2015-11-07 - Cross Country State Meet State CHAMPS!
First Place Team Overall Team
Sandburg Eagles Time Place Place Year
Sean Torpy 14:25 3 3 SR
Max Lehnhardt 14:39 13 12 SR
Chris Torpy 14:42 16 14 SR
Brandon Lukas 14:54 31 22 SR
Tom Brennan 14:58 38 28 SR
Martin Skucas 15:15 69 55 JR
Dan Laskero 15:26 94 76 SR
Team Results
1. Sandburg 79
2. Lyons 118
3. Neuqua Valley 171
4. York 171
5. Lake Zurich 207 Complete State Meet results Complete Sectional results
Sandburg Eagles Time Place Place Year
Sean Torpy 14:25 3 3 SR
Max Lehnhardt 14:39 13 12 SR
Chris Torpy 14:42 16 14 SR
Brandon Lukas 14:54 31 22 SR
Tom Brennan 14:58 38 28 SR
Martin Skucas 15:15 69 55 JR
Dan Laskero 15:26 94 76 SR
Team Results
1. Sandburg 79
2. Lyons 118
3. Neuqua Valley 171
4. York 171
5. Lake Zurich 207 Complete State Meet results Complete Sectional results
MORE RESOURCES
RACE VIDEOS:
MileSplitIL race highlight video
Race video courtesy of Prairie Runner
Race video courtesy of Prairie Runner (uncut version)
POST-RACE INTERVIEWS:
Tony Jones post-race team interview
Tony Jones post-race interview with Coach O'Malley
Mike Newman post-race interview with Sean Torpy
Mike Newman post-race interview with Coach O'Malley
RACE VIDEOS:
MileSplitIL race highlight video
Race video courtesy of Prairie Runner
Race video courtesy of Prairie Runner (uncut version)
POST-RACE INTERVIEWS:
Tony Jones post-race team interview
Tony Jones post-race interview with Coach O'Malley
Mike Newman post-race interview with Sean Torpy
Mike Newman post-race interview with Coach O'Malley
Audio recording of race announcer - plus post-race stuff
(courtesy of Bob Hahn)
State meet Picture Slideshow
Coach O'Malley
November 7, 2015. 12:30 p.m. It’s the moment I look forward to every year. It’s the moment we unload from our coach bus and walk down the hill to our tent. I’d walked behind boys down the hill at Detweiller Park for a decade. It’s a great feeling. It’s “go time.” You can feel some of the heightened focus and emotion. I love walking down that hill with the guys who I have been on a journey with. Some of those guys are at the end of a four year journey, one more walk and starting line together before it’s all over.
I can tell you that walking down that hill on November 7, 2015, the song September from Skucas’ speaker still echoing in my head, looking at the backs of Brennan, Lukas, Torpys, Skucas, Lehnhardt and Laskero, I knew we were going to win. It was over. No matter the previous weekend’s tragedies and the current health, the guys who were unable to race, this was our year. This group entertained no other options other than victory. They would die before they gave up this race.
I also had a lump in my throat. A pit in my stomach. That part is difficult to describe. I had so enjoyed and cherished this journey we had taken together. I was so sad it was about to be over. We had literally climbed mountains together. And we were approaching the summit. I was so honored and proud to be walking with them. Their ability and work ethic put them in a position for me to feel that competitive pride. But their personalities and character were so much more impressive than their running and I felt so much pride in who they were.
So, we went through our routine. It was a beautiful 54 degree, sunny day with some wind. Our final run outs were being done, the chanting of “CS-HS” was clearly audible from our fans. At the last possible moment, I gave the boys a final fist bump and said, “let’s go, boys,” and finally turned and jogged down the straightaway leaving the boys to get the job done. It was the last bit of coaching after six years of being with them before the gun sounded and they would race for fifteen minutes to accomplish a goal we had talked about with Sean Torpy and Tom Brennan as far back as 2010. And so, I include the post-race write up from that day now:
November 7, 2015. 12:30 p.m. It’s the moment I look forward to every year. It’s the moment we unload from our coach bus and walk down the hill to our tent. I’d walked behind boys down the hill at Detweiller Park for a decade. It’s a great feeling. It’s “go time.” You can feel some of the heightened focus and emotion. I love walking down that hill with the guys who I have been on a journey with. Some of those guys are at the end of a four year journey, one more walk and starting line together before it’s all over.
I can tell you that walking down that hill on November 7, 2015, the song September from Skucas’ speaker still echoing in my head, looking at the backs of Brennan, Lukas, Torpys, Skucas, Lehnhardt and Laskero, I knew we were going to win. It was over. No matter the previous weekend’s tragedies and the current health, the guys who were unable to race, this was our year. This group entertained no other options other than victory. They would die before they gave up this race.
I also had a lump in my throat. A pit in my stomach. That part is difficult to describe. I had so enjoyed and cherished this journey we had taken together. I was so sad it was about to be over. We had literally climbed mountains together. And we were approaching the summit. I was so honored and proud to be walking with them. Their ability and work ethic put them in a position for me to feel that competitive pride. But their personalities and character were so much more impressive than their running and I felt so much pride in who they were.
So, we went through our routine. It was a beautiful 54 degree, sunny day with some wind. Our final run outs were being done, the chanting of “CS-HS” was clearly audible from our fans. At the last possible moment, I gave the boys a final fist bump and said, “let’s go, boys,” and finally turned and jogged down the straightaway leaving the boys to get the job done. It was the last bit of coaching after six years of being with them before the gun sounded and they would race for fifteen minutes to accomplish a goal we had talked about with Sean Torpy and Tom Brennan as far back as 2010. And so, I include the post-race write up from that day now:
When the gun went off there was one thing I knew for certain: we wouldn’t be out too slow. I considered telling you guys before the race to make sure it isn’t too fast, but I thought, “No, let’s just go for it. No concepts about holding back.” Sure enough, there you were with six guys at the front of the pack at 800 and rolling. Brandon Lukas went ahead and took the lead and didn’t hesitate. What guts! We went blazing through 800 in about 2:09-2:11 and were off and running. We certainly put ourselves in a position to have to hurt badly for our goals. As things unfolded, I had in the back of my head the possibility of that 800 coming back and biting us at the end of the race. I had a wait until the north loop to see how things progressed. I’m able to get a good look at how things are shaking out at the 1.5 mile marker.
Sure enough, there we were, still in the thick of things, although certainly not looking like we did at 800 meter. Sean Torpy was up with the front runners, but there was a lot of traffic. Soon after Max Lehnhardt, Brandon Lukas and Chris Torpy were rolling in the top 15. Our first objective of three in the top 15 was being achieved with an extra guy in tow. We were in good position. Where was our five? We needed to close the backdoor. The wait wouldn’t be long as Tommy Brennan and Martin Skucas were within :10 of our fourth. With four guys in the top 15 and a :08 gap to our fifth, it seemed illogical that anyone was running with us at this point. Danny Laskero seemed disconnected. I was hoping his slower opening would yield a second half comeback. But other than Laskero, everyone was totally maxed out with a blazing opening. The only question remained through 1.5: we had committed fully to the task, we risked everything, could we have the desire to hurt for 8:00 and fight off the challengers? I jetted around the trees to the 1.75 and Sean was right in the front pack, hanging in there. Max and Chris kept fighting and Brandon was right there too. A quarter mile hadn’t changed things. Tommy and Martin were in strong positions. I yelled to them that we were winning but we needed a fifth to step up. This seemed to be our only vulnerability: could our fifth, who was a bit off from our main group, keep his head in it and maintain or better his position? The boys headed up the legendary straightaway and uphill a second to last time, passing two miles in tough positions.
Then my wait came.
At state, with the crowd, it is impossible to see what is happening at the top of the course when you are on the bottom. I just stared at the stop watch, willing the time to pass before even a remotely possible split was appearing for the 2.5. I had a choice—wait at the 2.5 and yell with the rest of the crowd, which probably wouldn’t be heard and race to the finish, or go to the corner where almost no one stood. I went to the corner. Sean passed by in 2nd…wow. What a war he was waging. Soon after Max and Chris in the top 15. We were getting it done. The three guys looked like they’d just put themselves through hell. I told them we were winning and to finish it Next Brandon came by around 30th and he was laboring. And this was the moment. With three guys in the top 15, a really low stick with Sean, Brandon in 30th, where was our fifth? I turned and immediately there he was: the guy who started this whole journey as a 6th grader, the guy who first visited Detweiller Park as a 1-year old to see his sister race, the guy who fought his way back from a seemingly season-ending hamstring injury, Tommy Brennan. That was the moment I knew it: we were going to win. I tried to deliver my message: we were winning and they needed to fight to finish it. I knew there was no way, no matter how bad they were hurting, that they wouldn’t fight for it in their final minutes. After Danny ran by, I turned and jogged for a few moments, stopped to scream one last time and then started walking with my hands on my head, fully realizing what we had just accomplished after so long a fight. It was, however, a feeling of intense sadness as well. I hate to say it, but it was a sudden realization that we were done.
And so the dream is realized. I know how much you all put into this accomplishment. Having high expectations, believing in great things within yourself and your teammates, having a passion for the team and the school, all of these things are what fuel us, yet they also create a paradox: anything less than the highest achievement is a disappointment. It’s the price of greatness. The alternative is to be disbelieving, to lack passion, to have lower standards. Certainly after last year, the loss of Dylan and the less than 100% Tommy and Martin could have raised some doubts and reignited the sense of the possibility of falling short. But I never for a second saw that in anyone on this team. The responses after sectionals in race reflections and conversation was that we were going to get it done no matter what it took. No other option. And after facing the biggest adversity of the entire season, we got it done. We did it against the strongest programs in their strongest years: Neuqua Valley in a year they ran their second fastest time ever by mid-season, Lyons with their fastest team of all time, York with six returners including their best freshman of all time, and Hinsdale with two returning all-staters and more after riding the confidence of two state titles in a row. This wasn’t just an average year in Illinois. You beat the best at their best.
There are perhaps some thoughts that enter about “what might have been.” You can look at Dylan and think how cool it would have been to stick four guys in the top 15 and have no doubt about where we were as a team. You can look at Tommy and wonder what would have happened if he stayed healthy and would have added a fifth guy to the top 15. You can wonder about Skucas being healthy as well. You could wonder what if we were more efficient by going through the first 800 :2-3 slower. All of that would have been pretty cool. But, I love the way we got it done even more. It was perfect. We had to endure. We had to fight. We prepared for adversity our entire four years here, constantly challenging you and pushing the envelope. It was a blue collar performance, fitting of your journeys. We took box four after having box eight last year and made it our launching point, not our point of destruction. We literally turned our adversity into a point of strength. What a powerful display of your character and who you’ve become. This is us. And it is this realization that framed our entire season, back in Colorado and the concept of running for a greater purpose. Reaching the mountain top is not about beating the mountain or reaching a milestone. It’s about becoming. You don’t climb the mountain or the goal, your goal is to become something you weren’t before. You become your goal. You become the mountain. And as I watched you run with all your heart and soul on Saturday that was the overwhelming thought in my head: you had become something truly extraordinary. Your achievement isn’t a state title, it’s an internal championship.
The images from the weekend will remain with me forever. How many times can you say that? Watching you guys so happy after the race and to be cheered and celebrated is exactly what you deserve. Any nerves I feel as a coach relate to wanting you to feel good about your investment. I know how valuable these experiences are, regardless of outcomes, but I want you to feel it right after you’ve just poured your heart and soul into the effort. I am so glad to see your efforts rewarded. To say thank you for your commitment and dedication is so underserving what I feel. You’ve given me the greatest experiences of my career, and it’s much more than that. I’ve so valued our time together. Something that you probably don’t realize is how much you’ve enriched the experiences of those who have come before you. I can’t tell you how many notes, texts, phone calls, personal conversations, e-mails and more I’ve received from former runners saying how proud they are and how much it validates their efforts while they were here. I’ve literally gotten communication from all over the country and even in Canada. They all fought so hard to reach the mountain top but fell short. You’ve taken us up to the top and everyone feels a part of it. You’ve given them something to believe in. For me, you’ve given me that same gift. When times sometimes make it hard to believe in something, you always gave me something to believe in. You expressed what it means to be down and to go all in again, believing in the greatness of believing. Thank you.
Sure enough, there we were, still in the thick of things, although certainly not looking like we did at 800 meter. Sean Torpy was up with the front runners, but there was a lot of traffic. Soon after Max Lehnhardt, Brandon Lukas and Chris Torpy were rolling in the top 15. Our first objective of three in the top 15 was being achieved with an extra guy in tow. We were in good position. Where was our five? We needed to close the backdoor. The wait wouldn’t be long as Tommy Brennan and Martin Skucas were within :10 of our fourth. With four guys in the top 15 and a :08 gap to our fifth, it seemed illogical that anyone was running with us at this point. Danny Laskero seemed disconnected. I was hoping his slower opening would yield a second half comeback. But other than Laskero, everyone was totally maxed out with a blazing opening. The only question remained through 1.5: we had committed fully to the task, we risked everything, could we have the desire to hurt for 8:00 and fight off the challengers? I jetted around the trees to the 1.75 and Sean was right in the front pack, hanging in there. Max and Chris kept fighting and Brandon was right there too. A quarter mile hadn’t changed things. Tommy and Martin were in strong positions. I yelled to them that we were winning but we needed a fifth to step up. This seemed to be our only vulnerability: could our fifth, who was a bit off from our main group, keep his head in it and maintain or better his position? The boys headed up the legendary straightaway and uphill a second to last time, passing two miles in tough positions.
Then my wait came.
