‘A Forgotten Championship’
There’s no mention of it in the 1967 Glenwood High School yearbook.
Track and field fans rarely mention it when referring to Glenwood’s historic track and field success, including its 1989, 1990 and 2011 state titles.
Were it not for the banner, that wasn’t hung in the high school gym until 2011, and a dusty trophy on display behind the more recent outdoor state track championship trophies, Glenwood’s first state championship might be lost to history.
Fifty years ago this spring, Glenwood won the Indoor State Track Championship.
You read that right.
Indoor State Track Championship.
The Iowa High School Athletic Association (IHSAA) formerly awarded an indoor track state championship. Held at the University of Iowa, with trophies awarded every year from 1931 until 1972 – save for three years during World War II – the indoor track champions were crowned on the floor of the old Iowa Field House.
The event rose out of an open university track event dating to the 1920s when high schools in Iowa and neighboring states were allowed to compete. In 1930, the IHSAA negotiated a deal with the university that beginning in 1931 the meet would be limited to Iowa high schools and henceforth be known as the State Indoor Track Championship. From 1931 to 1939 all schools competed in a single class. The event was split into two classes from 1940-1952 and four classes beginning in 1953.
Events came and went at the meet over the years but by 1967 the state indoor meet consisted of 13 events: the 50-yard dash, the 60-yard low hurdles, the 60-yard high hurdles, the 440-yard dash, the 880-yard run, the mile run, the two-mile run, the mile relay, the two-mile relay, the shot put, high jump, long jump and pole vault.
The indoor state title was the Rams’ first in any sport. And yet, many fans probably aren’t even aware there was once a state indoor track championship awarded in Iowa, let alone that Glenwood was one of the teams to win one.
“There’s no doubt, its been an overlooked state title for a long time,” said Steve Turner, a sophomore on that 1967 team. “It’s been kind of a forgotten championship.”
So how did Glenwood get to the top of the indoor track heap half a century ago and how did it seemingly slip through the cracks of history?
* * *
Glenwood’s track team got up early the morning of March 23, 1967.
The nine-man squad – sophomores Turner and Gary Smith; junior Roger Sell; and seniors Dick Keith, Ken Hunter, Jerry Gillespie, Roger Sieck, Roger Maness and Dennis Lincoln – piled into two of the coaches’ cars for the six-hour trek to Iowa City.
There was no celebratory send off as the team pulled out of the high school parking lot. They didn’t even get the luxury of riding a school bus.
The Class A portion of the meet kicked off in the afternoon at the Iowa Field House. More than 200 high schools were represented in four classes. No official crowd estimates could be found but its been guessed more than 5,000 fans were in attendance.
The cinder surface, 220-yard track was laid right over the same floor the Hawkeyes had upset top-10 ranked and eventual Big 10 champion Indiana Hoosiers on that January.
The details of the state indoor meet are hazy, clouded by time and age but the feeling of walking in the Iowa Field House that day has never left Dick Keith, a sprinter on the 1967 team.
“When you’re a kid from Glenwood, Iowa, running in a place like that, it was huge,” said Keith of the home of the Hawkeyes basketball team from 1927 to 1983. “But at the same time, it wasn’t overwhelming for us. We had done well at state the year before and at Drake against the big dogs in the state of Iowa. We ran in front of 30,000 people at Drake so the indoor meet wasn’t quite like that. But there were a lot of people there.”
Despite their small roster numbers and not having run in an indoor event at all that season – state qualifiers were based on coach submitted times – the Rams qualified in seven events: the one-mile and two-mile relays, Sieck in the 880-meter run, Hunter in the 440-yard dash, Keith in the 50-yard dash and Sell in the 60-yard low and 60-yard high hurdles the one time relay.
The team was helmed by first year head coach Roy Windhorst, a 25-year old industrial arts teacher and recent Peru State College graduate. Windhorst had taken over the program that season from long time coach Ross Pilkington. His assistants were Bill McKee and Gunnar Nyholm.
The Rams, despite not being the favorites heading into the indoor championship, were no stranger to track success. Glenwood was the runner up at the state outdoor meet in 1966 and had done well in the previous two Drake Relays.
“We lost a lot of great runners from the team the year before,” Keith said. “It just kind of all fell together that next year when we won the indoor meet. We didn’t have somebody who was going to win three individual championships or something. We were a real team.”
Hawkeye 7 rivals Shenandoah and Clarinda were regarded as the meet favorites. Both had placed high in the 1966 outdoor meet and returned a strong group of runners that season.
The state indoor meet would indeed come down to those three teams.
