Expand<\/a><\/p>\nA celebration of his life will take place during a 5K walk with the Leisure Leggers Running Club on May 2, his wife said.<\/p>\n
Participating in that walk will be George Wallims and John Sumpter, two current members of the Long Beach Legacy Runners group.<\/p>\n
\u201cTom was a very good friend,\u201d said Wallims, who lives in Huntington Beach. \u201cI helped him cross the finish line the times he had a bad back. He also was a mentor who encouraged me to continue when I was down. He was inspirational. There\u2019s a special bond between us all united by the Long Beach Marathon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sumpter, a former Poly High School golf coach who has also run in every Long Beach Marathon since 1982, said the number of Legacy Runners is dwindling. There were 14 Legacy Runners in 2024, he said, but that number has been reduced to five because of health issues and deaths.<\/p>\n
Pontac was born in Glendale in 1936 and raised there.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis father told him that everyone was put on this Earth to help others, something that was ingrained in his actions,\u201d Haislett said. \u201cTom willed his body to the UC Irvine Willed Body program. He couldn\u2019t pass a person in need on the street, so he always had an energy bar and $20 to give them.\u201d<\/p>\n
She called her husband an extraordinary man.<\/p>\n
After his first career as an interior designer and commercial furniture salesman, he attended Cal State Long Beach at the age of 60 and earned a bachelor\u2019s degree in psychology and a certificate in gerontology at 64.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis love for knowledge resulted in his taking over 270 college courses until he \u2018dropped out\u2019 at age 77,\u201d she said. \u201cHe had a second career for 10 years at CSULB as a community liaison between the university and Leisure World.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a poet, he was the author of \u201cMovies in a Minute,\u201d 100 movies condensed into poetry.<\/p>\n
Haislett said she and Pontac got married after she answered a personal ad he had placed in the Orange County Register for a date. The ad read: \u201cPoetic. Athletic. Still believes in love.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were married for 30 years,\u201d she said. \u201cHe used to say that he was glad he \u2018found me\u2019 at the age of 60 (I was 50),\u201d she said. \u201cTom was the love of my life. We spent 30 years traveling the world and completing marathons and ultramarathons. He was my coach and running partner, and together we completed 400-plus races, including in Paris, Italy, Ireland, Canada, New York, San Diego, Los Angeles and Long Beach.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to his passion for running and learning, Pontac was also a loving grandfather to Ben, Cole, Luke and Fabian, Haislett said.<\/p>\n
Pontac also lived by several other mottos, his wife said, including \u201cit\u2019s never too late to be what you might have been\u201d and \u201cold age isn\u2019t for sissies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pontac\u2019s neurologist said he was \u201can amazing man, an adjective that he loved and lived up to,\u201d according to Haislett.<\/p>\n
She said her favorite nickname for him was \u201cUltra Tom.\u201d<\/p>\n
The remaining Legacy Runners, meanwhile, will run in Pontac\u2019s honor at this year\u2019s Long Beach Marathon on Oct. 11, Sumpter said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Pontac, a Legacy Runner who had participated in every Long Beach Marathon since it started in 1982,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[7,23,131,133,132,137,10238],"class_list":["post-279197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-california","tag-local-news","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-obituaries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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