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The next year our cross country team became a reality. Jake Sorg
had graduated, but his younger brother, Andy, still a junior,
won every race leading our team to a perfect 4-0 in our
inaugural season. The
winning team is determined by the school's first six runners and from race to race I varied in placement through
those top six spots.
Our track team was amazing my sophmore year, and
my junior year as well. During those two years our coach was Jack Hedlund, who was also
the football coach. He encouraged his football players to
participate in track and we had guys setting the school record
in all of the field events, including shot put, discus, javelin,
and all the jumping events. One of the reasons they did so well
is because coach Hedlund would read the books and magazines and
really school them on technique. Rusty Gapinski, who was the
quarterback, took up javelin and before he graduated he finished
3rd in the nation in the Junior Olympics.
In my first race of
the season I finished second in the mile behind Andy Sorg with a time of 5:06. That would be my best time and best place of
the entire year. Half way through the season I decided that since Andy had
vacated the two mile run, that perhaps I would place higher if I
switched to the two mile run where I would be our lead runner.
My best time in the 2 mile was 10:50 and I took 4th place at the
Wellsville Invitational (13 schools) and 3rd place at the PCIAA
state meet (all the Catholic schools). These performances would
motivate me into my junior year, which I really needed because I
felt as though my goal of setting the school record in the mile was fast slipping
away. Sorg, still a junior, had already run a 4:32, whereas I had only
improved to 5:06, trailing by more than a half a minute.
(Above newspaper
clipping: Andy Sorg in the mile run with me close to the left. I
believe this was the end of our first lap.) |
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