A Quiet Confidence
Glenwood won a gold medal in the very first boys event on the track on the opening day at the Iowa State Track and Field Meet in 2011.
You might say that gold medal was as much a red herring as a sign of things to come.
The gold medal – won by Johnny Fuller in the 3,200-meters – would in fact be the only such hued medal won by the Rams at the state meet that year. But it would not be the last of their top hardware. Glenwood would go on to place in the top three in seven other events – double placing in two – and capture the biggest prize of all that season.
The state championship.
Glenwood tallied 78 total points that year for the 3A state title, 11 more than runner-up Central Clinton DeWitt. Clinton DeWitt won four gold medals of their own and even bested the Rams in the final event of the day, the 4x400-meter relay.
So how did the Rams go from talented Hawkeye 10 favorites with middling state success the previous three seasons to state team champions?
Talent, depth and good old-fashioned teamwork.
Mark Starner, the Rams’ longtime head coach, called his 2011 squad “the most talented and deepest team” he’s coached in his more than two decades.
But Starner had talented athletes and talented teams before – but none that had the completive spirit of that 2011 team. He saw his team’s greatest potential in what that team could do as a team.
“You go into every state meet asking yourself: what’s our best way to score points?” Starner said.
Before the season even started, Starner sat his seniors down and was blunt with them about how to exactly best do that.
“I told them we could win some events, a lot of events if we want to, but we’re probably not going to win the state title as a team,” he recalled saying. “Or we can spread some things out and put our pieces together strategically and compete for a state title.”
The seniors agreed to a man: let’s win the whole thing.
Fuller, a senior long-distance star on that 2011 team, doesn’t remember the exact conversation Starner had with his fellow seniors. But he recalls the sentiment precisely.
“It was like ‘Guys, we’re at work.’ You go, do what you did all season, and you’re going to win a state championship. Or you do everything you can and you’re going to win a state championship.”
Starner juggled his lineups. He found the best combinations that shaved seconds off times. He doesn’t recall ever once having to convince any individual runner to put aside a shot at an individual medal for a better relay medal.
“Fortunately for us, it worked out,” he said. “We qualified in a lot of things and earned points in about three-fourths of the events we qualified in. Some were high and some were not but once Johnny got that first one we just had to keep our pace and keep scoring points and that’s what we did. We led from the start to the finish. We definitely had some luck along the way.”
The Rams’ 4x800-meter relay team of Eliot Lincoln, Jared Cook, Mark Abrams and Kyle Wheeler followed up Fuller’s gold with a runner-up finish in a school-record time that would have won gold in most years. Spirit Lake Park set a state record with their gold medal run.
By Friday, the Rams were in the points lead and just taking the blocks in the distance medley relay when the rains came. An hour lightning delay followed.
Glenwood, with Fuller running the anchor for the first time all season, would come back to place third in a school-record time. And get a little luck in the form of a dropped baton by Clinton DeWitt, who entered as the favorite.
By the time Saturday afternoon rolled around, Starner was beginning to feel like his team had a shot.
That morning, Kyle Wheeler placed second, followed closely by Fuller in third, in the 800-meter. An hour later, Fuller placed third in the 1,600 and teammate Mark Abrams was eighth.
The 21 points in those two events would be important but that single point earned by Abrams, who would go on to have a standout career running at Morningside, would be absolutely crucial down the stretch.
Clinton DeWitt won the second to last event of the day the 4x100-meter relay to cut the Rams’ lead to 75-64. Meaning, even if the Rams did not place in the day’s final event, the 4x400-meter relay, Clinton DeWitt couldn’t catch them in points. But the Rams did go on to place – sixth in fact – to the Sabers’ fifth place showing.
It was a less than dramatic ending. The points were meaningless.
Glenwood had already won the state title.
Abrams had no idea what his points meant until he talked to the coaches following the race.
“I didn’t realize how big of deal that point was,” he said. “Eighth place, to most people, isn’t much. Everybody was talking about Johnny getting third and he was kind of the favorite. And here I was with one point. I went up in the stands and the coaches told me,
‘Yeah, we just won the state title.’ And I was like, ‘What?’ It was a surreal feeling.”
Starner actually felt like his team was closing in on a state title before the 1,600.