At state, with the crowd, it is impossible to see what is happening at the top of the course when you are on the bottom. I just stared at the stop watch, willing the time to pass before even a remotely possible split was appearing for the 2.5. I had a choice—wait at the 2.5 and yell with the rest of the crowd, which probably wouldn’t be heard and race to the finish, or go to the corner where almost no one stood. I went to the corner. Sean passed by in 2nd…wow. What a war he was waging. Soon after Max and Chris in the top 15. We were getting it done. The three guys looked like they’d just put themselves through hell. I told them we were winning and to finish it Next Brandon came by around 30th and he was laboring. And this was the moment. With three guys in the top 15, a really low stick with Sean, Brandon in 30th, where was our fifth? I turned and immediately there he was: the guy who started this whole journey as a 6th grader, the guy who first visited Detweiller Park as a 1-year old to see his sister race, the guy who fought his way back from a seemingly season-ending hamstring injury, Tommy Brennan. That was the moment I knew it: we were going to win. I tried to deliver my message: we were winning and they needed to fight to finish it. I knew there was no way, no matter how bad they were hurting, that they wouldn’t fight for it in their final minutes. After Danny ran by, I turned and jogged for a few moments, stopped to scream one last time and then started walking with my hands on my head, fully realizing what we had just accomplished after so long a fight. It was, however, a feeling of intense sadness as well. I hate to say it, but it was a sudden realization that we were done.
And so the dream is realized. I know how much you all put into this accomplishment. Having high expectations, believing in great things within yourself and your teammates, having a passion for the team and the school, all of these things are what fuel us, yet they also create a paradox: anything less than the highest achievement is a disappointment. It’s the price of greatness. The alternative is to be disbelieving, to lack passion, to have lower standards. Certainly after last year, the loss of Dylan and the less than 100% Tommy and Martin could have raised some doubts and reignited the sense of the possibility of falling short. But I never for a second saw that in anyone on this team. The responses after sectionals in race reflections and conversation was that we were going to get it done no matter what it took. No other option. And after facing the biggest adversity of the entire season, we got it done. We did it against the strongest programs in their strongest years: Neuqua Valley in a year they ran their second fastest time ever by mid-season, Lyons with their fastest team of all time, York with six returners including their best freshman of all time, and Hinsdale with two returning all-staters and more after riding the confidence of two state titles in a row. This wasn’t just an average year in Illinois. You beat the best at their best.
There are perhaps some thoughts that enter about “what might have been.” You can look at Dylan and think how cool it would have been to stick four guys in the top 15 and have no doubt about where we were as a team. You can look at Tommy and wonder what would have happened if he stayed healthy and would have added a fifth guy to the top 15. You can wonder about Skucas being healthy as well. You could wonder what if we were more efficient by going through the first 800 :2-3 slower. All of that would have been pretty cool. But, I love the way we got it done even more. It was perfect. We had to endure. We had to fight. We prepared for adversity our entire four years here, constantly challenging you and pushing the envelope. It was a blue collar performance, fitting of your journeys. We took box four after having box eight last year and made it our launching point, not our point of destruction. We literally turned our adversity into a point of strength. What a powerful display of your character and who you’ve become. This is us. And it is this realization that framed our entire season, back in Colorado and the concept of running for a greater purpose. Reaching the mountain top is not about beating the mountain or reaching a milestone. It’s about becoming. You don’t climb the mountain or the goal, your goal is to become something you weren’t before. You become your goal. You become the mountain. And as I watched you run with all your heart and soul on Saturday that was the overwhelming thought in my head: you had become something truly extraordinary. Your achievement isn’t a state title, it’s an internal championship.
The images from the weekend will remain with me forever. How many times can you say that? Watching you guys so happy after the race and to be cheered and celebrated is exactly what you deserve. Any nerves I feel as a coach relate to wanting you to feel good about your investment. I know how valuable these experiences are, regardless of outcomes, but I want you to feel it right after you’ve just poured your heart and soul into the effort. I am so glad to see your efforts rewarded. To say thank you for your commitment and dedication is so underserving what I feel. You’ve given me the greatest experiences of my career, and it’s much more than that. I’ve so valued our time together. Something that you probably don’t realize is how much you’ve enriched the experiences of those who have come before you. I can’t tell you how many notes, texts, phone calls, personal conversations, e-mails and more I’ve received from former runners saying how proud they are and how much it validates their efforts while they were here. I’ve literally gotten communication from all over the country and even in Canada. They all fought so hard to reach the mountain top but fell short. You’ve taken us up to the top and everyone feels a part of it. You’ve given them something to believe in. For me, you’ve given me that same gift. When times sometimes make it hard to believe in something, you always gave me something to believe in. You expressed what it means to be down and to go all in again, believing in the greatness of believing. Thank you.
Since that day, I only feel the sentiment I ended the season with: thank you. I am grateful for our coaches—the best coaching staff in the country. Amid the chaos of the huge crowd, cheers, interviews, I attempted to find each of them and hug them and thank them. I often get the credit of coaching the Sandburg program, but that is wildly inaccurate. We have a coaching team. I wouldn’t trade a single one of them for Bill Bowerman. I’m ever thankful for the hundreds of fans, students and the army of alumni that came out to share in the championship. It’s not worth it if it’s just a trophy. As I always say, trophies gather dust, decency and caring for others grows richer with time. Every day I walk into Sandburg High School I feel so much pride in knowing I’m walking into the best high school in the country. I wish and hope every teacher, student and parent can say and feel the exact same thing about their school. I’m lucky enough that I do. I feel gratitude for the parents and families of the boys on the team. A championship is a community effort. It starts at home. Parents at home are our “Home Coaches,” but so much more than that. The championship character needed to achieve what we achieved starts from day one of life, and the job has no coffee breaks, vacation time or sick days. Most of all, I am so thankful for the young men I spent six years with, building something of meaning. I am thankful for the relationships we had and still have, for the journey together, the amount of work and passion and leadership they put into it, and the caring they showed to each other, the coaches and the school. Strolling into the mass of humanity, the sea of blue and gold, the banners waving, the flags, the hundreds upon hundreds of people chanting, on November 7, 2015, I moved through the crowd to get an eye on seven sweaty guys with their arms around each other being interviewed and celebrated. I thought of giving them as speech, of intervening in the interviews, of many things, but I stopped and looked at them and was filled with pride and love. I would give no dramatic speech that day. I would just thank them individually and give them a hug. The moment was theirs and I wanted them to be center stage. My job of coaching was done. I was so thankful they were having that moment—a moment reporters and photographers years later tell me was one of the best celebrations they’ve ever witnessed at a state championship in any sport. The best ever. When you build something together and risk failure, put your heart into it, you’ve not just invested in a goal. You’ve invested in each other.
On a personal level, these boys will be a part of who I am forever. They've taught me so much. I am a student of my athletes. Their values, their decency, their determination...when they were freshmen my two cherished places: a classroom and a finish line were threatened. Sandyhook and the Boston Marathon. Additionally, our athletic world has recently shown us example after example of the mythological icons being just that--myths. The Lance Armstrongs, Joe Paternos, and Oscar Pistorious of the world have fallen woefully short of the image of their story. And that is where Illinois cross country and track comes in. And that is where for me personally, this group of Sandburg runners has come in. There was no shortcut to an enhanced performance for them. They just always gave a little more. They have given me something to believe in.
Take a look at our IHSA state championship picture. You will see no medals--our boys immediately took their state medals, walked off the podium and gave them to someone who they felt a sense of gratitude toward. Always, but especially when you win, you have the unique opportunity to inspire and give others something to believe in. They have given that to me.
As I think back about how exceptional this group of runners were and how dominating they were, the overwhelming feeling I am left with has nothing to do with winning races: I just miss them. I so enjoyed the fortunate occurrence of interacting with them everyday at this thing we call “practice.” It never was really practice. It was building something. Together.
On a personal level, these boys will be a part of who I am forever. They've taught me so much. I am a student of my athletes. Their values, their decency, their determination...when they were freshmen my two cherished places: a classroom and a finish line were threatened. Sandyhook and the Boston Marathon. Additionally, our athletic world has recently shown us example after example of the mythological icons being just that--myths. The Lance Armstrongs, Joe Paternos, and Oscar Pistorious of the world have fallen woefully short of the image of their story. And that is where Illinois cross country and track comes in. And that is where for me personally, this group of Sandburg runners has come in. There was no shortcut to an enhanced performance for them. They just always gave a little more. They have given me something to believe in.
Take a look at our IHSA state championship picture. You will see no medals--our boys immediately took their state medals, walked off the podium and gave them to someone who they felt a sense of gratitude toward. Always, but especially when you win, you have the unique opportunity to inspire and give others something to believe in. They have given that to me.
As I think back about how exceptional this group of runners were and how dominating they were, the overwhelming feeling I am left with has nothing to do with winning races: I just miss them. I so enjoyed the fortunate occurrence of interacting with them everyday at this thing we call “practice.” It never was really practice. It was building something. Together.
Sean Torpy 14:25 3rd place overall ALL-STATE
“We’re doing it!” Those three words still ring clearly in my ears years after November 7, 2015. This was the last phrase that I heard from Coach O’Malley with 800m to go at the historic Detweiller Park. The pain was coursing through my body late in this race, but the excitement in my mind was growing intensely with every stride that I was getting closer to the finish line. My teammates were lined up not far behind all working to finally accomplish that same goal we had set out for before any of us even got to Sandburg––our first State Cross Country Team Title.
One of the most memorable days in my running career started off so calmly. I woke up at 5:30 AM that morning and sat up in my bed in my dark quiet room hours before leaving Sandburg’s Hall of Fame for the long road trip down to Peoria. My house was as quiet as a mouse, and my heart rate was close to 40 beats per minute. I felt so calm. A day that would normally cause anxiety and stress for the normal state-bound runner had me feeling so relaxed. I woke up knowing that all over Orland Park, there were teammates getting up that same morning with confidence knowing with near certainty what was going to happen that day. We were not to be denied. Not this time.
I went through my normal race morning rituals and headed over to Sandburg with my brother, Chris. Our car ride was quiet while we both sat there and thought about the day ahead. I remember the sun just starting to get its way up in the sky with what seemed to be no clouds in sight. It felt peaceful. We got into the building and met up with our travel squad as they were loading the bus up. Business as usual. I climbed up into the bus, greeted the driver, and went and found my spot to settle in. There was a quiet, yet confident energy buzzing around the athletes and coaching staff. Soon enough, we were on the road. About an hour into the drive, we started getting videos of all of the Sandburg “Superfanz” filling up 4 buses getting ready to travel down with the intention of witnessing an historic race. I still remember the goosebumps I got fully realizing in that moment how many people were involved in this project. It takes an army, and an army is what we had.
We did our typical gas station stop to do some stretches about an hour or so out from Detweiller Park. It was a sight so familiar that it brought some normalcy to what was going to be a crazy day. Results were now starting to pour in from the 1A races that were going on. It was proving to be a fast day. The nerves started to kick in as we got back on the bus to make our final trip over. We pulled into the parking lot and passed the course as one of the races was going on. The place was a madhouse and still getting more crowded as more people were starting to arrive. We drove past the masses and parked the bus in a more remote spot away from the meet, about a quarter-mile from our team tent. We hung out there for a while and made jokes and talked to pass the time. We put our bib numbers on and the coaches sat us down to talk a few minutes before heading down to the tent. At this point, it was just the racers and the coaches. Normally, Coach O’Malley would give us his thoughts about what each athlete brought to the table that was going to lead to our success, but this time was different. During our pre-meet drive down to Peoria the night before the race, he had us fill out a sheet with all of the racers’ names on it. We had to write something we were confident in about each person and why we believed they were such a great asset to the team. During this meeting on the bus, he pulled these sheets out and read to each of us what we all wrote about each other. It was so genuine and empowering. I knew there was complete trust in one another after hearing everyone’s thoughts. I remember thinking, “You can’t lose with this kind of trust.”
We let those thoughts sink in and we finally got off the bus to descend down the hill to the team camp. We were greeted by hundreds of Sandburg fans. It was unbelievable. I was so overwhelmed. We tucked ourselves away in the tent and got our minds ready before heading into the warmup. Coach O’Neil helped stretch us out on his PT table and I felt so ready after this. We huddled up as a group one last time to listen to “September” by Earth, Wind, and Fire. It was a goofy pre-race ritual that came about on accident, but it worked for us, so we fit it into our schedule. 1:10 PM, we started our run and headed out to the woods for some quiet time as a group. We went over tactics one more time and this is when the nerves really settled in. I knew it was starting to get real. We got back to our team camp area, and I was doing dynamic stretches out behind the awards stands surrounded by Sandburg fans feeling like I was being watched like a hawk. This went by quickly and the racers all grouped up to do our stride over to the start line. We ran under a tunnel of arms put on by the Sandburg supporters and embraced the loud cheers on our way out.
We lined up in our box on the far inside of the starting line and did a couple of practice starts followed by a minute threshold. I felt so heavy, and I had some doubts starting to creep in. I turned to Max Lehnhardt and asked how he felt and he said the same thing back to me. For some reason that was comforting and my nerves went away. We got into our team huddle and it was just a speech of pure passion and a burning fire for victory. I don’t even remember what was said. I just remember walking out of it feeling like I could run through a brick wall. I did a stride back to the starting line and we were finally instructed by the officials to line up for takeoff. It was loud on the course, but I could still hear the booming chant of “CS!” - “HS!” coming from both sides of the crowds. I remember being lined up feeling like I’d do anything for these people right now. This race gave me that opportunity.
The “on your mark” whistle blew and we all stepped up to the line in dead silence spread across the course. It was so quiet that I could hear the birds chirping. The gun popped and I was off the line like I was shot out of a canon. I went straight to the front of the race to ensure that I didn’t get cut off at the first turn 500m away. I took a quick glance around when we got there and sure enough we had our entire lineup right there next to me. We got to 800m at 2:09 and Sandburg was leading the state meet. (Interesting fact/some perspective on how bad we wanted this: Looking back on it, this was a faster opening 800m split than when I won my state title in the 1600m later that spring). Brandon Lukas was pressing the pace and I knew right there that we were going to win. Our guys were clearly ready to hurt more than anyone else. The race continued to play out, and I found myself up in the front pack coming up to the two-mile mark. I was sitting at the back of that pack and realized the leader had made a decisive move to try to break away from the field. I reacted late, but I eventually found myself separating from the pack - in second place - chasing him down. The entire time I was worried about bringing down our score as much as possible. I wanted that 1 point. We hit the top of the course and headed back downhill along the highway. I was chasing hard trying to close. I had a half-mile to go when I heard the words from Coach O’Malley, “We’re doing it!” My hard move to come back on the leader was catching up to me, but I didn’t want to be done yet. I moved into the final straightaway with 300m to go still chasing and realizing that I had let him make the move too early on me. I had nothing left to catch him and battled all the way up to the finish line. I was ultimately caught by one other person.
