They win gold!!!! Congrats to a very special group of woman!!!
http://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/hockey/4407366-golden-girls-lamoureux-sisters-give-us-olympic-gold-dramatic-goals#.Wo7wdjfOen8.link An article about former GF Central Cross Country runners! Good luck to our ladies!!
http://www.grandforksherald.com/sports/hockey/4406610-lamoureuxs-ready-one-more-shot-gold#.Wo7vgz90ZkU.link The following article was written by a Track & Field coach in Illinois. I have shorted the article a little, the full article can be found here https://www.freelapusa.com/10-reasons-to-join-the-track-team/
It is a good article, stressing that a good athlete is able to do more than one sport, and college coaches are looking for athletes that can compete! Coach Allan By Tony Holler Track & field is a tough sell. A kid in our area is more likely to play lacrosse or hockey than compete for a youth track club. To make matters worse, the track & field experience at our middle schools is less than optimal. Here is the situation at our nearest middle school. The other seven middle schools in our district are basically the same.
My track program does not solely focus on the varsity level. We value freshmen & sophomores as much as we value juniors & seniors. One of our previous athletic directors believed freshmen should play their football games on the practice field, not the game field. He repeatedly told people, “No freshman ever won a scholarship”. He didn’t last long. Should we minimize the freshmen experience? Why should athletics exist for the benefit of upperclassmen? Should we focus on scholarships with a laser-like intensity? Do we minimize freshmen academically while we glorify seniors? Maybe I’m old school, but athletics should be a classroom, not a revenue-driven exercise in greed. Every kid should have a good experience, not just the gifted. REASONS TO JOIN THE TRACK TEAM: YOU ARE NOT AS GOOD AS YOU THINK. Sorry but this is the truth. NCAA football scholarships go to freaky talent. At Plainfield North we’ve only had a handful of NCAA Division-1 scholarship football players. Scholarships are rare. Despite the fact that major college football teams give 85 scholarships, less than 1 out every 100 high school football players will receive a free college education. It may not be a good strategy to invest all of your time and effort in the pursuit of such a long-shot. Financial advisers encourage investors to take a balanced approach. Smart people never invest in the lottery. College football players are freaky-big or freaky-fast, or both. The size of your muscular-skeletal system is basically predetermined. Track is the number one way to improve your speed. Why not play a second sport? SPEED KILLS. The most important football skill is speed. Like it or not, speed may be the key to getting recruited and the key to getting drafted. It is simplistic and fundamentally wrong to believe in weight gain as your ticket to the big-time. Yes, NCAA football players are big, but they not artificially big. 300-pound linemen are 6’5″, not 6’2″. 230-pound running backs are first and foremost FAST. Big and slow running backs went extinct 40 years ago. #Speedkills. If you want to improve your marketability, you should join the track team. Don’t be an idiot who hires a personal trainer two weeks before a football combine. Anyone who values the weight room more than sprint training probably has thick ankles and suffers from speed envy. Slow guys love the weight room. Even big guys need to be fast. The top three tackles of the NFL Draft were taken in the first round at picks #2, #6, and #11. All three were huge and super fast in the 40 yard dash. #2 pick, Greg Robinson of Auburn was the 2nd fastest offensive tackle in the draft, running 4.92 despite being 6’5″ and weighing and incredible 332 pounds. #6 pick overall was Jake Matthews from Texas AM. Despite being 6’5″, 308, Jake ran 5.07 in the 40. The speed-star of the offensive tackles was Taylor Lewan of Michigan. Taylor Lewan was drafted #11 by the Titans. When you watch the 6’7″, 309-pound OT run the 40 in 4.87, you can understand what made him a first-rounder. Lewan was the FASTEST offensive lineman in the draft despite his enormous size. The top guard picked in the draft (the only offensive guard picked in the first two rounds, #33 pick) was Xavier Su’a-Filo of UCLA. 6’4″ and 307 pounds, Su’a-Filo ran the 2nd fastest time of all offensive guards, 5.04. The top center in the draft (the only center taken in the first two rounds, #43 pick) was Weston Richburg of Colorado State, the FASTEST center in the draft. At 6’3″, 298, Weston ran 5.10. The New York Giants wanted the fastest center available. WHAT YOU MEASURE YOU IMPROVE. We measure everything. We use Freelap to measure fly 10-meter sprints. We time 40-yard dashes. We time 30-meter block starts. Our focus is on explosion, acceleration, and max speed. We time lactate workouts. All data is recorded, ranked, and published. Graphs are used to show improvement. And that’s just practice. Track meets pit the best against the best. When you run a 10.65 100-meter dash, every coach in America knows you are legit fast. The whole world knows you have the athleticism to play at Florida State, Alabama, Auburn, etc. You are what you do. If you lift weights, you become a weight lifter. If you focus on weight gain, you get fat. If you sprint, you become a sprinter. It’s your choice. YOU WON’T SIT THE BENCH IN