#70 - Records Falling Indoors

Inside This Issue

• Win The Inside Game

• Names In The News

• An Old Record Ripe To Fall

• Four Divisions Not Enough?

• Ohio Expands Its Divisions

• Go To BlueSky Now, Please!

Win The Inside Game

Steve Magness, one of the giants of modern thinking about high performance, is doing a special webinar on Wednesday, March 5th for customers who purchase his new book Win The Inside Game on Ann Arbor Running Company’s website HERE before January 26th. Here is Steve’s website if you are not familiar with who he is: https://www.stevemagness.com/.

Thanks to the Ann Arbor Running Company for its continuing support of Michtrack.org!

Names in the News

Will (Jaiden) Smith stunned with his hurdle final at the UM HS Showcase. He was only No. 3 after the heats with his 8.03, while teammate Schmar Gamble (7.97) and Zacchaeus Brocks (7.96) took turns breaking the meet record. But Smith owned the final, blasting a 7.74 that ranks as the No. 2 performance in history, behind just Olympian Freddie Crittenden’s state record 7.72 and ahead of the 7.75 that Mumford legend Kenneth Ferguson ran.

Emmry Ross put on a show at the UM HS Showcase, impressing her future Wolverine coaches. Facing some tough opposition, the Onsted senior flew to the front of the 800 and kept going through laps of 29.56, 31.14, 32.73 and 33.19. The final time of 2:06.62 leads the nation and is No. 2 in state history after Rachel Forsyth’s 2:06.30.

Demari Caldwell is one of the finds of the season. Last year at Southfield, he ran 49.07 and placed 10th in the D1 400. Now at Oak Park, he is doing some real damage. In Chicago at the CYUP Misfits meet, he ran 1:20.57 to break the state record for 600 (1:20.84 by De’karyea Freeman of Oak Park in 2016; there’s also a 1:20.8 by Dwayne Fuqua in ‘94). The next day in Ann Arbor, he won the 400 in 48.52. He also contributed a 48.94 on the 4×4, as he and his teammates broke the meet record at 3:22.37.

Kamryn Tatum is on fire. The West Bloomfield junior, who has won D1 titles at 200 and 400, won the UM Showcase in the 60 with her 7.40 PR. That tied the meet record and also tied her for No. 3 in history with Olympian Grace Stark. She then won the 200 in 24.36. A week before at Chicago’s Akinosun meet, she captured the double at 7.52 & 24.10 (No. 6 in history).

Freeland senior TJ Hansen has started his final prep track season a few strides ahead of his competition. First he won at SVSU in 4:12.70. Then in Chicago last weekend, he took the elite mile race in 4:09.21. There has already been talk of him going after the 4:00 barrier. One hopes that if this happens, it happens on a 200 track so it gets the full respect of the track world (the 4:00 barrier has been broken 7 times by high schoolers indoors, with the national record being Hobbs Kessler’s 3:57.61, and all of them have been run on record-quality 200 tracks).

Shelby senior Jessica Jazwinski placed 2nd at the CYUP Misfits HOKA mile in 4:50.15, as Texas Elin Latta won in 4:43.92.

Oak Park junior Rondre Austion had a good weekend, blasting 34.15 for 300 in Chicago on Saturday, a mark that makes him No. 3 in history. The next day he ran 48.53 for 400 at UM, which won the fast heat but left him just 0.01 behind teammate Demari Caldwell in the final standings.

Victoria Garces used a holiday trip to Boston to open up her season, placing 2nd in the mile at the MSTCA Holiday Challenge at the New Balance track. Racing Sophia McInnes, an All-American miler and NY State XC champ, Garces ran 4:51.97 to McInnes’s 4:47.52.

Front-running is back in the 800. We’ve seen a few splendid races already. Ypsilanti Lincoln junior Greg Myers ran a wire-to-wire 1:55.26 at the LAB. Three weeks later, he tried the same at the UM Showcase, but Cass Tech soph Wendell Childs, equally unafraid of the lead, won in 1:53.12 to Myers’ 1:55.54.

One of the stunning races at the UM Showcase came from Swan Valley senior Sydney Kuhn. The Wolverine recruit tore through her 400 in 55.09, which lasted as a meet record for a few minutes and eventually placed her 2nd overall. The mark ranks her No. 5 in state history.

So far, Midland Dow senior Sean Blaser is the top dashman in the state, owning the three fastest times at 60. His 6.85 makes him =21 in history.

Nevaeh Burns, now a soph at Oak Park, ripped 39.09 to win the 300 in at the CYUP Misfits meet in Chicago. That makes her No. 3 in history, after Kendall Baisden (38.16) and Leeah Burr (38.89).