In a moment of great success, I remember being so mad that I couldn’t have done more for my team. Looking back on it, it was a ridiculous thought considering we had ultimately won, but that goes to show how much I wanted to give us the win. I laid there lifeless on the ground and all of my teammates crossed the finish line one by one to meet me. The first thing I heard was from Martin Skucas when he came up next to me in the finish chute. He said, “We did it.” It was with pure exhaustion but with such joy. We threw everything we had at it and wrote our historic chapter in our book. We had finally won our first team title.
We walked out of the finish area and were greeted by hundreds of Sandburg students, parents, teachers, and teammates. They starting cheering, chanting, and taking photos. We were being interviewed left, right, and center and they all waited patiently for us, surrounding us with love and support. It was a memory that we got to share with so many people. We did our cool down and were talking about our own battles during the race and congratulated each other on accomplishing a dream that began years prior. We got back and threw on our State Champions long sleeves and went over to the awards stand to accept our medals. We ran down off the stage and each gave our medals to our parents to thank them for their overwhelming love and support. They were just as instrumental to the win and we wanted to make sure they could feel it too. Then, everyone hopped back up on the stage and we finally got to accept the state championship trophy. My teammates picked me to accept it (which I felt guilty about because I could have given a million reasons why anybody else deserved it), and I threw it up over my head right after picking it up. I almost dropped it because I was so excited, but everyone else’s hands were on it so no tragedies happened.
We got down and took a bunch of pictures and people began leaving the park. We ended up being the last team there that day. It was quiet and we all stood around with this trophy that we worked so hard for. I almost didn’t want to leave. However, we all climbed on the bus anyway and headed back to Orland Park. We blasted our music and talked about the day. My cheeks hurt from how much I was smiling. We got back to LaGrange Rd and were met by police to give us an escort back to Sandburg. I felt like royalty. We got back to the school and worked our way into the Eagle Gym to see hundreds of the Sandburg supporters there for a post-race party put on by the school. “We Are the Champions” by Queen was on repeat the entire time and we celebrated the victory together, as a family. I am so grateful that I got to experience and share those unbelievable memories with some of the most inspiring people that I have ever met. It has created lifelong friendships and I would not trade it for anything else in this world. November 7, 2015, is a day that I will never forget. Go Eagles!
“We’re doing it!” Those three words still ring clearly in my ears years after November 7, 2015. This was the last phrase that I heard from Coach O’Malley with 800m to go at the historic Detweiller Park. The pain was coursing through my body late in this race, but the excitement in my mind was growing intensely with every stride that I was getting closer to the finish line. My teammates were lined up not far behind all working to finally accomplish that same goal we had set out for before any of us even got to Sandburg––our first State Cross Country Team Title.
One of the most memorable days in my running career started off so calmly. I woke up at 5:30 AM that morning and sat up in my bed in my dark quiet room hours before leaving Sandburg’s Hall of Fame for the long road trip down to Peoria. My house was as quiet as a mouse, and my heart rate was close to 40 beats per minute. I felt so calm. A day that would normally cause anxiety and stress for the normal state-bound runner had me feeling so relaxed. I woke up knowing that all over Orland Park, there were teammates getting up that same morning with confidence knowing with near certainty what was going to happen that day. We were not to be denied. Not this time.
I went through my normal race morning rituals and headed over to Sandburg with my brother, Chris. Our car ride was quiet while we both sat there and thought about the day ahead. I remember the sun just starting to get its way up in the sky with what seemed to be no clouds in sight. It felt peaceful. We got into the building and met up with our travel squad as they were loading the bus up. Business as usual. I climbed up into the bus, greeted the driver, and went and found my spot to settle in. There was a quiet, yet confident energy buzzing around the athletes and coaching staff. Soon enough, we were on the road. About an hour into the drive, we started getting videos of all of the Sandburg “Superfanz” filling up 4 buses getting ready to travel down with the intention of witnessing an historic race. I still remember the goosebumps I got fully realizing in that moment how many people were involved in this project. It takes an army, and an army is what we had.
We did our typical gas station stop to do some stretches about an hour or so out from Detweiller Park. It was a sight so familiar that it brought some normalcy to what was going to be a crazy day. Results were now starting to pour in from the 1A races that were going on. It was proving to be a fast day. The nerves started to kick in as we got back on the bus to make our final trip over. We pulled into the parking lot and passed the course as one of the races was going on. The place was a madhouse and still getting more crowded as more people were starting to arrive. We drove past the masses and parked the bus in a more remote spot away from the meet, about a quarter-mile from our team tent. We hung out there for a while and made jokes and talked to pass the time. We put our bib numbers on and the coaches sat us down to talk a few minutes before heading down to the tent. At this point, it was just the racers and the coaches. Normally, Coach O’Malley would give us his thoughts about what each athlete brought to the table that was going to lead to our success, but this time was different. During our pre-meet drive down to Peoria the night before the race, he had us fill out a sheet with all of the racers’ names on it. We had to write something we were confident in about each person and why we believed they were such a great asset to the team. During this meeting on the bus, he pulled these sheets out and read to each of us what we all wrote about each other. It was so genuine and empowering. I knew there was complete trust in one another after hearing everyone’s thoughts. I remember thinking, “You can’t lose with this kind of trust.”
We let those thoughts sink in and we finally got off the bus to descend down the hill to the team camp. We were greeted by hundreds of Sandburg fans. It was unbelievable. I was so overwhelmed. We tucked ourselves away in the tent and got our minds ready before heading into the warmup. Coach O’Neil helped stretch us out on his PT table and I felt so ready after this. We huddled up as a group one last time to listen to “September” by Earth, Wind, and Fire. It was a goofy pre-race ritual that came about on accident, but it worked for us, so we fit it into our schedule. 1:10 PM, we started our run and headed out to the woods for some quiet time as a group. We went over tactics one more time and this is when the nerves really settled in. I knew it was starting to get real. We got back to our team camp area, and I was doing dynamic stretches out behind the awards stands surrounded by Sandburg fans feeling like I was being watched like a hawk. This went by quickly and the racers all grouped up to do our stride over to the start line. We ran under a tunnel of arms put on by the Sandburg supporters and embraced the loud cheers on our way out.
We lined up in our box on the far inside of the starting line and did a couple of practice starts followed by a minute threshold. I felt so heavy, and I had some doubts starting to creep in. I turned to Max Lehnhardt and asked how he felt and he said the same thing back to me. For some reason that was comforting and my nerves went away. We got into our team huddle and it was just a speech of pure passion and a burning fire for victory. I don’t even remember what was said. I just remember walking out of it feeling like I could run through a brick wall. I did a stride back to the starting line and we were finally instructed by the officials to line up for takeoff. It was loud on the course, but I could still hear the booming chant of “CS!” - “HS!” coming from both sides of the crowds. I remember being lined up feeling like I’d do anything for these people right now. This race gave me that opportunity.
The “on your mark” whistle blew and we all stepped up to the line in dead silence spread across the course. It was so quiet that I could hear the birds chirping. The gun popped and I was off the line like I was shot out of a canon. I went straight to the front of the race to ensure that I didn’t get cut off at the first turn 500m away. I took a quick glance around when we got there and sure enough we had our entire lineup right there next to me. We got to 800m at 2:09 and Sandburg was leading the state meet. (Interesting fact/some perspective on how bad we wanted this: Looking back on it, this was a faster opening 800m split than when I won my state title in the 1600m later that spring). Brandon Lukas was pressing the pace and I knew right there that we were going to win. Our guys were clearly ready to hurt more than anyone else. The race continued to play out, and I found myself up in the front pack coming up to the two-mile mark. I was sitting at the back of that pack and realized the leader had made a decisive move to try to break away from the field. I reacted late, but I eventually found myself separating from the pack - in second place - chasing him down. The entire time I was worried about bringing down our score as much as possible. I wanted that 1 point. We hit the top of the course and headed back downhill along the highway. I was chasing hard trying to close. I had a half-mile to go when I heard the words from Coach O’Malley, “We’re doing it!” My hard move to come back on the leader was catching up to me, but I didn’t want to be done yet. I moved into the final straightaway with 300m to go still chasing and realizing that I had let him make the move too early on me. I had nothing left to catch him and battled all the way up to the finish line. I was ultimately caught by one other person.
In a moment of great success, I remember being so mad that I couldn’t have done more for my team. Looking back on it, it was a ridiculous thought considering we had ultimately won, but that goes to show how much I wanted to give us the win. I laid there lifeless on the ground and all of my teammates crossed the finish line one by one to meet me. The first thing I heard was from Martin Skucas when he came up next to me in the finish chute. He said, “We did it.” It was with pure exhaustion but with such joy. We threw everything we had at it and wrote our historic chapter in our book. We had finally won our first team title.
We walked out of the finish area and were greeted by hundreds of Sandburg students, parents, teachers, and teammates. They starting cheering, chanting, and taking photos. We were being interviewed left, right, and center and they all waited patiently for us, surrounding us with love and support. It was a memory that we got to share with so many people. We did our cool down and were talking about our own battles during the race and congratulated each other on accomplishing a dream that began years prior. We got back and threw on our State Champions long sleeves and went over to the awards stand to accept our medals. We ran down off the stage and each gave our medals to our parents to thank them for their overwhelming love and support. They were just as instrumental to the win and we wanted to make sure they could feel it too. Then, everyone hopped back up on the stage and we finally got to accept the state championship trophy. My teammates picked me to accept it (which I felt guilty about because I could have given a million reasons why anybody else deserved it), and I threw it up over my head right after picking it up. I almost dropped it because I was so excited, but everyone else’s hands were on it so no tragedies happened.
We got down and took a bunch of pictures and people began leaving the park. We ended up being the last team there that day. It was quiet and we all stood around with this trophy that we worked so hard for. I almost didn’t want to leave. However, we all climbed on the bus anyway and headed back to Orland Park. We blasted our music and talked about the day. My cheeks hurt from how much I was smiling. We got back to LaGrange Rd and were met by police to give us an escort back to Sandburg. I felt like royalty. We got back to the school and worked our way into the Eagle Gym to see hundreds of the Sandburg supporters there for a post-race party put on by the school. “We Are the Champions” by Queen was on repeat the entire time and we celebrated the victory together, as a family. I am so grateful that I got to experience and share those unbelievable memories with some of the most inspiring people that I have ever met. It has created lifelong friendships and I would not trade it for anything else in this world. November 7, 2015, is a day that I will never forget. Go Eagles!
Max Lehnhardt 14:39 13th place overall ALL-STATE
I believe the best day to start this recollection is to start with a conversation Chris and I had the night before the race at the legendary Buca Di Beppo. We discussed the microscopic amount of time we still spend racing the next day compared to how much time, effort, and struggle we went through to get this moment. The math was pretty simple. We divided the approximate amount of time we would spend racing (about 15 minutes) by the amount of time since the last state meet (about 21,900 minutes) and concluded that all of our effort in the last year, not counting all the other seasons, would be decided in .06% of the year. Some would look at this as adding pressure to ourselves, but it really was a crazy perspective to think that after 21,900 minutes of preparation it came down to one 15 minute race. Needless to say, we were hyped.
Moving on to the morning of the meet, I was actually a little late to the bus to the point where it was pulling up to 131st street. I remember not even being that panicked in the moment and as I was walking on to the bus that had to stop for me O’Malley greets me, “Oh hey Max.” Now this may seem like a random story to tell, but to think that although I was one of our top guys, our bus had so much talent on it that if it somehow would have left without me, we had 5 other guys to fill my place. After I sat down, I was humbled and reminded how lucky I was to be a part of the group that was racing because if for whatever reason I didn’t show up, there were plenty of guys who could have stepped up. Of course, being the “prove them wrong guy” that I was, it acted as a source of motivation as I wanted to show I was a crucial part of the team. (If you look at the scoring you could have actually taken me out of the race completely and we still would have won, but let me have this one.) We then headed over to the church next to Sandburg to follow suit with the tradition of meeting shortly with the legend known as Pastor Borling. Although I’m not a very religious individual, there is without a doubt a unique channelling of energy that occurs when I reflect within that church.
After what felt like a long bus trip of playing the different scenarios of the race through my mind, we finally arrived at the historic Detweiller Park. I remember getting chills as we rolled up the street next to the course. As a Sandburg athlete, you have probably heard the phrase, “I have never been so excited in my whole life,” - yeah I felt that. When we parked near the top of the hill behind the course, some guys got out to help set up our tents, so it was just the racers left on the bus for about an hour or so. The feeling in the air was great, everyone was calm and confident. Did I know for sure that we were going to win? No. Did I see any scenarios that we would lose? Also no. Everybody knew what had to get done. I could feel the desire for people to want to run through a brick wall (or in Tom Brennan’s case, a literal torn hamstring.) People don’t really talk about it enough, but Tom’s last two races in the state series were arguably the best performances the state has ever seen. I don’t know many people who would be willing to do what he did with the injury he had. The only other person I know that actually tried was Dylan Jacobs. When it got closer to being time to head down to the tents, O’Malley came onto the bus and played “Run This Town” by Jay Z and Rhianna. That song will get you right before any big moment (and I mean who doesn’t get hyped by Rhianna). After heading down to the tents, I was greeted by some of the friends who came down on the fan buses and it all just felt surreal. Like these people were all here to support and more importantly (in my mind probably not theirs) they were here to see us win. I loved it.
