No, I’m not talking about Carl Spackler, the groundskeeper from Caddyshack, but that would make for an interesting caretaker of our home course. We met our Karl through our church when my daughters were in 6th grade. Karl caught wind that they would run an occasional 5K in about 24 minutes and was excited about the prospect of Courtney and Jessica running for John Burnside someday soon at New Trier.
Karl just so happens to have blonde identical twin daughters that ran in the top seven at New Trier a few years before my daughters arrived. So, it is very understandable how Karl became addicted to the sport. Every few months Karl would stress how awesome running is at New Trier. To Karl’s delight (and ours), my girls decided to run cross country at New Trier.
(Karl explaining to Debbie the finer points of running.)
(Karl explaining to Debbie the finer points of running.)
Since Debbie and I did not run in high school (she was doing other productive things like tennis and cheerleading; me…read Blog #2) we were unsure how everything worked. How many girls run? How many score? How does a team win? Luckily we had Karl there from the very beginning. I remember our first meet; Karl not only showed us the secret place to park in Hinsdale at Katherine Legge Park, but he showed us where to be on the course at specific times for the ultimate viewing experience. After that, he moved on to all the scoring questions, strategies and desired splits. After all this, I thought to myself, this guy knows everything; he’s Yoda! We soon realized he was an unlimited source of running knowledge.
We stood with him later at our first conference meet as he rattled off his scouting report. “That’s Kristen Zillmer (Maine South); she’s a senior and the Queen of the Conference. She’ll take the race out fast. Megumi Hoshi (Niles West) will be on her tail. Danielle DeVito (GBS) will be right up front as well.” After the race had begun (New Trier has almost 200 runners so it looked like a tsunami coming thru), it unfolded just as Karl had predicted. That is, until my daughters made their move at about the one mile point. I remember as I was yesterday when we saw from across the field that Courtney had over taken Zillmer. Karl was as excited and shocked as we were.
(Karl and Coach Burnside sharing a moment.)
Karl knew about Emily Leonard and Megan Lemersal arriving on the scene to Maine South the next year. He gave us the heads up that Emily was an elite triathlete now focusing entirely on running. Where does he get all his info?!
We learned over the years that Karl was not only good with scouting reports and, he was also great at predicting outcomes. Sophomore year at the State Cross Country meet in Peoria, Karl told us to watch out for a name we had not heard to that point. Ariel Michalek (Oswego East) went on to win the 3A title, just as Karl had predicted.
The next year, Karl came down to Peoria for the state meet. New Trier was a favorite to win their first girls title and Karl did not want to miss this race. Our team of Courtney, Jessica, Mimi Smith, Julie Jackson, Molly Krueger, Kathleen Keene and Anna Berglund all ran well. As the parents and runners began to congregate near the finish line, everyone was looking for the official result. Did we win? All the runners wear timing chips, so why does it take 45 minutes to get the final results? That became clear when one of the race officials tweeted that he was victorious in the Mahjong round-robin they were having in the trailer. So that is where those race officials run off to; we had to wait.
(The team waiting for the results at state; Karl already had it figured out.)
Karl came strolling over to the New Trier camp after standing near the finish line doing a mental tally in his head. “I have New Trier with 82 points followed by Wheaton Warrenville South around 140 and Naperville North in the 180’s. We won.” This is great, but how can you do that in your head? 25 minutes later the results were announced, New Trier was State Champs with 82 points, followed by WWS with 144 and Naperville North with 183. Karl’s new name was Rainman, and it’s time to take him to Vegas!
So after all these years of watching great runners, Karl decided to turn himself into a top age-group runner and triathlete in the past few years. I learned how dedicated he had become when we both raced in the Twin Lakes Triathlon in Palatine last June. This would be his first triathlon which I had suggested he do. He started in a swim wave a few minutes ahead of me. I was sure I could catch him after a few miles on the bike. I didn’t pass him. I saw his wife when I was leaving the transition area for the run and she said Karl was just a minute or two ahead of me. I’ll get him, I thought. I covered the 5 mile run as fast as I could but never caught Karl. When the results were finally posted, we had the EXACT same time (I never saw him since he started 3 minutes ahead of me in the swim).
Karl, thanks for everything these past four years; as for our tie during Twin Lakes Tri; you’re mine this year!