Irene Obera sprints to victory at the 1997 National Track and Field Championships in San Jose, where she took first in the 100-, 200-, and 400-meter dashes.

Veteran Athlete Sprints for New Record

Meet Irene Obera, a spirited 74-year-old sprinter. She has competed in more than 10 countries, held numerous world records in various age groups, and been inducted into four athletic halls of fame. In 2006, the Women’s Sports Foundation honored Obera, along with legends Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova, and Jackie Joyner-Kersee, at their Annual Salute to Women in Sports Awards Dinner in New York City.

“I like challenges,” says Obera (BS, Physical Education and Special Secondary P.E. Credential, ’57) about her impressive athletic record. “When somebody tells me I can’t do something, that’s when I get super motivated.”

Obera also found her college experience at CSU, Chico to be motivating. She credits the University’s motto, “Today Decides Tomorrow,” as being a lifelong inspiration, and speaks affectionately about her professors and mentors, Jane Wells Shurmer and Art Acker. “They were quality people who taught the intrinsic value of playing sports,” says Obera, who was a member of the field hockey, softball, and basketball teams.

It wasn’t until after college graduation that Obera developed an interest in track. “I was at softball practice when a teammate told me she was a track champion,” she recalls. “I thought to myself, ‘If she is a champion, I know I can be one, too.’ You might say I was a bit cocky.” Cocky or not, she placed at her very first track event in 1958. During the next four decades, she would go on to compete in two Olympic trials and set all the world age-group records, at one time or another, in the 100-, 200-, and 400-meter dashes.

Though she has received numerous athletic awards, titles, and honors, including a 1991 induction into the Chico State Athletic Hall of Fame, Obera says her greatest achievement has been her career in education. From 1958 to 1994, she worked for Berkeley Unified School District, where she was a teacher, department chair, counselor, dean, and Berkeley’s first female continuation school principal. For Obera, seeing her students graduate has been her life’s “crowning glory.”

Obera won’t be found resting on her laurels—or anything else—any time soon. She intends to compete in the 2009 Senior Olympics at Stanford and in the 2011 World Masters Athletics Championships in Sacramento. Her agenda: to earn another world record. “I wouldn’t mind setting world records in both the 20th and 21st centuries,” says Obera.

Sarah Digness (BA, English, ’01; Credential, ’03) is a grant writer for Gary Bess and Associates, a nonprofit consulting firm in Paradise, California.