We headed out onto the warmup, which followed suit with our typical warmups. We start the jog not really saying much, in the middle of it we’re talking a decent amount then the last part we don’t talk much. I remember mentioning the little math problem (.06% of a year) to Chris and also repeating in my head a quote that Paul Sieczkowski relayed to me, “A moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory.” These two perspectives seem to go hand in hand with success if you take the right perspective. Going back to the warmup, there’s a relatively common runner philosophy that if you feel bad on the warmup then your race will go well and if you feel good on the warmup then your race will go poorly. Even though there’s absolutely no real evidence to support this I always found my mind trying to slip into that thought process. For the record, I felt great on the warm up. After getting back to the tent, I put my bib on my uniform, which was a habit of mine that O’Malley didn’t like very much, then we jogged as a team over to the line. We had an inside box for the second year in a row, which because of our poor performance the prior year we were excited to get redemption. During warmups, the first straightaway was lined with Sandburg fans on both the left and right sides. They were loud and we loved it. The other teams were already smothered by Sandburg energy and the race hadn’t even started. After our final stride outs, I remember how crappy my legs felt and I made a joke to Chris about how I felt and he laughed saying he felt the same. It was one of those things that in that moment, it didn’t matter how we felt, there was a job that needed to be done for 15 minutes, but it’s funny how your mind will trick you into thinking you feel bad.
Now onto the race. With the Sandburg fans going nuts right up to the moment of the starters announcement, the energy was electric. I played through the different potential starts in my mind well before the race and I was pretty certain we were going to open up very hard. Sure enough as soon as the gun goes off Sean and Chris bolt out of the gates and I already told myself I was going to go with them because we needed each other to work together. When we were only about 150 meters in, we were ahead by a couple steps and by the time we hit the 400 I yelled to Sean and Chris “we’re out,” meaning we got the open we wanted now we can settle in. They seemed to hear what I said because we settled in and I looked around me to see a couple other jerseys and Brandon Lukas pushing with us. By the time we got the 800, Brandon was actually leading the whole state by himself, what a sight to see. I remember hearing someone call out splits with a megaphone and I heard 2:05 (which ended up being wrong it was 2:09), but I thought to myself wow that’s about 3 seconds off my 800 PR. Again back to the same mantra, it doesn’t matter what happens we’re going to win. I decided once we got to the top of the hill I was going to settle into the position I was in, but still make sure I kept contact with the guys. We rolled through the mile and entered my favorite part of the course -- the North Loop. If you want to win at Detweiller, you win the North Loop. We knew that and we abused that. While everyone else was slowing down we worked to try and pass bodies. When we came around the 1.5 mile mark I heard O’Malley say we were winning, which is always some good
positive reinforcement. After exiting the North Loop, the next goal was to get to the top of the hill. At this section of the course, Sean was starting to pull away from Chris and I while we continued to battle in a pretty large pack of about 15 guys. I actually remember in the extremely loud atmosphere hearing my dad cheering, which is incredible considering how loud it was. We got to the top of the course and I hear coach McAullife and McGuire cheering us on with such enthusiasm. It’s actually incredible that during such a loud race you’re still able to hear the voices you recognize. I’m sure the other guys would say the same thing. At the top of the course, Chris and I are still together as we tended to work together extremely well the entire season. We passed the 800 at the same time and I remembered the feeling of blowing up in the last 800 the year prior. No chance this was happening this year. We turned up the last straight away with 500 to go and I remember thinking “this is it, senior year, all you got.” I remember fighting for every point as I wanted to pick off as many points and blue jerseys (because Lyons our main competition wore blue, but that day they actually wore black which we found out after the race). Chris, state champion in the 800, seems to not remember the story like this, but with 300 to go I actually passed him and put a lead on him. He will deny it to this day, but the proof is in the pictures. So, at this point I am burning like I never have before and all I am thinking is get to the line because I was in no man’s land where I lost the group I was with and the group ahead of me was pretty far. I crossed the line and turned around to see Chris finish right by me,
then Brandon, then Tom. What a beautiful sight. We gathered around as a team and had people coming up to us congratulating us that we won and I knew we won, but I still needed to see the results. The entire Sandburg fanbase then surrounded us and everyone was celebrating and we’re just surrounded by our teammates, friends, and family after just winning the state title. It was truly surreal. O’Malley, who actually sets himself in the worst position to see the finish (but the most crucial spot to make sure there is a finish) rolled up a little bit after to join the team in celebration. Not only was it his first cross country title, but it was his son’s first state meet, who actually joined us on the podium. We ended the celebration with one of the largest “breaks” in team history, parents, friends, fans, teammates: “Eagles on 3! 1, 2, 3, Eagles!” As we made our way to the podium to receive our medals and the trophy, all you could see in the stands was a mass of blue and gold. I owe this special moment in my life and running career
to these people. Most importantly, my parents. We recognized the crap we put our parents through and immediately after receiving our medals we all one by one gave them to the people behind the scene who made it all possible.
I believe the best day to start this recollection is to start with a conversation Chris and I had the night before the race at the legendary Buca Di Beppo. We discussed the microscopic amount of time we still spend racing the next day compared to how much time, effort, and struggle we went through to get this moment. The math was pretty simple. We divided the approximate amount of time we would spend racing (about 15 minutes) by the amount of time since the last state meet (about 21,900 minutes) and concluded that all of our effort in the last year, not counting all the other seasons, would be decided in .06% of the year. Some would look at this as adding pressure to ourselves, but it really was a crazy perspective to think that after 21,900 minutes of preparation it came down to one 15 minute race. Needless to say, we were hyped.
Moving on to the morning of the meet, I was actually a little late to the bus to the point where it was pulling up to 131st street. I remember not even being that panicked in the moment and as I was walking on to the bus that had to stop for me O’Malley greets me, “Oh hey Max.” Now this may seem like a random story to tell, but to think that although I was one of our top guys, our bus had so much talent on it that if it somehow would have left without me, we had 5 other guys to fill my place. After I sat down, I was humbled and reminded how lucky I was to be a part of the group that was racing because if for whatever reason I didn’t show up, there were plenty of guys who could have stepped up. Of course, being the “prove them wrong guy” that I was, it acted as a source of motivation as I wanted to show I was a crucial part of the team. (If you look at the scoring you could have actually taken me out of the race completely and we still would have won, but let me have this one.) We then headed over to the church next to Sandburg to follow suit with the tradition of meeting shortly with the legend known as Pastor Borling. Although I’m not a very religious individual, there is without a doubt a unique channelling of energy that occurs when I reflect within that church.
After what felt like a long bus trip of playing the different scenarios of the race through my mind, we finally arrived at the historic Detweiller Park. I remember getting chills as we rolled up the street next to the course. As a Sandburg athlete, you have probably heard the phrase, “I have never been so excited in my whole life,” - yeah I felt that. When we parked near the top of the hill behind the course, some guys got out to help set up our tents, so it was just the racers left on the bus for about an hour or so. The feeling in the air was great, everyone was calm and confident. Did I know for sure that we were going to win? No. Did I see any scenarios that we would lose? Also no. Everybody knew what had to get done. I could feel the desire for people to want to run through a brick wall (or in Tom Brennan’s case, a literal torn hamstring.) People don’t really talk about it enough, but Tom’s last two races in the state series were arguably the best performances the state has ever seen. I don’t know many people who would be willing to do what he did with the injury he had. The only other person I know that actually tried was Dylan Jacobs. When it got closer to being time to head down to the tents, O’Malley came onto the bus and played “Run This Town” by Jay Z and Rhianna. That song will get you right before any big moment (and I mean who doesn’t get hyped by Rhianna). After heading down to the tents, I was greeted by some of the friends who came down on the fan buses and it all just felt surreal. Like these people were all here to support and more importantly (in my mind probably not theirs) they were here to see us win. I loved it.
We headed out onto the warmup, which followed suit with our typical warmups. We start the jog not really saying much, in the middle of it we’re talking a decent amount then the last part we don’t talk much. I remember mentioning the little math problem (.06% of a year) to Chris and also repeating in my head a quote that Paul Sieczkowski relayed to me, “A moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory.” These two perspectives seem to go hand in hand with success if you take the right perspective. Going back to the warmup, there’s a relatively common runner philosophy that if you feel bad on the warmup then your race will go well and if you feel good on the warmup then your race will go poorly. Even though there’s absolutely no real evidence to support this I always found my mind trying to slip into that thought process. For the record, I felt great on the warm up. After getting back to the tent, I put my bib on my uniform, which was a habit of mine that O’Malley didn’t like very much, then we jogged as a team over to the line. We had an inside box for the second year in a row, which because of our poor performance the prior year we were excited to get redemption. During warmups, the first straightaway was lined with Sandburg fans on both the left and right sides. They were loud and we loved it. The other teams were already smothered by Sandburg energy and the race hadn’t even started. After our final stride outs, I remember how crappy my legs felt and I made a joke to Chris about how I felt and he laughed saying he felt the same. It was one of those things that in that moment, it didn’t matter how we felt, there was a job that needed to be done for 15 minutes, but it’s funny how your mind will trick you into thinking you feel bad.
Now onto the race. With the Sandburg fans going nuts right up to the moment of the starters announcement, the energy was electric. I played through the different potential starts in my mind well before the race and I was pretty certain we were going to open up very hard. Sure enough as soon as the gun goes off Sean and Chris bolt out of the gates and I already told myself I was going to go with them because we needed each other to work together. When we were only about 150 meters in, we were ahead by a couple steps and by the time we hit the 400 I yelled to Sean and Chris “we’re out,” meaning we got the open we wanted now we can settle in. They seemed to hear what I said because we settled in and I looked around me to see a couple other jerseys and Brandon Lukas pushing with us. By the time we got the 800, Brandon was actually leading the whole state by himself, what a sight to see. I remember hearing someone call out splits with a megaphone and I heard 2:05 (which ended up being wrong it was 2:09), but I thought to myself wow that’s about 3 seconds off my 800 PR. Again back to the same mantra, it doesn’t matter what happens we’re going to win. I decided once we got to the top of the hill I was going to settle into the position I was in, but still make sure I kept contact with the guys. We rolled through the mile and entered my favorite part of the course -- the North Loop. If you want to win at Detweiller, you win the North Loop. We knew that and we abused that. While everyone else was slowing down we worked to try and pass bodies. When we came around the 1.5 mile mark I heard O’Malley say we were winning, which is always some good
positive reinforcement. After exiting the North Loop, the next goal was to get to the top of the hill. At this section of the course, Sean was starting to pull away from Chris and I while we continued to battle in a pretty large pack of about 15 guys. I actually remember in the extremely loud atmosphere hearing my dad cheering, which is incredible considering how loud it was. We got to the top of the course and I hear coach McAullife and McGuire cheering us on with such enthusiasm. It’s actually incredible that during such a loud race you’re still able to hear the voices you recognize. I’m sure the other guys would say the same thing. At the top of the course, Chris and I are still together as we tended to work together extremely well the entire season. We passed the 800 at the same time and I remembered the feeling of blowing up in the last 800 the year prior. No chance this was happening this year. We turned up the last straight away with 500 to go and I remember thinking “this is it, senior year, all you got.” I remember fighting for every point as I wanted to pick off as many points and blue jerseys (because Lyons our main competition wore blue, but that day they actually wore black which we found out after the race). Chris, state champion in the 800, seems to not remember the story like this, but with 300 to go I actually passed him and put a lead on him. He will deny it to this day, but the proof is in the pictures. So, at this point I am burning like I never have before and all I am thinking is get to the line because I was in no man’s land where I lost the group I was with and the group ahead of me was pretty far. I crossed the line and turned around to see Chris finish right by me,
then Brandon, then Tom. What a beautiful sight. We gathered around as a team and had people coming up to us congratulating us that we won and I knew we won, but I still needed to see the results. The entire Sandburg fanbase then surrounded us and everyone was celebrating and we’re just surrounded by our teammates, friends, and family after just winning the state title. It was truly surreal. O’Malley, who actually sets himself in the worst position to see the finish (but the most crucial spot to make sure there is a finish) rolled up a little bit after to join the team in celebration. Not only was it his first cross country title, but it was his son’s first state meet, who actually joined us on the podium. We ended the celebration with one of the largest “breaks” in team history, parents, friends, fans, teammates: “Eagles on 3! 1, 2, 3, Eagles!” As we made our way to the podium to receive our medals and the trophy, all you could see in the stands was a mass of blue and gold. I owe this special moment in my life and running career
to these people. Most importantly, my parents. We recognized the crap we put our parents through and immediately after receiving our medals we all one by one gave them to the people behind the scene who made it all possible.
Chris Torpy 14:42 16th place overall ALL-STATE
The 2015 State Meet was an experience that’s hard to replicate in any other moment of my life. For me, it was the final shot at a title; something we were denied the year before to a simple error within the first 400m of the race. This year, it was different. It took 4 years to build into a championship team that had come from so many athletic backgrounds, football being mine. As we walked down the hill from where we parked the bus, I wondered to myself just how I was convinced to join cross country, and how lucky I was to have made the switch over to the team. I would never be in the position to fight for a state title had I stayed in football, no matter how convinced the guys were that “this was our year.” I had always said the reason I switched was because I wanted to join a team who cared. Well, now was the time to show it. I could hear the makeshift bucket drums in the background of my music that I turned up to distract myself from the nerves that built up in me. We stood side-by-side until we caught the crowd that had drove down earlier in the day to support. It seemed like a thousand people caked in blue and yellow paint that had crammed themselves on a bus for 2.5 hours just to see 7 of us run 3 miles. This was quite possibly the biggest crowd the school had seen all year in any sport. I was amazed at the sight. It was brief, then we all shuffled into the tent where we laid around until it was time to start our warmup routine. The nerves spiked until I got moving. Waiting is the worst part. We ran by the crowd once more with an eruption of cheers, but it all faded once we disappeared into the back woods. It was us to ourselves for the very last time. I remember it being a quiet warmup. Not much different than usual, but we could feel the pressure looming over. We went out for about 6 minutes, stopped for a pee break, then shuffled back to the tent the same way we came for a total of 12 minutes on the warmup. I don’t know if the coaches ever knew that we started cutting our warmup from 15 minutes to 12 minutes last track season, but for whatever reason it stuck. It was the magic number. The rushed warmup we did at Mustang Relays that landed us a successful race made us superstitious to do it the same way ever since.
