#2 - The School Season Has Begun!

The School Season Has Begun!

For some, the club season leading to the MITS Finals and the national meets is the ideal way to prepare for outdoors. Not for everybody, though. With the big indoor invitational meets last week, we got to see a bunch of new names in the results, and some of them looked very ready for outdoors. Whether they were using the winter months to train hard or they were on the couch with their PlayStation, I don’t know, but the results indicate the former.

GVSU Laker Invitational Boys: We didn’t see Grand Haven’s Seth Norder at all during the club season, but the D1 runner-up in the 1600 last year (with a sophomore state record) proved he had a very good winter, winning Wednesday by more than 20 seconds with a 4:12.17, a time second only to Hunter Jones this season. And East Kentwood’s Peyhton Wade likewise, as his 60 in 6.88 moved him to No. 3 on the state list. Teammate Joshua Hurt PRed in the hurdles at 8.03.

SVSU D1/2: A great hurdle duel between Seneca Moore (Holt) and Kayenn Mabin (Kalamazoo Central) saw Moore win, 8.36-8.39. Freshman Colton Whyte of Bay City Western took the high jump at 6-2. On the girls side, another frosh made waves, Sadie Dykstra of Yale long jumping 17-3 for the win. Margaret Monaghan of Port Huron Northern won the hurdles at 9.19.

SEC Invite: On Thursday, the LAB saw Pioneer’s Rachel Forsyth take the state lead in the 1600 at 4:53.33. Behind her, teammates Emily Cooper (4:59.93) and Sylvia Sanok Dufallo (5:01.00) also impressed. Long jumper Nicole Warren of Saline went 17-8.5. On the boys side, Jackson soph Ahmed Ahmeen blazed 49.46 in the 400 and Lincoln find Charlie Garner leaped a PR 21-9 in the long jump.

GVSU Laker Invitational Girls: The best race in the Thursday girls meet was the 1600, where Holland West Ottawa’s Arianne Olsen hit 4:56.71 ahead of Lowell’s Annika Sandman (4:57.94) and Grandville’s Allie Arnsman (4:59.07). Grand Haven’s Valerie Beeck won the 800 in 2:15.11 and East Kentwood frosh Alana Bracey the hurdles in 9.47. Rockford soph Greta Caprathe-Buczek PRed at 5-7 in the high jump for No. 2 on the state list.

SVSU D3-4: Top performances from Lyberty Brandt of Swan Valley (5-1 HJ) and Devin Johnston of Almont (25.71 in 200). For the boys, it was sophomore pole vaulter Tryce Tokar of Ovid-Elsie (14-1) and distance runners Tyler Lenn of Marine City Mooney (4:25.70 at 1600) and Dakota Dykhuis of Montabella (9:28.40 for 3200).

Huron Relays - Small Schools: Anthany Buford picked up where he left off. The D4 long jump runner-up last year For Detroit Frederick Douglas Academy with a big PR of 22-0, he won here in a PR-tying 22-0. Monroe Jefferson’s Carter McCalister won the 1600 by more than 17 seconds at 4:22.63. Country Day’s Victoria Miller won the girls 60 in 8.06 after a 7.92 heat.

Huron Relays - Large Schools: Canton soph Quincy Isaac lit up the field events, high jumping 6-5 and a state-leading 22-8.25 in the long jump. Last year as a frosh, he had bests of 6-2 and 21-7.75. Michael Davis-Hawkins led Michiganders in the hurdles with his big 8.16 PR. Pioneer’s Rachel Forsyth went to the top of another list, her 2:13.83 winner (by nearly 20 seconds) the fastest 200m track time of the year. Woodhaven soph Maya Justice took a nice 17-6 long jump win.

College Track: Why Not More?

I’ve been asked why Michtrack doesn’t focus more on all the great college programs in the state of Michigan. Instead, via Twitter I only occasionally highlight national champions and athletes who make a big dent on the alumni top 10 lists in their events. Why not more?

Quick answer: I’d do more if I had time. Plus, all the major college programs have sports information people whose job it is to publicize their athletes, so I don’t feel like they’re terribly neglected. All the same, one of my long-range plans is to expand the Michtrack Results Archive to include historic collegiate results, because those are getting to be hard to find from the pre-TFRRS era.

