The scene of 15,000 fans running around Detweiller Park on "Championship Saturday" is surreal (Andy Derks photo)
As the state cross country 3A boys race was about to begin, I stood on the course waiting for our runner junior Jack Sebok (photo insert) to make a run out. I paused and looked around to soak up the environment. I looked to the left and saw Sandburg fans on one side of the course screaming a chant to more Sandburg fans on the other side of the course. In the distance I could hear the York band clearly playing some great music. Fans from other schools proudly displayed signs for their runners. There were lots of cow bells and drums beating. Team flags swung from side to side. This was great! I almost felt like I was in a movie. The anticipation of the race and the environment had my adrenaline pumping! I got chills up and down my spine just wishing I had an opportunity to compete in an atmosphere that I was now experiencing.
From the moment the season begun, I’ve been hearing about how awesome the state cross country meet in Illinois is. I had circled November 8th on my calendar way back in June and was looking forward to seeing the meet first hand. I hoped that it would live up to the hype as the Illinois track and field state championship had in May for me. And, as expected, this race lived up to the hype. As a school, our only qualifier Sebok, who I’ve written a lot about this year. We headed down to Peoria on Friday getting there early enough to run the course.
It felt great to run on the course. My disclaimer is that I’m by no means a distance runner. I have been a long jumper my entire life and still continue to long jump at meets when I have the opportunity to. But, I could literally feel the energy on Friday running the course and I ran a lot faster and longer than I normally can because of it. We had a good group of our athletes come down Friday night to support Jack and it was nice to have a lot of familiar faces around for Jack’s first state race. On Saturday more team members came down and we had almost our entire team there to experience the state meet.
We arrived to the course in time to see the 2A girls race on Saturday and wow the atmosphere was great already for that race! And, as the races went on, each race, the environment seemed to pick up until the culmination of the boys 3A race. I was impressed by several performances in the races but one of the most impressive was that of freshman Charlie Kern of York. I think his performance was a little overlooked as Kern ran the fastest freshman time since the data started in 1971 running 14:36 and placing 8th overall. I’m not sure if anyone before 1971 ran that fast as a freshman but I would find it hard to believe. I was also impressed that senior Jesse Reiser of McHenry closed in a blazing 4:27 last mile to win the 3A boys title. He really slammed the door on his competition and closes out a great [state side] high school career.
Looking back on our season at Plainfield North, we had our share of ups and downs. In the history of the school, this year we had our best team that we’ve ever had. However, next year’s team will without a doubt be better than the team we had this year. We’re working hard to bring this program to the top and will keep working till we get there. We have what Palatine coach Chris Quick calls initial energy. Our team this year is paving the way for our future. I like to describe success as a puzzle. To solve the puzzle, you need to have the correct pieces. Once you have the pieces, you need to put them together correctly to solve it. We have the correct pieces, now we need to solve the puzzle to achieve success.
I hope you all enjoyed my blog series this cross country season. It has been a pleasure to write these and I’ve gotten lots of positive feedback from them. For now, it’s time to shift gears for me and switch from the distance side of things back to my jumping roots as the jumps coach at Plainfield North. I’m excited to get winter training going and building up the jumps program. I’ll work with the distance side of things as much as possible but sprinters/jumpers will be my main priority throughout the track and field season. Best of luck to all, thanks for reading!