The noise grew again as we approached the crowd. The intensity was building. Of the little we talked about on the warmup, it was all spent making fun of each other. I don’t know why, but it always seemed to calm the nerves when we could beat each other down. We grabbed our spikes and rushed over to the start line. We had started our warmup a little later than we should’ve. A quick change of shoes and we got off on our strides down the starting stretch. The noise level was crazy. From one side of the massive starting field were the screams of “CS”, while the other side continued with an even louder “HS.” All eyes were on us. After the final stride, we did our 1-minute threshold about 10 minutes out from the start. I got back to the line and puffed out to Sean, “Did your legs feel as bad as mine on that?” He gave me a quick, “Uh, yeah, I wasn’t expecting that.” We didn’t say anything to anyone else. The last thing we needed was negativity on the line.
The officials lined us up and the crowd went silent. For the thousands of people there, if you closed your eyes, you would guess it was an almost empty field. We were positioned in an inside box, which was the downfall of our previous year’s state meet. As soon as we found out our box, we laughed. It seemed poetic. We had the chance to make things right this time around. The gun cracked and we fired down that straightaway. I could hear Max from behind yelling at us, “We’re out. We’re OUT. WE’RE OUT!” It was true. Our 400m was close to 60 seconds. We had 3 of us leading the meet already going into the hairpin turn. What ended a state title opportunity last year was the strength this year. We hit 800m in 2:09. Brandon was spearheading the field. The Sandburg crowd was loud. Every turn there was a poster in our face or some pre-determined chant. It was never-ending and it held us all together. We got to the top of the course and things got real. The crowd had swallowed me up around the big tree behind the finish line because of a slow turn. I saw Sean move with the leaders and I was trapped. I fought and moved my way back up to the top 10. Our biggest competitor was Lyons, but we had no idea where they were because they chose to wear a new jersey that day. The race was up to our training and trust in each other. We hit the north loop and not much had changed. Max had found his way to me and we rolled together. Sean was still up ahead. The noise of the crowd kept coming. The 1.5 to 2 mile was always the most challenging part to me. I put my foot down and dragged myself up that straightaway. I might have passed 10 guys during that point, but they had regained on me the final mile. At this point, Max and I had yo-yoed back and forth between positions, picking off one guy at a time downhill along the highway. We got to 800 to go and O’Malley was yelling things I can’t even remember; I just know it was something motivational but could have also sounded like a prayer for us to hold on. The first 800 was starting to take its toll. We hit the 300-to-go tree and dug like we never had before. I had envisioned the scenario a million times before. I had assumed I’d be further ahead in my dreams, but it wasn’t time to dread. I clenched my jaw and forced my arms back to finish. Max had finished 3 spots ahead, with Sean in 3rd. I didn’t have time to turn back before Tom and the other guys were hanging on my shoulders. I guessed we had won, but I knew it was bad to assume. The merge with the fans made our place sound very reassuring. We crowded together and took more pictures than you could imagine to celebrate the victory. Months, even years, of hard work had finally summed into a dream we all followed through the cold, rain, blistering heat, and even the occasional nice day. The win was glorious, but at the same time, a deep feeling of sadness came over me that the chase was all over. There was something so fun about taking it all on. The sad realization that the team would never quite be the same as we would never get the state meet together again was hard. At the end of the day, though, it was all worth it to raise that trophy, crowd the back of the bus on the way home, and be together in that scenario for the very last time.
The 2015 State Meet was an experience that’s hard to replicate in any other moment of my life. For me, it was the final shot at a title; something we were denied the year before to a simple error within the first 400m of the race. This year, it was different. It took 4 years to build into a championship team that had come from so many athletic backgrounds, football being mine. As we walked down the hill from where we parked the bus, I wondered to myself just how I was convinced to join cross country, and how lucky I was to have made the switch over to the team. I would never be in the position to fight for a state title had I stayed in football, no matter how convinced the guys were that “this was our year.” I had always said the reason I switched was because I wanted to join a team who cared. Well, now was the time to show it. I could hear the makeshift bucket drums in the background of my music that I turned up to distract myself from the nerves that built up in me. We stood side-by-side until we caught the crowd that had drove down earlier in the day to support. It seemed like a thousand people caked in blue and yellow paint that had crammed themselves on a bus for 2.5 hours just to see 7 of us run 3 miles. This was quite possibly the biggest crowd the school had seen all year in any sport. I was amazed at the sight. It was brief, then we all shuffled into the tent where we laid around until it was time to start our warmup routine. The nerves spiked until I got moving. Waiting is the worst part. We ran by the crowd once more with an eruption of cheers, but it all faded once we disappeared into the back woods. It was us to ourselves for the very last time. I remember it being a quiet warmup. Not much different than usual, but we could feel the pressure looming over. We went out for about 6 minutes, stopped for a pee break, then shuffled back to the tent the same way we came for a total of 12 minutes on the warmup. I don’t know if the coaches ever knew that we started cutting our warmup from 15 minutes to 12 minutes last track season, but for whatever reason it stuck. It was the magic number. The rushed warmup we did at Mustang Relays that landed us a successful race made us superstitious to do it the same way ever since.
The noise grew again as we approached the crowd. The intensity was building. Of the little we talked about on the warmup, it was all spent making fun of each other. I don’t know why, but it always seemed to calm the nerves when we could beat each other down. We grabbed our spikes and rushed over to the start line. We had started our warmup a little later than we should’ve. A quick change of shoes and we got off on our strides down the starting stretch. The noise level was crazy. From one side of the massive starting field were the screams of “CS”, while the other side continued with an even louder “HS.” All eyes were on us. After the final stride, we did our 1-minute threshold about 10 minutes out from the start. I got back to the line and puffed out to Sean, “Did your legs feel as bad as mine on that?” He gave me a quick, “Uh, yeah, I wasn’t expecting that.” We didn’t say anything to anyone else. The last thing we needed was negativity on the line.
The officials lined us up and the crowd went silent. For the thousands of people there, if you closed your eyes, you would guess it was an almost empty field. We were positioned in an inside box, which was the downfall of our previous year’s state meet. As soon as we found out our box, we laughed. It seemed poetic. We had the chance to make things right this time around. The gun cracked and we fired down that straightaway. I could hear Max from behind yelling at us, “We’re out. We’re OUT. WE’RE OUT!” It was true. Our 400m was close to 60 seconds. We had 3 of us leading the meet already going into the hairpin turn. What ended a state title opportunity last year was the strength this year. We hit 800m in 2:09. Brandon was spearheading the field. The Sandburg crowd was loud. Every turn there was a poster in our face or some pre-determined chant. It was never-ending and it held us all together. We got to the top of the course and things got real. The crowd had swallowed me up around the big tree behind the finish line because of a slow turn. I saw Sean move with the leaders and I was trapped. I fought and moved my way back up to the top 10. Our biggest competitor was Lyons, but we had no idea where they were because they chose to wear a new jersey that day. The race was up to our training and trust in each other. We hit the north loop and not much had changed. Max had found his way to me and we rolled together. Sean was still up ahead. The noise of the crowd kept coming. The 1.5 to 2 mile was always the most challenging part to me. I put my foot down and dragged myself up that straightaway. I might have passed 10 guys during that point, but they had regained on me the final mile. At this point, Max and I had yo-yoed back and forth between positions, picking off one guy at a time downhill along the highway. We got to 800 to go and O’Malley was yelling things I can’t even remember; I just know it was something motivational but could have also sounded like a prayer for us to hold on. The first 800 was starting to take its toll. We hit the 300-to-go tree and dug like we never had before. I had envisioned the scenario a million times before. I had assumed I’d be further ahead in my dreams, but it wasn’t time to dread. I clenched my jaw and forced my arms back to finish. Max had finished 3 spots ahead, with Sean in 3rd. I didn’t have time to turn back before Tom and the other guys were hanging on my shoulders. I guessed we had won, but I knew it was bad to assume. The merge with the fans made our place sound very reassuring. We crowded together and took more pictures than you could imagine to celebrate the victory. Months, even years, of hard work had finally summed into a dream we all followed through the cold, rain, blistering heat, and even the occasional nice day. The win was glorious, but at the same time, a deep feeling of sadness came over me that the chase was all over. There was something so fun about taking it all on. The sad realization that the team would never quite be the same as we would never get the state meet together again was hard. At the end of the day, though, it was all worth it to raise that trophy, crowd the back of the bus on the way home, and be together in that scenario for the very last time.
Brandon Lukas 14:54 31st place overall
I was not scared at all about state; honestly, I felt we already had it in the bag. Not only did I recognize that our team was in elite shape and ran deep, but I felt super assured in myself. In true underdog fashion, I had to fight my way up from the bottom to earn my spot in the state lineup. Beating the odds strengthened my belief system about myself, causing me to feel fiercer and statelier than ever before. Overall, I just felt we were extremely qualified and prepared to win state.
Throughout high school, I was never one to give much thought about strategy – hot and spontaneous was more my style. My “strategy” for state was to start out strong, maintain position, and finish with a powerful kick. It might have been generic, but really, more than ever, I knew that an aggressive start was absolutely critical because there would be a huge traffic jam around the first turn, and if I didn’t get there right away, I would get trapped.
With that said, the moment the gun went off, I dominantly seized control. It was crazy because there were so many runners. In a way, it was kind of like charging into battle. There was some shoving going on, which was totally expected, but I was uncompromising in my assertive efforts to get up in front. Apparently, I might have been leading the race, but being so focused and determined to beat the herd, I don’t think I realized that I was actually leading. Anyways, I did it. After the first turn, I shifted to the second phase of my strategy, which was to focus on maintaining position.
I remember feeling good, having my Sandburg teammates next to me. Even though I might have been out of my league, I really challenged myself to keep up with the front pack because maybe I could do it, and maybe the runners around us would get intimidated, become discouraged, give up, and drop out. Who knows? The entire race definitely felt intense, but the first few minutes actually didn’t feel painful. I would say the pain started to creep in maybe after the 1.5-mile mark, but I felt I was able to transcend and transmute much of the pain and not fall back too much. I believe I attribute that to being in great shape, having strong will and determination, and truly just having fun given this was state and there were so many fans cheering for us. It was an incredibly cool, transcendent experience.
When it came time for me to kick, I guess I was just thinking, “there is no way I’m going to let anyone kick me down”. I accessed my inner power and vitality and I finished strong. And that was that. Winning state felt like a culmination of 4 years of bonding and hard work. The experience was great.
I was not scared at all about state; honestly, I felt we already had it in the bag. Not only did I recognize that our team was in elite shape and ran deep, but I felt super assured in myself. In true underdog fashion, I had to fight my way up from the bottom to earn my spot in the state lineup. Beating the odds strengthened my belief system about myself, causing me to feel fiercer and statelier than ever before. Overall, I just felt we were extremely qualified and prepared to win state.
Throughout high school, I was never one to give much thought about strategy – hot and spontaneous was more my style. My “strategy” for state was to start out strong, maintain position, and finish with a powerful kick. It might have been generic, but really, more than ever, I knew that an aggressive start was absolutely critical because there would be a huge traffic jam around the first turn, and if I didn’t get there right away, I would get trapped.
With that said, the moment the gun went off, I dominantly seized control. It was crazy because there were so many runners. In a way, it was kind of like charging into battle. There was some shoving going on, which was totally expected, but I was uncompromising in my assertive efforts to get up in front. Apparently, I might have been leading the race, but being so focused and determined to beat the herd, I don’t think I realized that I was actually leading. Anyways, I did it. After the first turn, I shifted to the second phase of my strategy, which was to focus on maintaining position.
I remember feeling good, having my Sandburg teammates next to me. Even though I might have been out of my league, I really challenged myself to keep up with the front pack because maybe I could do it, and maybe the runners around us would get intimidated, become discouraged, give up, and drop out. Who knows? The entire race definitely felt intense, but the first few minutes actually didn’t feel painful. I would say the pain started to creep in maybe after the 1.5-mile mark, but I felt I was able to transcend and transmute much of the pain and not fall back too much. I believe I attribute that to being in great shape, having strong will and determination, and truly just having fun given this was state and there were so many fans cheering for us. It was an incredibly cool, transcendent experience.
When it came time for me to kick, I guess I was just thinking, “there is no way I’m going to let anyone kick me down”. I accessed my inner power and vitality and I finished strong. And that was that. Winning state felt like a culmination of 4 years of bonding and hard work. The experience was great.
Tom Brennan 14:58 38th place overall
I’m going to say before I start that this might end up being longer than some of the other responses. If you know me personally this probably won’t come as a surprise. The 2014 and 2015 state meets could not have gone more differently, and for obvious
reasons 2015 is more fun to remember. Our junior year, we had box 8 (75% sure), and went out too slow. We got buried in the back of the pack at the half mile mark. If that was the only thing we did wrong, we may have ended up ok. Spoiler alert, things did not end up ok. Me and Greg Burzinski basically made up the gap on the pack in the second half mile, and by the mile mark
we had the team score lead. But we were gassed. If there is one 800 on that course you do not want to be surging it’s the second one. We ended up holding the lead until a half mile to go, and we did not close well. Hinsdale did. We lost by 40. After beating them by 70 at sectionals. NOT GREAT.
There are a few ways to handle failing that badly (I swear at some point this will get positive I promise). The easiest way is to avoid thinking about it. Never mention it. Forget it happened. The problem with that approach is that you can’t learn from failure if you don’t face it. So we did. But we were weird about it. People love to tell you that you have to face failure head on but never acknowledge how painful/awkward that can be, but that kind of elephant in the room can turn toxic. So….we made fun of it. Constantly. For the next year. To be honest we made fun of everything for the next calendar year. I’m sure you all watched The Last Dance and saw how Jordan was aggressive with his teammates (not passive aggressive like Lebron). We were like that but softened with humor. Basically anytime a teammate was doing something we didn’t feel would help the team we would make fun of them for it. I sincerely think it is the best middle ground to take. If you ignore people’s bad habits they won’t ever change them, but if you
are too aggressively confrontational you can end up sucking all the fun out of an already difficult sport. If you make fun of someone for their bad habits they get the message but get to laugh about it. They end up being less defensive than they would have been if you called them out aggressively.
