Grace Apiafi, a current Pasadena City College kinesiology instructor and the former Lancers men's/women's track and field and cross country head coach, has been inducted into the California Community College Track and Field Hall of Fame.
Apiafi will be honored in a 2 p.m. pre-meet ceremony at the Southern California Championships on Friday, May 10 at Cerritos College.
Apiafi coached three PCC state champion student-athletes, but is also was one of the greatest throwers in community college state history when she participated at Mt. San Antonio College in 1990.
Competing for Mt. SAC, she set a still-standing state meet record to win the gold medal in the shot put at 55 feet, 3.75 inches at the '90 championships. Apiafi also won the state title in the discus throw at 160-9, a record at the time that stood for 16 years before it was broken.
Apiafi served as a PCC head coach from 1992-2003. She helped coach PCC Sports Hall of Famer Sarah Goodlaw into becoming the very first state hammer throw champion in 1996, the first year the event was offered on the women's side.
Under Apiafi's leadership, Goodlaw set PCC school records in the shot put (42-11.75) and hammer throw (156-0), Michelle Bryant set the discus record in 1993 (144-6), Megan Kessler achieved the javelin record (121-8), and PCC Hall of Famer Elizabeth Heskett set a then national community college record and PCC standard in the pole vault of 12-7 in 2001.
Goodlaw, Heskett and Amber Roberts (high jump in 1997) were all state champions in their events.
Apiafi remains the longest tenured instructor in the Kinesiology, Health & Athletics Division at PCC, working here for the last 33 years. Last year, Apiafi helped the progress of PCC thrower Liz Ghazanchian as she nearly matched the PCC school record, missing just one inch shy of Bryant's mark. Apiafi was a volunteer assistant for current head coach Innocent Egbunike.
She represented her home country of Nigeria (dual citizen as she was born in London, England) in the 1998 Olympics in Seoul, Korea. Apiafi set the African national records in the shot put (55-3.34) and discus (179-8).