The Rams picked up nine points from Keith’s third place finish in the 50-yard dash – running a :05.6 – and a second place medal from the two-mile relay team of Smith, Gillespie, Sieck and Turner.
Yet, Glenwood trailed the Mustangs (16 points) and the Cardinals (12 points) heading into the final event of the meet: the mile relay.
The Rams were no stranger to the event now referred to as the 4x400-meter relay after having won gold at the previous year’s state indoor with a school record time of 3:34.4. But of that foursome of Pando Markuly, Ron Howard, Ken Hunter and Calvin Smith, Hunter was the lone returnee.
The inexperience didn’t factor.
Hunter, running third again, after a blistering opening leg by Keith, then Gillespie and anchored by Roger Maness, combined for gold once again, finishing in 3:35.59, just off the school record time.
The eight first place points gave Glenwood 17 points to end the day– one slim point better than Shenandoah and five more than Clarinda. Neither the Mustangs nor Cardinals placed in the two-mile relay.
The March 30, 1967 edition of The Opinion-Tribune proclaimed “Rams Are State Indoor Track Champions” and featured a photo of Gillespie, Hunter, Maness and Keith standing in their Ram sweats and holding a single baton at what appears to be Ram Memorial Field.
“For the first time in the athletic history of Glenwood Community High School, a state championship can be celebrated,” said the 403 word story that has no by-line but is believed to have been written by then sports editor Jim Barton.
The story includes no quotes from athletes or the coaches. Windhorst, the story says, “departed for Easter vacation at his home in Deshler, Neb. and wasn’t available for congratulations.” There are no photos from Iowa City that day in the accompanying coverage. And it doesn’t appear the newspaper covered the state indoor in person.
“Back then, things didn’t get publicized like they do now,” Turner said. “The outdoor (state track meet) was still considered the bigger deal.”
Publicity or not, Turner’s fondest memory of that day in Iowa City 50 springs ago just might be less than the actual events he ran or how his times stacked up than the competition itself. The camaraderie of his teammates pulling off the upset sticks with him to this day.
“To be able to take nine guys to a state tournament and win it, that’s pretty incredible,” Turner said. “Everyone on the team was real upbeat when we won because, my gosh, there were only nine of us and we were one of the smallest if not the smallest team there, and there we were winning it.”
Following the state meet, there was little fan fare as the team arrived back in Glenwood Friday afternoon. There was no sheriff’s department or fire truck escort through the county or around the town square. No parade. No celebratory banquet. There was a small pep rally for the team at the high school that evening, the athletes were minor celebrities, even if for just a day. The trophy was later displayed at LaRue Drug for a time to let fans get a glimpse of Glenwood’s first state trophy.
Sell, a junior on the 1967 team, ran in the 60-yard high and 60-yard low hurdles at state. He placed sixth in both events – but did not place as only the top five places were awarded points. He doesn’t recall a lot of fan celebration following the state championship but he does remember leaving the Iowa Field House after the meet and their cars being stopped by campus security.
“We were hungry and fired up,” said Sell, who still lives in Glenwood and volunteers at Ram track meets. “But we get lost. Coach Windhorst gets out and explains we just won the state indoor meet and we’re looking for a place to eat. The guy goes, ‘yeah right.’ And coach Windhorst went and got the trophy out and showed him. And the guys says, ‘Ok, I believe you. You can go.’”
It was then, Sell said, that he thinks it sunk in for him that they were indeed state champions.
Keith, who still shares the school record for the 100-yard dash, isn’t sure the accomplishment of the state title ever truly struck him, not at least as an 18-year-old mind.
“A state championship is special but we had had success for several years in track,” Keith said. “I guess we had kind of learned to expect to do well. Was it exciting and thrilling? Oh sure. But it wasn’t maybe as exciting as a last second miracle shot from halfcourt. We had a very good track program that expected to do well. And I guess we did do well.”
Keith went on to run track at Morningside College and is in the school’s track and field hall of fame. He gives a lot of the 1967 team’s credit to the late George Peterson. Peterson, a longtime funeral home director in Glenwood, was a former track star at Abilene Christian. While in college, Peterson was part of the 4x220-yard relay team that held the world record for more than nine years.
Keith said Peterson was a defacto coach for Glenwood and key to perfecting the relay team’s handoffs that pushed them over the top at the 1967 indoor championship.
“He was an awesome guy,” Keith said. “George came and worked out with us. I think George ran like a 9.4 (second) 100. He really helped us with so much. From handoffs to getting off the blocks on starts. George was a tremendous athlete and just having had an opportunity to work with someone as accomplished as him was great. He made everything look so easy.”