You may be wondering why I brought all that up, or wondering why it was relevant. Well the year we choked the state meet a certain teammate/future all american uttered the now famous last words “we’re good here” on the first straightaway. We were not in fact good there. And we never let him forget it. We pretty much made fun of him for saying that every day for 365
days after that. He was cool with it, because we basically made fun of everyone on that team about what happened. It wasn’t really a guilt thing or a blame thing, it just was what it was. Well, that same teammate remembered in 2015. And this time instead of opening in a 70 for the first 400 he opened sub 60 through the quarter. Opening hard did not let him escape one last roast though. We opened so fast that Max Lehnhardt made him hear one last “we’re good here”. I actually laughed on the first straightaway of the state meet. (The one problem with our philosophy was that Max might have actually been serious and it would have been REALLY
funny if we ended up blowing this state meet the exact opposite way we blew the other one). After the first turn, we had 6 guys in the front line along with the eventual state champion from Buffalo Grove and two other returning all-staters. At the half mile Brandon Lukas took a lead on the field. I usually hate when people speak too soon but at that point I pretty much knew we had
it. The announcer even made some joke along the lines of “It looks like Sandburg is out there for a time trial.” Thankfully I got angry at myself for thinking that. We had a long way to go. Individually that race was strange for me. I was jokingly known on our team as the “kid who peaked in junior high”. Surprisingly accurate criticism. Basically my cards biologically speaking were on the table when I was like 11. Was sweet then… not as much towards the end. Because of that whole situation, I was pretty good freshman and sophomore year, and ended being our top runner at the state meet my sophomore and junior year. Senior year was very
different. Even before I got hurt I was not running close to our 1 spot. I ran 14:44 at PCI, so it wasn’t like I sucked, but by that point our team had gotten very good and very deep. Also, by that point Sean was clearly better than I was (good luck convincing me on that at the time though which is hilarious to say looking back on it). On top of all that, 5 days after PCI, I pull/strain/tear my hamstring during a 150 workout. About 4 weeks before state. At that point I was sure my season was over. (If you ever wonder why you should maybe consider doing all the post run stuff Coach tells you to do...well here is one reason) I obviously was mad it was
over, but weirdly became OK with it. Our team had gotten so deep at that point that I was still sure they could win it without me (this was 5 days after we had won 2 invites on the same day. We beat Lions, Neuqua, and York without Sean or Dylan, and both of them were better than me at this point). On top of that, I honestly did not think there would be a chance I would be good enough after recovery to deserve a spot in the lineup. I do not know whether he would appreciate the shoutout but we had a guy run 15:07 and not make our top 7 that year. After getting injured I did not run a single step until the Monday after regionals. The day of the race I had tried to run and couldn’t finish a single mile. If we are being honest I couldn’t even make it to the end of my block. During the month that I couldn’t run I coped by compartmentalizing. Basically I avoided thinking about the potential consequences of my injury. Some things can’t necessarily be fixed and in that circumstance I figured the negativity would just be unproductive. For example any goals I had about being all-state or top 10 individually were off the table. Goals I had about helping the team win were seriously in jeopardy. Thinking about any of that would have been too overwhelming to me, so I worried only about getting
healthy. And nothing else. I bought one of those electro stim things hoping that it would make my hamstring heal faster. I went to physical therapy. I went to some facility that was ironically located in Hinsdale to water run and try and simulate interval workouts. I started riding the elliptical for 2 hours a day on setting 16 (I am going to interrupt and say that anyone who thinks the elliptical counts as exercise is wrong. I could not run a single step without excruciating pain but rode the elliptical with no issue except the obvious crushing boredom of being on a glorified hamster wheel). I wore one of those heart rate monitors to try and keep my heart rate above 160 when I was riding the elliptical, which was more tedious than anything else. On top of all that I started sleeping 10 hours a night, hoping I would heal faster. This was definitely not a happy month by any stretch of the imagination, but I at least kept myself busy enough to keep negative thoughts away.
The week of sectionals I somehow managed to run a workout on either Wednesday or Thursday. I was supposed to do 6 800 repeats, which was already much easier than anything the rest of the team was doing at this point. To add insult to injury, I couldn’t even do the watered down workout right, and Coach J mercifully said something along the lines of “oh wait it wasn’t 6 800s it was 2 800s and 4 400s”. I got through it, but I was sure there was ZERO chance I’d be running that state meet. Like any good Irishman facing a painful truth I ignored it. In spite of all this, Coach O’Malley made me a generous offer. He offered me an opportunity to
earn the spot in the state meet by running a 2 mile time trial on the track instead of racing the sectional. I appreciated the offer, and it may seem tempting. But even though I had already ran 3 state meets before I did not want to be on the line if I didn’t deserve to be there. The thought of running 16 flat at my last state meet with 15 flat guys on the bench did not sit well with me. If that happened and we won I would feel guilty that I was pretty much a ride along. If that happened and we lost….I couldn’t even face that possibility. The silver lining for me was that I was almost 100% sure they could win without me. I asked Coach to just put me in the sectional, and I’m sure that surprised him. I wanted to run one more race. I did not expect I was going to earn a spot at state, but I still figured the situation would be preferable to the mental gymnastics that would be required to compare a two
mile track time to a three mile time from a race when attempting to make a state lineup decision. I was pretty sure that I would gut the race out, run 16 flat, and my cross country career would be over with. I did not think about it.
The sectional was at Katherine Legge, that Hinsdale course with the creek. Most people hate that course but I always loved it. My sophomore year the course was basically a swamp so they “adjusted it”. Adjusted it meaning they cut a quarter mile off the course. I ended up running 15:01. Because they never officially measured the new course (of course O’Malley measured it so we know that it was 2.75) I did not feel guilty of insisting my PR was 15:01 and not 15:12 that year. 15:01 just has a better ring to it. When it comes to the race I ended up being right about the 16 flat thing and wrong about everything else. Really wrong. The day started with Patrick Foster going viral for face planting in the creek and just got stranger as it went on. I have a habit of making a short story long that you can ask O’Malley about, but to simplify that day I will just say that all hell broke loose. Thanks to another torn hamstring and a flu like illness I ended up kicking on the last straightaway for our 5th spot. I felt strange after the race because it was like I was the happiest guy at a funeral. We didn’t run well as a team and Dylan’s injury that year was tragic--I would not have been surprised if he had been top 5 individually the next weekend had things unfolded differently--but I would be lying if I said I was not happy to be back in the state lineup. Maybe the only other silver lining for anyone involved with that day is one of Hinsdale’s top runners fell in the creek (honestly he was a nice guy but it is too easy to pick on the rich blonde guy from Hinsdale who went to Harvard and has a 75,000$ gravity altering treadmill in his basement who broke 15 as a freshman and was on the team that broke our heart in the state finals the year before. I swear though he is a nice guy any conversation we ever had personally was pleasant). So I ended up getting to run a state meet I hadn’t expected to run. And didn’t have to feel guilty about it. I was extremely surprised. In that moment I felt like I understood how Reagan felt when that guy shot him but he somehow didn’t die and all the democrats had to pretend to like him for a year. (That analogy probably doesn’t fit that well but sometimes you gotta mess with coach a little bit). I’m gonna be honest I didn’t know what to expect at all during the actual race. I still had not recovered anything resembling sprint speed, so I really didn’t know if I could survive the first straightaway, let alone the rest of the race. When I say I lost my sprint speed I
mean that on the all out 300 at the end of the workout the week of state I ran a 46 if you timed me generously. Prior to the injury I usually ran somewhere in the 38-39 range. Mentally that was tough to deal with.
Thanks to adrenaline and gravity I ended up surviving the first straightaway. By some miracle I was able to keep up with the team through the mile. We came through at 4:38, and I have never been so surprised to see a split time in my entire life. I remember my first thought being “why the hell didn’t I try this last year when I had two good legs?”. For my own sake I try not to think about that too often but you guys should learn two lessons from it. Don’t go out slow at Detweiller and do your post run like Coach tells you to.
Now I will say that running the 5th spot on purpose is very different from doing it on accident. My entire sophomore and junior year I had always tried to run the 1 spot. While I succeeded now and then at doing so, our team was very deep, and a lot of kids on our team had the ability to beat me on any given day. Why I am making this distinction is that the race that day was the first time I was ever happy about not having the 1 spot. Part of the reason for my old attitude was definitely due to some element of selfishness, but a lot of it was essentially that I felt like I was letting the team down if I didn’t run well, and part of my definition of running
well was having the 1 spot. The benefit of being the 5th man is that you know how the team is doing during a race. While Sean may not have known whether the team was winning or losing during the race as he was competing to win the entire thing individually, I had the privilege of pretty much knowing the scoreboard the entire race. For most of the race I hung around between 30th and 50th, and I knew that as the fifth man as long as I could avoid a complete collapse we had the race won. I was actually surprised I was getting to actually contribute to us winning, as I had predicted I would just be along for the ride. I didn’t expect to drop a minute in a week, but I was not complaining.
That optimism lasted until the 2 mile mark. And then things got difficult. The unfortunate part about our sport is that if you aren’t hurting you aren’t trying. One thing you learn when you are running on a gimpy leg is that you could have been working harder when you were healthy. That race hurt like no other race I have ever run. This is coming from a guy who grew up throwing up in the middle of races (although that might have been due to eating snickers bars at the starting line). Never had a race hurt that bad before, and a race would never hurt as bad after. A lot of people love to talk about grit but they never seem to mention that trying to have it is unpleasant. From the 2 mile mark to the bottom of the course I was in a haze. My second mile had been about 40 seconds slower than the first one and the only thing saving the third one is that the course goes downhill. I remember O’Malley yelling for me something along the lines of “hang on and we’ll win this thing” or something because his voice always cut through the crowd but I was so tired I honestly don’t remember it. What I do remember was the Neuqua Valley pack passing me.
I gotta preface this by describing why the idea of losing to Nequa’s pack was unacceptable to me. They had basically copied our pack running from the year before, but their version may have been even more extreme. Our junior year we had run I think a 14 second 1-5 split at state. These guys had a split closer to 10 seconds. I used to always make fun of this because why would you imitate the team that LOST the state meet the year before. But I can’t deny that they were a very good team. Deep down the fear of us somehow losing to a team that basically used the same style we had lost with the year before made me so mad I could not help
but kick. I know they say positive emotions beat negative emotions in the long run but when the chips are down you gotta use what’s there, and I kicked harder than I have ever kicked in my life. If you ever saw a video of it you probably wouldn’t be impressed because I wasn’t actually running that fast--it wasn’t even the fastest I had ever kicked before--but I honestly couldn’t have
ran any faster. I was behind 6 of their guys at the start of the straightaway but ended up passing 5 of them. I would have liked to get all of them, but they were great competitors too and it’s not like they weren’t kicking.
One of the unspoken truths of cross country is that even when a race went terrible crossing the line is a sweet relief, ESPECIALLY if you just kicked. But that finish line. If I could bottle it up and sell it the product would be superior to anything Heisenberg ever made. After what could have been a crushing month of October I had the ultimate consolation. I got to know that we won the state meet the moment I crossed that line. No delay. God it was amazing. I can’t imagine what Sean must have felt like waiting to see if we did it. We wanted to win state so badly for so long. And had failed so dramatically the year before. We were an optimistic team
and people were pretty much always happy…..but damn! That was the happiest I had seen pretty much any of us. There were so many reasons to be happy that day. On top of all the internal motivations you carry obviously forever, just getting to see 500 people mutually celebrate something that you can share some responsibility for is pretty much the coolest thing you can do in my opinion. Also, seeing Coach as happy as he was would have made it all worth it on its own. Coach is one of those guys that will go out of his way to deflect credit but out of his way to accept blame. He’s basically the polar opposite of Lebron. In 2014 watching him go out
of his way to accept blame he did not deserve was awful. In 2015 watching him try and dodge credit like Keanu Reeves in the Matrix before he grew a beard and became John Wick was hilarious. It was like that episode of The Office where Andy and Dwight have that politeness competition to see who can be better at rejecting a compliment. He might even be mad I’m giving him credit now. Joke’s on him though it’s happening. None of that would have happened without Coach O’Malley (or really the entire coaching staff. Really that entire coaching staff deserves credit. One of the things about a coaching staff that people don’t always appreciate is
they can make coming to practice enjoyable. In other sports that are inherently fun like baseball or basketball that is less necessary, but for me at least it was very necessary. I love to make fun of distance running for being a glorified pain tolerance competition which is obviously an exaggeration. But that is part of it. And anything that can smooth over the edges and make an interval day more enjoyable is GREATLY appreciated. Also special shoutout to Coach O’Neill for basically getting us warmed up to the point that warm up jogs became obsolete. I’m not saying we skipped warm up jogs but….they definitely became less important. The guy who tore his hamstring basically because he did not like to focus on the details definitely appreciated having someone around to help him with them.)
On top of all the usual motivations that state meet had something different. I think we had about 500 people come down to that state meet to watch. I might be lowballing that number but honestly in my first few years as a cross country runner I hadn’t ever had the problem of being unable to count how many fans were at the meet. It was fantastic. College football players may eventually get over this feeling but getting to share a championship with people is awesome and the more people you get to share it with the better. What an amazing day overall. I will not lie to any of you younger runners reading this our sport can be brutal. Giving it
your all is sometimes a harder standard to reach than winning, but at the same time you can lay it all on the line and fail. We all learned and relearned those two lessons for most of our four years. You don’t need to win state as a team to be a success. With that being said, if you think you have any realistic shot of doing it, I promise you chasing a team title is worth it. I am realistically sure that I speak for all of us when I say that team title made all of our blood and sweat (gonna be honest I’m not writing tears because half of our team was Irish and we didn’t really morally believe in crying) so much more than worth it. Good luck boys.
If anyone thinks it’s weird that I made fun of Lebron on two separate occasions in this thing don’t read too much into it I just have been pretty fired up since I binge watched The Last Dance . Coach used to always use Jordan in his inspirational speeches to us so I felt like including it in here.
