2018-2019 Female Athlete of the Year

Every athlete has different means by which they charge their battery.

Motivation is as personal as a good pair of broken-in shoes for most any athlete.

For Janette Schraft, its doubt. She thrives on the question of if she can. She looks to buck the odds every single time she steps on a track or a cross country course.

The youngest of five siblings, Schraft freely admits she did not come from an athletic family. Her tenacity, her competitive fire, her will to win was born from a desire to challenge that reality.

“I think being the youngest, I wanted to be defiant and be different than the rest of my siblings and do sports,” Schraft said. “It turned out well.”

Well might be the understatement of the year.

Schraft defied the odds this season, moving up from Class 1A and enrolling at Class 3A Glenwood to complete one of the finest athletic seasons in southwest Iowa history while becoming the first three-time The Opinion-Tribune Mills County Female Athlete of the Year for 2018-2019.

A perusal of Janette Schraft’s 2018-2019 accomplishments reads less like a single season than a career bio, perhaps one recited before an Iowa Association of Track and Field Coaches Hall of Fame induction. A gold medal in the steeplechase at the Junior Olympics last July. An individual state title and a third place team finish at the Class 3A state cross country meet last October. A quartet of medals at the Drake Relays in April. Four more medals – all gold – and a Class 3A team title at the state track meet this spring.

But Schraft’s senior season started off the field: with a transfer to Glenwood.
Schraft spent the first three years of her sterling track and field and cross country career at East Mills. She open enrolled at Glenwood late last summer and joined the Rams’ cross country team just days before the season-opening meet.

She described those final few minutes before the start gun of that first race as some of the most nerve racking of her career. She admits she was nervous. But not about racing on a course she had won titles on twice before in an East Mills’ uniform or the steep step up from Class 1A to Class 3A competition.

“I think I was more nervous wearing that Glenwood uniform in front of so many people,” she said. “I knew that not all that many people had known about it (the transfer) and there were a couple people who made me feel like it was pretty big deal I was transferring.

“What are people going to say, what are people going to think when they see me wearing this uniform? But after that first race, I kind of owned it and embraced the fact I’m a Ram now and I’m proud of that.”

Her teammates’ and coaches’ embrace helped.

“I couldn’t have imagined a more accepting team,” Schraft said. “The first day I got there, everybody was ready to run and get me integrated into the group. It was the most amazing experience I could imagine.”

Schraft heard the doubts.

The questions about her ability to match her success from 1A in Class 3A. That she was a big fish in a small pond. She had placed ONLY eighth in the Class 1A cross country meet the year prior, after all.

She heard it all and turned it all into motivation.

“The jump didn’t really intimidate me,” she said. “I knew going into 3A I had a point to prove. I also knew I had an amazing team that also had a point to prove. We worked hard everyday and controlled everything we could control so there was nothing to be nervous about. We did everything we could.”

The Rams’ third place finish at the state cross country meet was the school’s best ever.

That best ever trend would carry over into the track and field season where Glenwood was installed as one of a handful of Class 3A teams capable of winning state.

The Rams returned a deep and talented group of track and field athletes even without Schraft. With her, they became instant contenders.

The pundits were right. Glenwood got four gold medals from Schraft – in the 800, 1,500 and 3,000 meter and the 400-meter hurdles – and a gold medal finish from its shuttle hurdle relay team to eclipse Davenport Assumption by the slimmest of half-point margins for the school’s first girls state track title.

Schraft scored 40 of her team’s points that weekend but she brushed off much of the individual credit and talked all about the team shortly after hoisting the first place trophy.

“Just being able to have a team that wants it as bad as I do, and see them work hard every single day in practice, and be a part of that, its amazing,” Schraft said at state. “It’s amazing to be a part of something that is bigger than myself and it makes me want to run even harder.”

Schraft said she and her teammates rarely talked about their state prospects prior to Des Moines. The thought, however, was there in the back of their minds.

She recalls one mid-season practice where her emotions got the better of her. In a season of ups and downs, she said this was a definite down day.

“I looked around at the team and I said, ‘There are people on this team that care more than anyone I’ve ever seen and I don’t know if any of you guys are those people or think you’re those people, but if you’re going to come to practice and you can’t work hard for yourself then you have to work hard for the people on this team who want a state championship. There are those people on this team and that is definitely a possibility for us,’” Schraft said.

“And after that, we just got the words ‘state champs’ in our heads. Before that I think a lot of us were scared to say it but once we started saying it out loud, we sort of spoke it into life.”

Glenwood coach Cory Faust has called Schraft a “once in a decade if not a lifetime-type of athlete.” Her state track performance put her in rare company as one of just eight female athletes to ever win four individual gold medals at the state track meet.

Schraft is still in disbelief at the her accomplishment, FOUR gold medals.

She did have her doubts about being able to pull off the four golds prior to state track. But an unexpected pep talk from former Glenwood Principal Richard Hutchinson served as good reminder that those batteries get filled in unexpected ways.

Hutch, as Hutchinson was known in the high school, approached Schraft in the hallway the day the team left for state track, “Four championships, Janette,” Hutch said. “That’s what I’m going to need from you to win this thing.”

And Schraft shrugged off the prediction with a “yeah okay” and a smile.

Looking back, she said it was the perfect motivation.

“I had a little bit of doubt in my mind at that point when he said it,” Schraft said. “If we’re going to win it its going to be because of our whole team. We’re not going to need four state championships. I could probably get 36 points and we’d be fine. I didn’t take him too seriously. But that was kind of the moment I realized he was right. I needed to go all out and do it. I probably shouldn’t have doubted myself because I pulled it off.”

Schraft signed with Iowa State in the spring and will run both cross country and track for the Cyclones. She chose Iowa State over Kansas State, Nebraska, Oklahoma Northern Iowa and the University of Akron.

She’s not sure what events she will run for the Cyclones besides the steeplechase, the event she won gold in last summer at the U.S. Track and Field Junior Olympics in North Carolina.

It’s an event she’s been running for just two years but fell in love with the first time she saw it. The 2,000-meter event features 18 barriers and five water obstacles.

“I think the edge I have is my natural athleticism I have that maybe some other distance runners might not have,” she said. “If you look at other distance runners they can move forward and backwards and can go on forever. But they can’t move laterally. And not a lot of them are very agile. I’m just really looking for an event to showcase by overall athleticism and something I can excel at.”

Go ahead and doubt her.

She could use the motivation.