Glenwood opened the outdoor season a week after the state indoor in a meet at Peru College. The Rams were unable to match their indoor success in the outdoor season later that spring.
Glenwood placed third in the Hawkeye 7 Conference meet – behind champion Shenandoah and runner up Clarinda – and after qualifying in six events, scored a disappointing two points at the state outdoor meet in Eagle Grove.
Turner isn’t sure why the Rams didn’t perform better at the outdoor meet that year but a hamstring injury to Keith, suffered in the 100-yard dash preliminaries, didn’t help. Keith, who had been one of the favorites in the event, was not able to compete in either the 100 finals, nor the 400 or the mile relay. Glenwood’s lone points at the state outdoor came from a fourth place finish by it’s mile medley relay team of Maness, Sell, Hunter and Sieck.
The disappointing finish at the state outdoor never diminished what the Rams did at the indoor – at least not to Turner and his teammates.
“It felt like we caught lightening in a bottle and it all sort of clicked (at the state indoor),” Turner said. “A lot of good positive things happened for us that day. We put forth a lot of effort and everything came together.”
* * *
“I know for a long time, when they hung up banners for state championships and conference championships in the (high school) gym, there wasn’t one up there for the ’67 indoor champions,” Sell said. “The trophy was there. But there wasn’t a banner. There is a banner now, but for a long time, there wasn’t.”
Sell said indoor track didn’t have a big following in his day and far fewer schools participated in the indoor event than the outdoor.
“It just wasn’t as popular as the outdoor season,” he added.
By 1972, with interest in the indoor state meet waning and the soaring popularity of outdoor track in the era of Bruce Jenner and Steve Prefontaine, the Iowa indoor state track meet quietly slipped into obscurity.
Perhaps not unlike the 1967 Ram indoor squad.
Mark Starner has coached track in Glenwood for 21 years, the last 17 as head boys track coach. He sees the names from both the 1966 and 1967 teams all over the school’s track record books – and very little mention of the indoor state championship. Even Starner couldn’t recall if there was a banner for the 1967 team hanging in the gym.
“I do believe there is a trophy,” he said.
When reminded there was indeed a banner hanging from the rafters, he agreed the 1967 state title team has probably been slighted over the years as the school’s track tradition grew to include three more outdoor state titles in 1989, 1990 and 2011.
“It’s unfair because that was such a talented team of guys and if you look at their records and how long they’ve stood, it’s pretty impressive,” said Starner said of just how forgotten the 1967 team is. “I hate to say it, but it’s almost a slap in the face.”
The indoor meet coming so close on the heels of the Iowa state basketball tournament and the perception the indoor event didn’t represent all of Iowa’s track teams – many schools didn’t participate in the event – likely contributed to the indoor state title’s relative obscurity.
“I think a lot of it was timing,” Starner said. “But it was also a state award some people didn’t recognize. Not all teams went (to indoor state) back then. Not all teams had the opportunity or chose to go. But it is a state championship team and it’s recognized as a state championship team. I couldn’t tell you why more people aren’t aware of that team.”
Keith agrees the 1967 state title is probably the most overlooked of Glenwood’s six state titles in all sports.
“I guess we did it and moved on and a lot of people kind of felt that way too,” Keith said.
When the Rams won state in 2011, Starner said he saw the 1989 and 1990 championship teams swept up into the celebratory recognition of that team’s success six years ago. Little attention was paid to the 1967 team.
Starner has long considered rectifying that by honoring all the Rams’ state track champions, perhaps at a Ram Relays.
“I’d love to honor all those teams,” Starner said. “It’d be great to include the (2011, 1990 and 1989) guys and that (1967) team. I don’t know how many of the guys are still around but I’d be truly honored to be able to give this team their due recognition.”
Starner doesn’t talk much about the 1967 team with his own teams. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t lessons that team has taught his own, he said. He knows his athletes are aware of the tradition and the culture the 1967 team and many other teams over the decades created that still is still passed like a shiny baton through the Rams’ track program.
“Past track athletes encourage our runners every day,” Starner said.
Track is a different sport in Glenwood in that it’s a tight-nit family, he added.
“When you’ve been as successful as Glenwood has, that came long before me and Dan Jones and Jim Whitcomb and all those guys. You go back to Ross Pilkington and a guy like Windhorst who comes in his first year and has success.
“The kids know they are a part of something bigger than themselves and it gives them a sense of pride and how every point counts, whether that’s at our conference meet losing by two points or winning a state title by one point.”