involves a physically taxing task. But, given all that uncertainty, he’s still game.
“Well, maybe,” he said. “I think I could probably run that one — I’m not sure how well I could do it. But it all depends on the situation.”
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