I’m going to say before I start that this might end up being longer than some of the other responses. If you know me personally this probably won’t come as a surprise. The 2014 and 2015 state meets could not have gone more differently, and for obvious
reasons 2015 is more fun to remember. Our junior year, we had box 8 (75% sure), and went out too slow. We got buried in the back of the pack at the half mile mark. If that was the only thing we did wrong, we may have ended up ok. Spoiler alert, things did not end up ok. Me and Greg Burzinski basically made up the gap on the pack in the second half mile, and by the mile mark
we had the team score lead. But we were gassed. If there is one 800 on that course you do not want to be surging it’s the second one. We ended up holding the lead until a half mile to go, and we did not close well. Hinsdale did. We lost by 40. After beating them by 70 at sectionals. NOT GREAT.
There are a few ways to handle failing that badly (I swear at some point this will get positive I promise). The easiest way is to avoid thinking about it. Never mention it. Forget it happened. The problem with that approach is that you can’t learn from failure if you don’t face it. So we did. But we were weird about it. People love to tell you that you have to face failure head on but never acknowledge how painful/awkward that can be, but that kind of elephant in the room can turn toxic. So….we made fun of it. Constantly. For the next year. To be honest we made fun of everything for the next calendar year. I’m sure you all watched The Last Dance and saw how Jordan was aggressive with his teammates (not passive aggressive like Lebron). We were like that but softened with humor. Basically anytime a teammate was doing something we didn’t feel would help the team we would make fun of them for it. I sincerely think it is the best middle ground to take. If you ignore people’s bad habits they won’t ever change them, but if you
are too aggressively confrontational you can end up sucking all the fun out of an already difficult sport. If you make fun of someone for their bad habits they get the message but get to laugh about it. They end up being less defensive than they would have been if you called them out aggressively.
You may be wondering why I brought all that up, or wondering why it was relevant. Well the year we choked the state meet a certain teammate/future all american uttered the now famous last words “we’re good here” on the first straightaway. We were not in fact good there. And we never let him forget it. We pretty much made fun of him for saying that every day for 365
days after that. He was cool with it, because we basically made fun of everyone on that team about what happened. It wasn’t really a guilt thing or a blame thing, it just was what it was. Well, that same teammate remembered in 2015. And this time instead of opening in a 70 for the first 400 he opened sub 60 through the quarter. Opening hard did not let him escape one last roast though. We opened so fast that Max Lehnhardt made him hear one last “we’re good here”. I actually laughed on the first straightaway of the state meet. (The one problem with our philosophy was that Max might have actually been serious and it would have been REALLY
funny if we ended up blowing this state meet the exact opposite way we blew the other one). After the first turn, we had 6 guys in the front line along with the eventual state champion from Buffalo Grove and two other returning all-staters. At the half mile Brandon Lukas took a lead on the field. I usually hate when people speak too soon but at that point I pretty much knew we had
it. The announcer even made some joke along the lines of “It looks like Sandburg is out there for a time trial.” Thankfully I got angry at myself for thinking that. We had a long way to go. Individually that race was strange for me. I was jokingly known on our team as the “kid who peaked in junior high”. Surprisingly accurate criticism. Basically my cards biologically speaking were on the table when I was like 11. Was sweet then… not as much towards the end. Because of that whole situation, I was pretty good freshman and sophomore year, and ended being our top runner at the state meet my sophomore and junior year. Senior year was very
different. Even before I got hurt I was not running close to our 1 spot. I ran 14:44 at PCI, so it wasn’t like I sucked, but by that point our team had gotten very good and very deep. Also, by that point Sean was clearly better than I was (good luck convincing me on that at the time though which is hilarious to say looking back on it). On top of all that, 5 days after PCI, I pull/strain/tear my hamstring during a 150 workout. About 4 weeks before state. At that point I was sure my season was over. (If you ever wonder why you should maybe consider doing all the post run stuff Coach tells you to do...well here is one reason) I obviously was mad it was
over, but weirdly became OK with it. Our team had gotten so deep at that point that I was still sure they could win it without me (this was 5 days after we had won 2 invites on the same day. We beat Lions, Neuqua, and York without Sean or Dylan, and both of them were better than me at this point). On top of that, I honestly did not think there would be a chance I would be good enough after recovery to deserve a spot in the lineup. I do not know whether he would appreciate the shoutout but we had a guy run 15:07 and not make our top 7 that year. After getting injured I did not run a single step until the Monday after regionals. The day of the race I had tried to run and couldn’t finish a single mile. If we are being honest I couldn’t even make it to the end of my block. During the month that I couldn’t run I coped by compartmentalizing. Basically I avoided thinking about the potential consequences of my injury. Some things can’t necessarily be fixed and in that circumstance I figured the negativity would just be unproductive. For example any goals I had about being all-state or top 10 individually were off the table. Goals I had about helping the team win were seriously in jeopardy. Thinking about any of that would have been too overwhelming to me, so I worried only about getting
healthy. And nothing else. I bought one of those electro stim things hoping that it would make my hamstring heal faster. I went to physical therapy. I went to some facility that was ironically located in Hinsdale to water run and try and simulate interval workouts. I started riding the elliptical for 2 hours a day on setting 16 (I am going to interrupt and say that anyone who thinks the elliptical counts as exercise is wrong. I could not run a single step without excruciating pain but rode the elliptical with no issue except the obvious crushing boredom of being on a glorified hamster wheel). I wore one of those heart rate monitors to try and keep my heart rate above 160 when I was riding the elliptical, which was more tedious than anything else. On top of all that I started sleeping 10 hours a night, hoping I would heal faster. This was definitely not a happy month by any stretch of the imagination, but I at least kept myself busy enough to keep negative thoughts away.
The week of sectionals I somehow managed to run a workout on either Wednesday or Thursday. I was supposed to do 6 800 repeats, which was already much easier than anything the rest of the team was doing at this point. To add insult to injury, I couldn’t even do the watered down workout right, and Coach J mercifully said something along the lines of “oh wait it wasn’t 6 800s it was 2 800s and 4 400s”. I got through it, but I was sure there was ZERO chance I’d be running that state meet. Like any good Irishman facing a painful truth I ignored it. In spite of all this, Coach O’Malley made me a generous offer. He offered me an opportunity to
earn the spot in the state meet by running a 2 mile time trial on the track instead of racing the sectional. I appreciated the offer, and it may seem tempting. But even though I had already ran 3 state meets before I did not want to be on the line if I didn’t deserve to be there. The thought of running 16 flat at my last state meet with 15 flat guys on the bench did not sit well with me. If that happened and we won I would feel guilty that I was pretty much a ride along. If that happened and we lost….I couldn’t even face that possibility. The silver lining for me was that I was almost 100% sure they could win without me. I asked Coach to just put me in the sectional, and I’m sure that surprised him. I wanted to run one more race. I did not expect I was going to earn a spot at state, but I still figured the situation would be preferable to the mental gymnastics that would be required to compare a two
mile track time to a three mile time from a race when attempting to make a state lineup decision. I was pretty sure that I would gut the race out, run 16 flat, and my cross country career would be over with. I did not think about it.
The sectional was at Katherine Legge, that Hinsdale course with the creek. Most people hate that course but I always loved it. My sophomore year the course was basically a swamp so they “adjusted it”. Adjusted it meaning they cut a quarter mile off the course. I ended up running 15:01. Because they never officially measured the new course (of course O’Malley measured it so we know that it was 2.75) I did not feel guilty of insisting my PR was 15:01 and not 15:12 that year. 15:01 just has a better ring to it. When it comes to the race I ended up being right about the 16 flat thing and wrong about everything else. Really wrong. The day started with Patrick Foster going viral for face planting in the creek and just got stranger as it went on. I have a habit of making a short story long that you can ask O’Malley about, but to simplify that day I will just say that all hell broke loose. Thanks to another torn hamstring and a flu like illness I ended up kicking on the last straightaway for our 5th spot. I felt strange after the race because it was like I was the happiest guy at a funeral. We didn’t run well as a team and Dylan’s injury that year was tragic--I would not have been surprised if he had been top 5 individually the next weekend had things unfolded differently--but I would be lying if I said I was not happy to be back in the state lineup. Maybe the only other silver lining for anyone involved with that day is one of Hinsdale’s top runners fell in the creek (honestly he was a nice guy but it is too easy to pick on the rich blonde guy from Hinsdale who went to Harvard and has a 75,000$ gravity altering treadmill in his basement who broke 15 as a freshman and was on the team that broke our heart in the state finals the year before. I swear though he is a nice guy any conversation we ever had personally was pleasant). So I ended up getting to run a state meet I hadn’t expected to run. And didn’t have to feel guilty about it. I was extremely surprised. In that moment I felt like I understood how Reagan felt when that guy shot him but he somehow didn’t die and all the democrats had to pretend to like him for a year. (That analogy probably doesn’t fit that well but sometimes you gotta mess with coach a little bit). I’m gonna be honest I didn’t know what to expect at all during the actual race. I still had not recovered anything resembling sprint speed, so I really didn’t know if I could survive the first straightaway, let alone the rest of the race. When I say I lost my sprint speed I
mean that on the all out 300 at the end of the workout the week of state I ran a 46 if you timed me generously. Prior to the injury I usually ran somewhere in the 38-39 range. Mentally that was tough to deal with.
Thanks to adrenaline and gravity I ended up surviving the first straightaway. By some miracle I was able to keep up with the team through the mile. We came through at 4:38, and I have never been so surprised to see a split time in my entire life. I remember my first thought being “why the hell didn’t I try this last year when I had two good legs?”. For my own sake I try not to think about that too often but you guys should learn two lessons from it. Don’t go out slow at Detweiller and do your post run like Coach tells you to.
Now I will say that running the 5th spot on purpose is very different from doing it on accident. My entire sophomore and junior year I had always tried to run the 1 spot. While I succeeded now and then at doing so, our team was very deep, and a lot of kids on our team had the ability to beat me on any given day. Why I am making this distinction is that the race that day was the first time I was ever happy about not having the 1 spot. Part of the reason for my old attitude was definitely due to some element of selfishness, but a lot of it was essentially that I felt like I was letting the team down if I didn’t run well, and part of my definition of running
well was having the 1 spot. The benefit of being the 5th man is that you know how the team is doing during a race. While Sean may not have known whether the team was winning or losing during the race as he was competing to win the entire thing individually, I had the privilege of pretty much knowing the scoreboard the entire race. For most of the race I hung around between 30th and 50th, and I knew that as the fifth man as long as I could avoid a complete collapse we had the race won. I was actually surprised I was getting to actually contribute to us winning, as I had predicted I would just be along for the ride. I didn’t expect to drop a minute in a week, but I was not complaining.
That optimism lasted until the 2 mile mark. And then things got difficult. The unfortunate part about our sport is that if you aren’t hurting you aren’t trying. One thing you learn when you are running on a gimpy leg is that you could have been working harder when you were healthy. That race hurt like no other race I have ever run. This is coming from a guy who grew up throwing up in the middle of races (although that might have been due to eating snickers bars at the starting line). Never had a race hurt that bad before, and a race would never hurt as bad after. A lot of people love to talk about grit but they never seem to mention that trying to have it is unpleasant. From the 2 mile mark to the bottom of the course I was in a haze. My second mile had been about 40 seconds slower than the first one and the only thing saving the third one is that the course goes downhill. I remember O’Malley yelling for me something along the lines of “hang on and we’ll win this thing” or something because his voice always cut through the crowd but I was so tired I honestly don’t remember it. What I do remember was the Neuqua Valley pack passing me.
I gotta preface this by describing why the idea of losing to Nequa’s pack was unacceptable to me. They had basically copied our pack running from the year before, but their version may have been even more extreme. Our junior year we had run I think a 14 second 1-5 split at state. These guys had a split closer to 10 seconds. I used to always make fun of this because why would you imitate the team that LOST the state meet the year before. But I can’t deny that they were a very good team. Deep down the fear of us somehow losing to a team that basically used the same style we had lost with the year before made me so mad I could not help
but kick. I know they say positive emotions beat negative emotions in the long run but when the chips are down you gotta use what’s there, and I kicked harder than I have ever kicked in my life. If you ever saw a video of it you probably wouldn’t be impressed because I wasn’t actually running that fast--it wasn’t even the fastest I had ever kicked before--but I honestly couldn’t have
ran any faster. I was behind 6 of their guys at the start of the straightaway but ended up passing 5 of them. I would have liked to get all of them, but they were great competitors too and it’s not like they weren’t kicking.
One of the unspoken truths of cross country is that even when a race went terrible crossing the line is a sweet relief, ESPECIALLY if you just kicked. But that finish line. If I could bottle it up and sell it the product would be superior to anything Heisenberg ever made. After what could have been a crushing month of October I had the ultimate consolation. I got to know that we won the state meet the moment I crossed that line. No delay. God it was amazing. I can’t imagine what Sean must have felt like waiting to see if we did it. We wanted to win state so badly for so long. And had failed so dramatically the year before. We were an optimistic team
and people were pretty much always happy…..but damn! That was the happiest I had seen pretty much any of us. There were so many reasons to be happy that day. On top of all the internal motivations you carry obviously forever, just getting to see 500 people mutually celebrate something that you can share some responsibility for is pretty much the coolest thing you can do in my opinion. Also, seeing Coach as happy as he was would have made it all worth it on its own. Coach is one of those guys that will go out of his way to deflect credit but out of his way to accept blame. He’s basically the polar opposite of Lebron. In 2014 watching him go out
of his way to accept blame he did not deserve was awful. In 2015 watching him try and dodge credit like Keanu Reeves in the Matrix before he grew a beard and became John Wick was hilarious. It was like that episode of The Office where Andy and Dwight have that politeness competition to see who can be better at rejecting a compliment. He might even be mad I’m giving him credit now. Joke’s on him though it’s happening. None of that would have happened without Coach O’Malley (or really the entire coaching staff. Really that entire coaching staff deserves credit. One of the things about a coaching staff that people don’t always appreciate is
they can make coming to practice enjoyable. In other sports that are inherently fun like baseball or basketball that is less necessary, but for me at least it was very necessary. I love to make fun of distance running for being a glorified pain tolerance competition which is obviously an exaggeration. But that is part of it. And anything that can smooth over the edges and make an interval day more enjoyable is GREATLY appreciated. Also special shoutout to Coach O’Neill for basically getting us warmed up to the point that warm up jogs became obsolete. I’m not saying we skipped warm up jogs but….they definitely became less important. The guy who tore his hamstring basically because he did not like to focus on the details definitely appreciated having someone around to help him with them.)