TRACK. I love kids that play in the marching band, but football players are usually better athletes. You are strong, fast, and tough. There is a place for you on our team. If you are not good in track, you probably aren’t as good as you think your are in football. Join the team and get faster. We have 18 events. Almost all of our meets have a fresh-soph and a varsity division. Your participation is guaranteed. I will find a spot for you. Unlike the ball-sports, track teams are not breeding grounds for jealousy and pettiness. Your spot on the team will be based on measured performance, not based on the opinion of your coach. Every kid that’s ever sat the bench in a ball-sport has secretly hoped that a teammate would screw up. In track, we cheer for everyone, even our opponents. Track is not a zero-sum game. Your success is not based on your opponent’s failure. TRACK IS NOT A “TIME ROBBER”. Ball-sports block out the sun. The time expectations are immense. Some teams practice three or four hours. Some teams require weight lifting before school. Most teams require 25 days of practice in the summer. Do you like selling cards or cookie dough door to door? My track practice will begin at 4:00 and you will be on your way home at 6:00 MIDDLE SCHOOL TRACK AIN’T TRACK. If you “don’t like track”, you don’t know what you are talking about. In middle school you did not practice on a track, you practiced on grass. Here, we practice on a 180-meter indoor track and a 400-meter outdoor track. In middle school you competed against other middle schools from Plainfield. In high school, we compete against the best schools from all over the state of Illinois. We run on the finest indoor tracks in the state: University of Illinois, Eastern Illinois University, and The Shirk Center at Illinois Wesleyan. We make two southern trips, Belleville West & Edwardsville, both overnight. We have only one coed meet. You will be treated like men and expected to act like men. We have 21 meets including the Top Times Meet (Indoor State) and the IHSA State Championship, a three-day, two-night trip. The best state championship in Illinois is the IHSA Track & Field State Championship at Eastern Illinois University. No Illinois state championship event draws a bigger crowd. Our team includes distance runners, jumpers, sprinters, and throwers; ages range from 14 to 19. Only in track can two guys like Patrick Willhalm and Nick Wolf become good friends. YOU CAN BE A VIP AS FRESHMEN. YOU CAN BE A VIP AS A ROOKIE. We have tryouts and keep between 75-85 athletes. Our 2014 roster included 28 freshmen. If you are a good football player, you will make the team. Last year six freshmen won varsity letters. Try doing that in one of the ball sports. It’s not uncommon for freshmen to make the trip to state as a competitor or a relay alternate. Last year, four freshmen made the three-day trip to state as relay alternates. We keep freshmen records. We give freshmen awards. Freshmen practice with the varsity every day. Unlike the ball-sports, freshmen are a part of the varsity program. Our coaches will know your name. You get the same attention as a senior. Our upperclassmen are taught to be good “big brothers” to our freshmen; you are the future of our program. Both of our over-night meets have fresh-soph relays, so our best freshmen will make the trip. In the past five years, we’ve had three rookies become All-Staters. Jayden Gerber quit baseball as a sophomore and ran lead-off on our All-State 4×1 in 2011. Randy Gordon had never played on a sports team but came out for track his senior year (2011). Gordon ran on All-State 4×2 and 4×4 teams. Like Gordon, Evan Flagg joined the track team as a senior, thinking he would be a high jumper. Instead, he anchored our 2012 All-State 4×4 team. Our freshmen broke our school record in the Fr 4×1 (44.99). By the way, these two guys are outstanding running backs. The guy in front, Nico Capezio, long jumped 20’0, triple jumped 40’0, and high jumped 6’0, despite being 5’5″. #SpeedKills ATHLETES CHOOSE TO COMPETE. Call me crazy but I think football players need to compete more than nine times a year. What kind of athlete would choose to practice and train for 356 days and play only 9 times? The 2014 Big Ten recruiting class included 305 athletes from 14 teams. 89% of 2014 Big Ten recruiting class played multiple sports. 100% of Iowa’s recruits played multiple sports. In the 2014 NFL Draft, 222 of 256 players played more than one sport (87%) . Four out of every ten players drafted in 2014 were 3-sport athletes in high school. Only five of the 32 guys picked in the first round of the NFL draft were one-sport athletes. Alec Holler, track & football coach at Edwardsville says, “If you aren’t good in track, you probably aren’t as good as you think you are in another sport; so my advice would be to run track and get more athletic. You may think you are getting better with your personal trainer, but you’re not. One thing you can’t duplicate is the intense competition of a true sport.” I couldn’t agree more. Call me old-school but one-sport athletes are part-timers. FACTS DON’T LIE. The following comes from a terrific website, trackingfootball.com. I spoke with one of the co-founders, Aaron Hunter, recently. “Track performance in itself does not always tell us a guy can play football, however it does show inclinations on who does not have the ability to play. Thus track performance is a great indicator of D1 athleticism.”