East Kentwood soph Lorenzo Reynolds has shown some promising consistency in the long jump, with recent wins at 22-9 and 22-8.

With a 3rd-place in D1 last fall, it was clear that Pioneer frosh Natasza Dudek would be a force in cross country. Track too, it turns out. She opened up at Saginaw Valley with a tough 4:58.79 / 10:33.26 double.

Brennan Vainner, the senior from Parma Western, has been ruling the shot with two meets over 60-feet, topped by a 60-7.25.

The girls hurdles are deep this year, with an amazing 5 girls under 8.90 already, a mark that before this year, only 39 girls in history had ever bettered. Carrie VanNoy of Motor City leads the list at 8.68.

Liam Takace of Portage Central still leads the weight throw list with his 68-1.25 from December at Grand Valley.

The girls pole vault is another deep event this season, with three at 12-6 (Evie Mathis, Katie Blue and Isabel German).

For a look at how all the best stack up, check out the Michtrack Elite Lists, which include all of the out-of-state meets as well. www.michtrack.org

A Old Record Ripe To Fall?

We don’t run 600 meters often in this state, though for a 7-year stretch (1994-2000) it was contested at the indoor state championships. Nowadays to break the record, athletes usually have to go out of state. That’s what Motor City’s Demari Caldwell did for his recent 1:20.57 record.

The girls all-time best is 1:32.0 by Rochelle Collins of Detroit Immaculate High, set 48 years ago in London, Ontario. She was coached by Richard Ford of the Motor City TC and later starred at UTEP. MCTC teammate Delisa Walton came close with a 1:32.9 the next year. Since then, only Dorriann Coleman of Oak Park has challenged the mark, with a 1:33.12 at New York’s Armory in 2015.

Last weekend revealed that at least three current athletes have the potential to go faster. At the CYUP Misfits meet in Chicago, Motor City’s Janae Coleman ran 2nd in 1:33.31 and teammate Dayshana Kellogg 3rd in 1:33.68. The next day, Onsted’s Emmry Ross ran 1:33.43 at UM—and kept going to her 800m stunner (talked about above). Another that comes to mind is Sydney Kuhn, who has 54.978/2:08.34 credentials.

Four Divisions Not Enough?

I remember back when I was coaching in the schools the disappointment I felt when a hard-working kid I coached missed making it to the D1 finals, and knowing that if we were in another class, they might have a solid chance at all-state honors. It just didn’t seem fair.

I definitely get why a coach would advocate for more divisions. But yet, what might be good for their program might not be good for the sport as a whole. Adding more divisions waters the competition down. Trophies and medals would be easier to get, but they would also be cheaper.

Adding a division will make a few people happy, but there will still always be some people from the smaller schools in every division complaining about unfairness. That complaining will never go away. Not with 5 divisions, not with 50. I’m only half joking when I say if we went to 286 divisions in cross country—2 teams per division—we would still have some wanting a redo because of the unfairness of being beaten by a bigger school.

Bottom line is that not everyone wins a trophy in sports. What makes the sport exciting and creates fans are the great match-ups. Already we miss out on many of those, never seeing the best from all the divisions go head-to-head in an MHSAA championship setting. Perhaps instead of watering down our sport further, the ideal calendar would include an all-division meet after the division championships. It works for New Jersey, where it is a huge fan favorite and the ultimate in statewide prestige (and that’s where fans saw a young Sydney McLaughlin run some of her finest races as a prep).

Ohio Expands Its Divisions

The state to the south of us recently made the decision to add more divisions. We haven’t followed the situation very closely. For your information I have included a link to an opinion article that opposes the decision; it brings up some issues I hadn’t considered. In the interest of equal time, I’ve also included a link to an article that quotes coaches in favor of the move.

Go To BlueSky Now, Please!

There was a time when we would provide plenty of updates and news on Twitter. Those days are gone. That platform has fundamentally changed, and our posts that once would get hundreds of likes are barely noticed anymore, even though Michtrack claims 4200+ followers. We will still post occasionally there, but it’s not a priority.

Please, move to the BlueSky app if you want to get more Michtrack posts about XC and track news in our state.

We also have an Instagram presence, but going forward, that will mostly (not entirely) be focused on historical track & XC.

Help Us Out

If you haven’t donated to Michtrack before, please consider doing your part to help our efforts to celebrate these athletes and preserve the history of our great sport. It’s literally what keeps this newsletter going. Your donations are tax-deductible (and Zeffy givers are getting their tax forms soon, BTW). There are several different ways to give—check them out here.