“We thought we had a good chance when Kyle and Johnny got theirs (in the 800),” Starner said. “We knew even with them possibly winning the 4x100 and if we got disqualified in the 4x400, which wasn’t going to happen, we had it pretty good. We were grinning pretty heavy when Mark came across that finish line in eighth in the mile.”
Upon their return to Glenwood, Glenwood Volunteer Fire Department escorted the Rams into town. The athletes on that team felt like the whole town was there.
Fuller, who works for a Denver-area start up now, had his share of individual success in high school. Before going on to run for Notre Dame, Fuller won the school’s first individual cross country state championship earlier that Fall and took home a rare “distance double” at the Drake Relays the year before, winning the 3,200 and 1,600. But that 2011 season was the most he felt the sense of team.
“I had played a lot of sports growing up and run at Drake and at state cross country and of course they were all team focused but I was just racing to win,” Fuller said. “Running that two mile, I had to run strategically when I got in front. I knew I had to be fresh because the distance medley needed me and I can’t go completely all out. That stands out to me: we all knew we had a job to do and wasn’t about one person.”
It still blows Wheeler’s mind the Rams won just one gold medal that weekend. One gold medal and a state title.
“In track and field you have one good guy, you can get 40 points,” said Wheeler, who was a senior on the team who went on to run for the University of Iowa. “But I think it just goes to show what a great team we had across the board with a ‘next man up’ mentality. It was a great team to be a part of. We had great individual athletes but everybody put the team first and I think ultimately that’s what why we were successful.”
Wheeler, who works in technology consulting in Chicago now, was a starting outfielder on the Rams’ state champion baseball team the previous summer. He felt going into that track season they had the talent and the experience to compete for a state title of their own.
That confidence was partially born, he said, from his own baseball experience.
“I don’t think a lot of people in Glenwood were envisioning Glenwood winning state so I think that one breakthrough kind of started that fire,” he said. “I think it gave people the confidence that they could do it. The talent was always there.”
Derek Jones was a sophomore budding star on that Rams’ track team. He ran the 400-meter hurdles and as a part of that 4x400-meter relay. After an All-Big 12 track career at Iowa State, Jones now works in ministry at the University of Indiana. He hasn’t run a 400-meter hurdles in five years but has committed himself to running one again this summer. When asked if he feels like its been 10 years since that Saturday in May, he quipped, “No way – but kind of. If I had to go out and run today, yeah, it would feel like 10 years.”
Jones was grateful the state meet didn’t come down to the 4x400. He still recalls not running his best and his teammates being disappointed with their final time and place.
“It was a bittersweet ending – we had other events that sealed it for us. We only needed to finish the race but we were more of a favorite than we placed. We were kind of bummed on the medal stand for that but ecstatic that we won the team championship.”
Heading into that season, as one of the younger members of the sprint and hurdle teams, Jones could feel the team’s potential even if he didn’t see his role in it.
“I knew those seniors were that good,” he said. “I didn’t know what I could do. We weren’t the favorite by any means but we knew we had a good team. But it’s one thing to dominate the Hawkeye 10 and western Iowa. At state there’s some stiff competition.”
The goal of winning state that year was rarely talked about. But everyone felt it, Abrams said.
“I think the coaches knew we would be a contender but I don’t think personally, I ever felt the pressure that if we didn’t go win the state meet it was a terrible season by any means,” said Abrams, who still runs competitively after a standout career at Morningside. “We knew we were good. There was no doubt, especially with that loaded senior class. We just had a quiet confidence.”
Jones suggested a lot of that came straight from Starner. The man he credits with helping him fall in love with track.
“Coach Starner has gotten a lot of credit over the years and I don’t think he’s gotten enough,” Jones said. “There’s a plethora of high school track coaches that are not experienced in track and field and that’s not him. He set the culture for that team.”
Starner is quick to credit his experienced coaching staff – Brian Albert and Todd Peverill – and the talented group of athletes he still feels blessed to have coached for that team’s historic success, and first state title since the Rams won back-to-back in the 1989 and 1990.
“I have memories about each one of those kids, and not all of them were from that year,” Starner said. “So many of those kids that contributed probably don’t get the credit they deserve and I have fond memories of all of them. They came together and put together 78 points when it mattered.
“It’s still surreal. I can remember standing on that track thinking ‘This doesn’t feel real.’ And there I was. It was pretty awesome and I was glad to be a part of it.”