By Michael Newman

The official start of the IHSA Track & Field season began on Tuesday started for most of the high schools in Illinois with some opting to start later. We know that it will all end again at Eastern Illinois University’s O’Brien Stadium at the end of May. We don’t know the of who will be the stars of the EIU show four months from now.

There have been some athletes that started their season a little earlier hitting the club and open meets throughout the country and establishing themselves nationally. You will be hearing from many of these athletes as the season progresses. Right now, they are among the nation’s elites in their events of choice.

~~~

Homewood-Flossmoor’s Jaimie Robinson did not have her best junior year last spring at her new school. She did earn All-State honors finishing third in the Triple Jump and fifth in the Long Jump at the 2015 IHSA 3A Girls State Meet. Her senior year started right after that going over 41 feet in the Triple Jump both at the Caribbean Scholastic Invitational and then a huge personal best 41-10 ½ to finish third at the New Balance Outdoor Nationals.

Robinson started out her senior year exactly where she left off at the end of June last year. The senior has been over 40 feet three times already this indoor season. The 40-7 ½ effort at last Saturday’s Arkansas High School Invitational placed her second in the meet but also moved her among the five best nationally. Will this be the “Year of Jaimie” in the “tri-jump” in the next few months? We will just have to wait and see. As of right now, it just looks like it is heading that way.

~~~

It was no surprise to see Kathleen Young competing in several meets throughout the nation early this season. The senior from Warrensburg-Latham High School in Central Illinois has been a fixture in some of these meets throughout her four years of high school competition. The first three years have seen her move up among the ranks nationally of athletes in the weight disciplines. Before she heads to the University of South Carolina this fall, Young has some unfinished business to become one of the nation’s best.

Young set the IHSA State Meet record last May with a 51-0 effort. Her personal best of 51-11 ½ at the Macon County Meet at the end of April last year should be shattered sometime during the 2016 season. She is currently ranked #2 in the nation when she had a 51-5 ½ effort to win at the Western Ohio Track Officials Invitational on January 7. She won the Shot Put at the KYA HS Invitational at East Tennessee State University on a slippery ring. Young still had a 48-9 ½ put to win the event.

Where we have seen the most improvement from the senior has been in the Weight Throw where she has moved up into the top five nationally. Her 53-6 throw at the January 7 meet could be a glimpse of what we could see in the Discus when we head outdoors.

~~~

Elizabeth Drab surprised some of the fans at last May’s IHSA State Meet when she was All-State in three events including winning the 2A 400 Meter Dash. Drab (St. Viator HS, senior) has started off the season strongly making it to the finals in the 400 Meter Dash the last two weekends at major indoor invitationals.

She started out her indoor season running 57.39 to make the finals of the 400 Meter Dash at the Texas A&M High School Invitational on January 7. She finished sixth in the finals. She improved her seasonal best of 57.01 in the prelims at the Arkansas High School Invitational last Saturday. She finished fourth in the finals. The future looks bright for Drab as we head into the IHSA Season. She will be a target in these meets instead of the one that will be sneaking up on her competition.

~~~

There were many Illinois athletes that headed west to Nevada for the annual Reno Pole Vault Summit last weekend to test themselves in this event. The one that stood out above the rest of the Illinois athletes this past weekend was Zachery Bradford from Bloomington High School. He did surprise many last year when he won the IHSA 3A State title with a 16-1 clearance. That was just as a sophomore. He started off the season on a “high” note by clearing a personal best of 16-4 on Saturday making him one of the top athletes in the country nationally.

Bradford is already ahead of the pace that he was on last year when he cleared 16-0 twice at the end of the indoor season. He has risen to the next plateau with that Nevada clearance. The season should heat up in February and March as Bradford and Flying Dragons club member Ryan Ashenbremer of Normal West High School face off in many early season meets.

Lauren Seaver from Normal Community High School had the top Girls performance for athletes from Illinois in Reno as she cleared 12-4.

~~~

When I was told last summer from Jay Ivory and Tom Kaberna that the annual ITCCCA North Coaches Clinic would have a new home, I was pleasantly surprised. I did like the atmosphere that Oak Park-River Forest High School gave for the January clinic. The move to the Westin Hotel in Lombard in the Chicago western suburbs should be a plus for the clinic.

Clinic organizers stated after the weekend event that more than a thousand coaches and officials from Illinois and beyond were in attendance.

A big plus for the clinic was the setup for the Friday night social in the hotel where attendees could book a room and could socialize and trade notes with each other. To take a quote from the movie Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, there was “a powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity” in portions of the banquet hall. That’s not unusual in the some meets within the state as you all know.

The highlight of the weekend was the ITCCCA Hall of Fame Coaches Enshrinement and acceptance speeches by the seven inductees. What was one of the highlights for me was the induction speech by Hinsdale Central’s Mark McCabe. Speeches were supposed to be near five minutes in length. McCabe went over 10 minutes. That did not matter to the audience that were in the banquet room. The passion that McCabe showed in his speech demonstrated the passion that coaches have when they are teaching their student-athletes. It shows what a special group that the coaches community is. The atmosphere in the Westin Banquet Room also was the right setting for that moment. It is too bad that we have left Oak Park for this clinic. The new home will only grow this clinic in years to come.

~~~

And finally…

“I’m sorry that it happened to you.”

“Why are you no longer with DyeStat?”

“Will you still be covering Illinois track & field and cross country?”

Those were the major questions that I was asked this weekend when I was at the ITCCCA Coaches Clinic. I usually go to listen to some of the coaches talk about their craft and to talk to some of the coaches that I will bump into during the season. This year was different. As you may or may not know by this point, DyeStat Illinois went inactive on January 6.

I have known about this move since the beginning of September making this cross-country season interesting to cover. I am still part of the DyeStat.com team in charge of the National TFX team. It is something that I have been doing for the past three years since DyeStat moved to the RunnerSpace.com site. If you know me, I am a stat nut. That will always drive me and gives me a better perspective when I write.

There was nothing wrong with what I was doing in the coverage that I was providing for all of you. It was just that DyeStat was ready to go in a different direction in which I totally support. It hurt at first hearing that news. It hurt a little more that I would not be a part of the national writing team. You can read all the details of that in my biography if I ever decide to write one. It is their loss. It is your gain.

Doors close for reasons that we cannot explain. I was asking why this past fall. At the same time, it gave me a chance to recreate myself once again. It happened when the mothership dropped DyeStat in 2012. This time it was different.

The door has opened with the creation of ilxctf.com. The only thing that has changed for me is the new address. The coverage will be the same. My quirky writing (as described by some) will still haunt you. My passion for the sport is still there. Hopefully, I can still deliver that to you.

I am still looking forward to putting in the results before I get an e-mail asking me why aren’t these results in the system. I can’t wait to get an e-mail from a coach asking me why is my team not ranked (I still get a few of those).

I am looking forward to telling the stories at meets that have not been told. I am looking to see unbelievable achievements by student-athletes throughout the Midwest this spring. I am still looking forward to informing you.

That’s what it is all about isn’t it?

If you have any questions, you can contact me at [email protected] or [email protected]