On top of all the usual motivations that state meet had something different. I think we had about 500 people come down to that state meet to watch. I might be lowballing that number but honestly in my first few years as a cross country runner I hadn’t ever had the problem of being unable to count how many fans were at the meet. It was fantastic. College football players may eventually get over this feeling but getting to share a championship with people is awesome and the more people you get to share it with the better. What an amazing day overall. I will not lie to any of you younger runners reading this our sport can be brutal. Giving it
your all is sometimes a harder standard to reach than winning, but at the same time you can lay it all on the line and fail. We all learned and relearned those two lessons for most of our four years. You don’t need to win state as a team to be a success. With that being said, if you think you have any realistic shot of doing it, I promise you chasing a team title is worth it. I am realistically sure that I speak for all of us when I say that team title made all of our blood and sweat (gonna be honest I’m not writing tears because half of our team was Irish and we didn’t really morally believe in crying) so much more than worth it. Good luck boys.
If anyone thinks it’s weird that I made fun of Lebron on two separate occasions in this thing don’t read too much into it I just have been pretty fired up since I binge watched The Last Dance . Coach used to always use Jordan in his inspirational speeches to us so I felt like including it in here.
Martin Skucas 15:15 69th place overall
Illinois Cross Country State 2015. It felt as if it was taken straight out of a movie. Here’s this group of seven guys, most of which had been growing up together since Junior High, now having one last shot at proving themselves as the best team in the state after blowing it the year before. And I was one of the lucky seven to put a jersey on that day. It really is hard to put into words the emotions that flow through you when that kind of pressure is on your shoulders. Seeing the small army of school busses, full of your friends and classmates that have come to cheer you on, talking to the alumni that have sacrificed their whole day and over a two hour drive to come watch you run for 15 minutes, really helps remind you that you’re not just racing for yourself. You’re racing to represent your team, your school, and the countless other athletes that have gone through the same running program you have gone through, all cheering you on to bring home the first place trophy for the first time ever.
I really wish I could put into words what emotions and thoughts flooded my mind throughout the entire race, but I truly believe it’s something someone has to experience themselves to understand. I would hate to spoil an experience like that for anyone.
Crossing the finish line in the sixth position for Sandburg was a really big disappointment to me initially. I felt like I was more than capable of being top five for the team and finishing in sixth made me feel like I had choked when my team needed me to perform my best. This mentality quickly changed though. As soon as I walked through the finish chute I saw a massive body of Sandburg family and friends. Some smiling ear to ear, others crying, others still chanting a Sandburg chant. Everyone knew we won. There was no doubt. We were the first team in Sandburg Cross Country history to take first place at the state meet. I will never forget Coach
Hahn showing me his phone with the team scores already published. I don’t even remember our exact score, I just remember seeing Sandburg at the top of the list with only a two digit score and some other school beneath us with a three digit score. Everyone had already known, but that made it official for me. I couldn’t hold in the emotions anymore and started crying, mostly
out of happiness that we had finally done it, but also because the fight was over. The realization that the one thing you had been working so hard for was finally finished, was a really sad thing. All those grueling workouts, all those early morning practices, have finally served their purpose. “The end of an era” so to speak. It was such a bittersweet feeling, to have won state, and to
have finished the season.
But as the day went on, the happiness overtook the sadness. The awards ceremony was spectacular, reflecting on the race with coaches and friends was a lot of fun, and the whole ride back to Orland Park felt like a huge party. Cross Country state 2015 is a day I will never forget. It was an honor to wear that jersey with six other brothers and to finally achieve a goal we had all worked so hard for.
Illinois Cross Country State 2015. It felt as if it was taken straight out of a movie. Here’s this group of seven guys, most of which had been growing up together since Junior High, now having one last shot at proving themselves as the best team in the state after blowing it the year before. And I was one of the lucky seven to put a jersey on that day. It really is hard to put into words the emotions that flow through you when that kind of pressure is on your shoulders. Seeing the small army of school busses, full of your friends and classmates that have come to cheer you on, talking to the alumni that have sacrificed their whole day and over a two hour drive to come watch you run for 15 minutes, really helps remind you that you’re not just racing for yourself. You’re racing to represent your team, your school, and the countless other athletes that have gone through the same running program you have gone through, all cheering you on to bring home the first place trophy for the first time ever.
I really wish I could put into words what emotions and thoughts flooded my mind throughout the entire race, but I truly believe it’s something someone has to experience themselves to understand. I would hate to spoil an experience like that for anyone.
Crossing the finish line in the sixth position for Sandburg was a really big disappointment to me initially. I felt like I was more than capable of being top five for the team and finishing in sixth made me feel like I had choked when my team needed me to perform my best. This mentality quickly changed though. As soon as I walked through the finish chute I saw a massive body of Sandburg family and friends. Some smiling ear to ear, others crying, others still chanting a Sandburg chant. Everyone knew we won. There was no doubt. We were the first team in Sandburg Cross Country history to take first place at the state meet. I will never forget Coach
Hahn showing me his phone with the team scores already published. I don’t even remember our exact score, I just remember seeing Sandburg at the top of the list with only a two digit score and some other school beneath us with a three digit score. Everyone had already known, but that made it official for me. I couldn’t hold in the emotions anymore and started crying, mostly
out of happiness that we had finally done it, but also because the fight was over. The realization that the one thing you had been working so hard for was finally finished, was a really sad thing. All those grueling workouts, all those early morning practices, have finally served their purpose. “The end of an era” so to speak. It was such a bittersweet feeling, to have won state, and to
have finished the season.
But as the day went on, the happiness overtook the sadness. The awards ceremony was spectacular, reflecting on the race with coaches and friends was a lot of fun, and the whole ride back to Orland Park felt like a huge party. Cross Country state 2015 is a day I will never forget. It was an honor to wear that jersey with six other brothers and to finally achieve a goal we had all worked so hard for.
Dan Laskero 15:26 94th place overall
In 2015 we had the biggest goal of all time, to win our first ever Cross Country State title. We came up just short the year before losing to Hinsdale Central. But we had 365 days to reflect on what happened and had our eyes on the prize. I remember going into this race thinking that we have this because there is no other team out there like us. We came into the State meet undefeated, having 8 guys sub 15 minutes for 3 miles. But we had to do this race without Dylan Jacobs, but even with him out we still knew we could do it. The morning of the meet was a nervous one for me, but I was always nervous before races even in college. But when I got to school I got excited to see the boys, when everyone got to school we headed over to Saints Lutheran Church to see Pastor Borling like always. But also as we started to leave the school parking lot we see a car pull right in front of the bus, and pops out Max Lehnhardt (who goes on to being an All-State runner for us). After we saw Pastor Borling it was time to head to Peoria. Nervous at this point are going crazy, but the excitement to race was also there. Walking to the tent from the bus was something special. We can hear the Sandburg fans. When it was time to warm up we went to the off trail area and came back for drills. At this point it was getting more and more crazy as we had like +/-200 fans at the course with drums, flags, signs, and cut outs of everyone’s face. Got to the line and all eyes were on Sandburg, everyone feared us but also everyone had a target on our backs. When the gun went off the boys got out hard, for me I had a hard time, that’s been one thing that I’ve needed to work on with getting out. But I knew the boys had gotten out well and that I just needed to work my way up. I never really made ground on the guys but they had this in the bag. For me it was just a matter of finishing the race as hard as I can so I can see my teammates. After finishing it was crazy because all the fans had come to the finish line to hear for the unofficial result. Once we heard that we won it was one of the best moments in my life. Even though I didn't have the greatest race of my life I was too happy to have been part of Sandburg history. It was 4 long hard years working with the guys to complete this goal to become state champs. From the trips to Wisconsin and Colorado to the hard workouts and easy runs. We all put in the hard work and made sacrifices to make the goals happen. Coming home after the race was amazing having McDonalds with the guys just having fun and playing We Are the Champions. Getting off the highway and having a police escort to school was extremely cool. Once we got back a lot of the fans had stayed for a little ceremony for us. One of the last parts of the night was to make Coach O’Malley eat a raw onion because he told us if we win a state championship he will be a raw onion (Coach O’Malley hates onions). I’m so thankful to have had such an amazing team and family at Sandburg that still goes on today. Once an Eagle, always an Eagle.
In 2015 we had the biggest goal of all time, to win our first ever Cross Country State title. We came up just short the year before losing to Hinsdale Central. But we had 365 days to reflect on what happened and had our eyes on the prize. I remember going into this race thinking that we have this because there is no other team out there like us. We came into the State meet undefeated, having 8 guys sub 15 minutes for 3 miles. But we had to do this race without Dylan Jacobs, but even with him out we still knew we could do it. The morning of the meet was a nervous one for me, but I was always nervous before races even in college. But when I got to school I got excited to see the boys, when everyone got to school we headed over to Saints Lutheran Church to see Pastor Borling like always. But also as we started to leave the school parking lot we see a car pull right in front of the bus, and pops out Max Lehnhardt (who goes on to being an All-State runner for us). After we saw Pastor Borling it was time to head to Peoria. Nervous at this point are going crazy, but the excitement to race was also there. Walking to the tent from the bus was something special. We can hear the Sandburg fans. When it was time to warm up we went to the off trail area and came back for drills. At this point it was getting more and more crazy as we had like +/-200 fans at the course with drums, flags, signs, and cut outs of everyone’s face. Got to the line and all eyes were on Sandburg, everyone feared us but also everyone had a target on our backs. When the gun went off the boys got out hard, for me I had a hard time, that’s been one thing that I’ve needed to work on with getting out. But I knew the boys had gotten out well and that I just needed to work my way up. I never really made ground on the guys but they had this in the bag. For me it was just a matter of finishing the race as hard as I can so I can see my teammates. After finishing it was crazy because all the fans had come to the finish line to hear for the unofficial result. Once we heard that we won it was one of the best moments in my life. Even though I didn't have the greatest race of my life I was too happy to have been part of Sandburg history. It was 4 long hard years working with the guys to complete this goal to become state champs. From the trips to Wisconsin and Colorado to the hard workouts and easy runs. We all put in the hard work and made sacrifices to make the goals happen. Coming home after the race was amazing having McDonalds with the guys just having fun and playing We Are the Champions. Getting off the highway and having a police escort to school was extremely cool. Once we got back a lot of the fans had stayed for a little ceremony for us. One of the last parts of the night was to make Coach O’Malley eat a raw onion because he told us if we win a state championship he will be a raw onion (Coach O’Malley hates onions). I’m so thankful to have had such an amazing team and family at Sandburg that still goes on today. Once an Eagle, always an Eagle.
Dylan Jacobs Injured during Sectional race - unable to run State Meet
When I woke up on the morning of state, I had a flow of emotions. On one end, I was sad that I would not be able to toe the line with the best team in the state. On the other end, I was excited to see all the work we put in pay off. Although I was not racing and had no control over the outcome, I was extremely confident in our team because of how determined and dedicated we all were. Since we lost state the season before, we had one primary goal, and it was to win state in 2015. Once the gun went off, the energy from all of the Sandburg faithful was electric. You could hear the roar of the crowd as the boys ran down the starting straight towards the 800 mark. Seeing them in the front at the 800 gave me goosebumps. That moment showed everyone that we knew we had the best team in the state, and we were not scared to put ourselves out there. As the race continued, it was easy to notice the effects that the beginning of the race had on the team. They continued to fight because the goal was bigger than themselves.
As I was running across the field to see the final straightaway, I could hear the excitement in everyone's voice. If I got a penny for the number of times I heard, "I think we won," I would be rich. Before the race ended, we all knew deep down what had just happened. Seeing the guy's faces as they became immersed in the crowd was priceless. It expressed complete happiness with a little bit of relief. This feeling was invoked throughout the rest of the team. That is the great part about what happened that day; it was a TEAM effort. No seven guys could have made that happen. The celebration was not just for the boys who won state, it was for Sandburg Cross Country as a whole.
The final piece about that day that resonated with me was the ride home. Being escorted by police cars and O'Malley biting into an onion were great, but hearing all the underclassmen saying that they wanted to win state in the upcoming years was incredible. It shows the type of culture that the coaches and athletes have embedded into Sandburg Cross Country. All of these memories were earned and will forever be remembered by every person on that team.
When I woke up on the morning of state, I had a flow of emotions. On one end, I was sad that I would not be able to toe the line with the best team in the state. On the other end, I was excited to see all the work we put in pay off. Although I was not racing and had no control over the outcome, I was extremely confident in our team because of how determined and dedicated we all were. Since we lost state the season before, we had one primary goal, and it was to win state in 2015. Once the gun went off, the energy from all of the Sandburg faithful was electric. You could hear the roar of the crowd as the boys ran down the starting straight towards the 800 mark. Seeing them in the front at the 800 gave me goosebumps. That moment showed everyone that we knew we had the best team in the state, and we were not scared to put ourselves out there. As the race continued, it was easy to notice the effects that the beginning of the race had on the team. They continued to fight because the goal was bigger than themselves.
As I was running across the field to see the final straightaway, I could hear the excitement in everyone's voice. If I got a penny for the number of times I heard, "I think we won," I would be rich. Before the race ended, we all knew deep down what had just happened. Seeing the guy's faces as they became immersed in the crowd was priceless. It expressed complete happiness with a little bit of relief. This feeling was invoked throughout the rest of the team. That is the great part about what happened that day; it was a TEAM effort. No seven guys could have made that happen. The celebration was not just for the boys who won state, it was for Sandburg Cross Country as a whole.
The final piece about that day that resonated with me was the ride home. Being escorted by police cars and O'Malley biting into an onion were great, but hearing all the underclassmen saying that they wanted to win state in the upcoming years was incredible. It shows the type of culture that the coaches and athletes have embedded into Sandburg Cross Country. All of these memories were earned and will forever be remembered by every person on that team.