Treasures From The Archives

One of my passions is saving our sport’s history. Too often crucial results have been trashed; it happens almost every time an old coach passes away. In creating the Michtrack Results Archive, I am trying to save all those old pieces of paper by making them available to everyone, free, as PDF files. In a perfect world, coaches would take the time to get their old files scanned and send them to me for inclusion. A few amazing people have done just that, however, most of the results are still coming from me begging various people for access to their files, carting all the boxes home, and scanning them when I get a rare bit of free time.

The process, however, has turned up treasures that I didn’t imagine still existed. Check out this piece of paper, from 1959. At first glance, it’s just the results of a lopsided dual meet. “Complete” results, per the standards of the day. None of the marks look very impressive by our standards, except for that hand-timed “14.05” in the high hurdles on a soft dirt track. But look at the 180-yard lows, a long-departed event. Originally, the typist neglected to include the winning time. It was found by hitting the newspaper archives.

Putting those marks in perspective: the 14.1 was just 0.2 away from the national prep record. And the 18.9 was a state record for the 180-yard lows. That season Cawley would go on to be named the national HS Athlete of the Year; Track & Field News gave him a top 10 World Ranking in both the 110H and 400H against the “pros”! And 5 years later, Cawley would be the 400H gold medalist and World Record holder.

A Legend To Know: Jack Bacheler (Seaholm 1962)

At 6-6, Bacheler played basketball for Seaholm High, but as a senior, he decided to try the cross country team. He found he liked it better, saying, “I was skinny and not real aggressive.” In his only high school season he ran 3^rd in the mile at the Class A Finals in 4:28.0.

At Miami of Ohio, Bacheler devoted himself to running, and the results came fast. In the ’64 Olympic Trials, he placed 11^th in the steeplechase. He finished 7^th in the NCAA cross country that fall, and in 1966 he was NCAA runner-up in the steeplechase. But longer distances beckoned.

After graduation, he became part of the Florida Track Club where he would put in plenty of miles with Frank Shorter. He made the Olympic 5000 squad in 1968. In Mexico City, he qualified for the final, feeling good in the high altitude. “First, it was enough for me to make the Trials,” he said. “Then when I made them, it would have been enough to make the team. Now that I’ve made the team, I’m thinking about placing.”

However, dysentery struck and Bacheler was unable to even make it to the final.

Over the next few years, Bacheler won two USA titles at 6M/10K and another in cross country. Famous for his brutal training, he and Frank Shorter worked themselves into incredible shape. In 1972, after failing to make the Olympic team at 10,000 (he was passed in the stretch for the last spot, then disqualified), he opted for the Trials marathon, placing 3^rd .

At the Munich Olympics, Shorter won the gold, Kenny Moore placed 4^th , and Bacheler finished 9^th . It was one of the best U.S. team marathon performances ever. For Bacheler, it was torture. He feet swelled up in the closing miles. Four runners passed him. He lost 9 toenails.

He summed it all up: “If there’s one quality that a distance runner needs above all others, it’s persistence.”

He earned a total of 12 Track & Field News Top 10 U.S. Rankings: steeplechase (No. 6 in ’66), 5000 (5 times, No. 1 in ’70), 10,000 (5 times, No. 1 in ’69) and marathon (No. 3 in ’72).

Professionally, he made his career as a professor of entomology; he is currently a professor emeritus at North Carolina State, specializing in cotton pest management.

Interview: 400m State Record Holder Shamar Heard

Shamar Heard and the 400 go way back—he’s the state recordholder for 6^th and 7^th graders. As part of the 16 Ways track program (“a 400m-based program”) he has fully embraced that unique discomfort that comes from pushing the edge in the one-lapper. Last season for Clinton Township Chippewa Valley, he came back from a potentially season-ending hamstring injury on the first weekend in May to win the D1 100/200 double a month later. Two months after that, he stunned the world with his 46.02 Michigan record to win the AAU Junior Olympic title. He was only a sophomore. Now, fresh off his two indoor state records at New Balance (47.64 and 47.62) and a day after his first home recruiting visit with Georgia coach Caryl Smith Gilbert, he sat down to talk to us.

Michtrack: How was that recruiting process going for you? Is it getting crazy yet?

Heard: Yeah, it's getting a little crazy, but you know, me and my coach, we talked about it, so we kind of expected some sort of attention.

Michtrack: For college, what's it going to be, football or track?

Heard: Right now? It's going to be track. Some of the offers that I do have in football don't have a track program, and I want to continue doing track. So with that Georgia offer I just got, I can do what I want to do and not damage my body in the process.

Michtrack: Last year during the school season you concentrated on 100, 200, which you won at State, but then you moved up to the 400 in the summer. Was that the master plan, or was that just the way it worked out with different coaches?

Heard: That was the plan, to prove that I was not just a 400m runner, I could dominate in the 1, 2, 4. So it was kind of the “cover all bases” to try to become Michigan's best sprinter. That was the goal.

Michtrack: Are you looking at a similar process this year?

Heard: We don’t know yet. The first few meets, we're gonna see how it feels, figure it out and we'll make that adjustment there.

Michtrack: You've always been a 400 runner. There are a lot of sprinters that are afraid moving up to the 400.

Heard: Because not a lot of people want to feel the pain to get to where they need to get to. It’s fun, but it hurts. If you feel the pain, then you know you're doing something right, as long as you’re doing the workouts and executing what you're supposed to do in practice. That's the number one thing when I talk to guys, they don't feel that pain ‘cause it hurts too bad. You just can't be afraid of it.

Michtrack: Last summer, the time that blew everyone away was that 46.02 state record, did that surprise you?

Heard: Oh yeah, it surprised me big time, but I kinda knew I had more left in that last 100m. I'm like, “Hold on, I still got this,” because I'm looking at the clock the last 30 meters. I'm like, “Yeah. I'm definitely about to run 46.” I just didn't know what it was going to be.

Michtrack: If you had it to do over again, do you think you could cut off that 0.03 to get under 46?

Heard: At that time, I did the best I could. I left it all out there, man.

Michtrack: So what do you want to do this year in the 400?

Heard: My goal, well, the first goal obviously, since we gotta take baby steps, is to hit 45, but at the end we want to try to push 44. Even if we fall a little bit short, not a lot of guys are gonna be running low 45s.

Michtrack: What got you interested in being fast in the first place?

Heard: In elementary I was always fast, always the quickest, I was fastest at school. I got a big head. And they were like, “Oh, you should probably do track.” Then in track, I made it to JOs my first year and I lost really bad. I didn't want to feel that again. I wanted to be number one. My favorite movie was “Cars” growing up. So it was always like Lightning McQueen wanting to be number one, that speed mentality. I kind of grew up with that, and that first year it was an eyeopener. Ever since then it has been, “You know what? I want to be the fastest on the track and I want to do whatever it takes to get there.”

Michtrack: All your success last year almost didn’t happen. I was announcing the New Balance Invitational at Farmington last year and saw you go down with a pulled hamstring.

Heard: It was really hard mentally to try to come back and really run the hardest, I could at that level. Doing physical therapy, trying to work it out, slowly getting back. The first 3-4 days I was on crutches. I wasn't walking. So after that, I didn't run until probably about the last three days before regionals. The first time it was on the treadmill. It wasn't nothing serious. I did a practice run at Chip the day before and the next day I went to regionals. The mental part was really hard, to trust my body not to give out because the next step was most likely gonna be a clean tear. You know, just to have that on your mind…

Michtrack: Given all that, it’s amazing you won at State.

Heard: Yeah, it was, I don't even know how I did it. It was a blessing, honestly. Everybody was surprised ‘cause it was like, man, the hamstring was still hurting. I didn't fully get healthy. I wasn't even healthy at JOs. It was just dealing with that on and off and all the physical therapy. So yeah, I think everybody was pretty much surprised.

Michtrack: We can't wait to see what you do with a healthy season this year.

Heard: Oh yeah. I just gotta keep the same mentality.

Watch Heard’s state record 46.02

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