2A few of the Central Boys & Girls team extended their season by running at the Nike Heartland Regional meet in Sioux Falls. There are several different divisions from "Rising Stars (freshman & Sophomores), Open Division ,and Championship Division." The race is sponsored by Nike, and the top two teams from each championship race advance. The top five individuals (as did Karly Ackley for GFC 2016), not on advancing teams also go on to Portland, Oregon, for the National Championship race. The Heartland region is made up of the following states: IA - KS - MN - NE - ND - SD - WI. The championship division you have to selected in, they took the top 27 teams that applied to run in that race.
The day started out early for us with Ryan, Joe, and Quinn running in the Rising Stars division. There were 254 boys in the race and Ryan crossed the finish line first for the boys in 16:58, placing 37th. Joe ran a new PR in 17:50, earning 106th place. Our youngest runner, Quinn, 7th grader, was not intimidated by the older boys and ran 18:20, just a few seconds off his PR, and placed 143rd. The girls hung out in the hotel, since their race was much later in the day. But they definitely showed up and ran well, placing 12th overall, and was the first North Dakota team. Alexis busted out a huge PR of 17:58, being just the second Central girl to break 18 mins, and placed 20th place. That earned her 3rd All-Heartland team honors by placing in the top 21. The girls quickly kept crossing the line Rachel 18:24 (45th), Mikayla 18:26 (new PR, 50th), Lauren 19:35 (153rd), Silje 20:26 (217th), Sophia 21:00 (231st), and Nora 21:03 (new PR, 233rd). It was the first time Central placed 3 girls in the top 50. The girls really finished the 2018 season well with several new PRs, and everyone one of them within a few seconds of their season PR! Monday was the start of the last week of practice, it was very sad to realize how fast the season had gone by. We did the same training we did before EDC because that really seemed to help a bunch with PR’s. It wasn’t the most ideal weather we could ask for, but we made it through the wrough and cold week. Monday we did a normal run that weather wasn’t that bad a little cold and windy. Tuesday was 400’s, 800’s, and 300’s at PR pace it again windy and cold but people still stayed on pace. Wednesday was a normal run but cut down 1 mile so we could rest up for state. There was also a meeting in coaches room about what the course and the race would be like. Thursday was supposed to be 400’s at goal pace but the weather was to rough outside. So we just did 4x1 minutes hard on the trade mill at mile pace. It was a little different then what we were all use too and some of the younger kids didn’t know how to run on a tread mill but they got the hang of it. Thursday night was the state meet dinner. Everyone dressed up and got really motivated by our speaker Cameron Roehl who talked about his state experience and how his college career was going.
Friday was when everyone started to get nervous. We had everyone dress up for school because it was the state meet the most important meet in the season. Everyone just ran a quick easy 3 miles just to get ready for the big meet, we did 4 150’s after the run. Saturday the big meet, we left Central at 7 am because there was a coaches meeting at 9:30. But the teams weren’t allowed on the course tell all the Frost was gone. There was a 2 hour deal-a on the meet because he frost didn’t clear off so all the teams where stuck on there busses for 2 hours. When where finally able to get off the bus we were so happy. The girls race was at 1 and the boys at 1:45. It was warmer at that time of day then when we where supposed to run, so everyone had to take of all the warm gear they had on. Then came race time! The girls did great taking second and having 3 in the top 20. The boys it was a different story everyone ran there hardest but the course was really hard and most of us didn’t place as well as we’d hoped for. We ended up taling 12 out of 16 teams witch isn’t bad for the young team that we have. The next state will be better for both the boys and the girls and can’t to see how the next season goes. There will be a lot of us doing track. We will all try our hardest for that too. Couldn’t of ask for a better team to be named as a captain for. State didn’t go the way everyone wanted it to but we’ll have to come back stronger and faster next year. Love this new found family and all of the seniors. Both the girls and boys will be missed so so much it won’t be the same without them. Ryan Meyer - Freshman Captain This was it. The final week we had together, and last week of my last season. We stuck to the training schedule we had used for EDC. It had brought us many PR's so changing anything would've been unnecessary. That also meant cutting down a lot from our usual milage, and the icy weather outside also contributed to a change in workout length. Though the practices were shorter, this week didn't feel low-energy at all. Every day felt filled with anticipation for the upcoming week, and I loved seeing everyone cheer each other on. The day finally came, and we left on the bus at 7:00 AM. The race itself was less punctual, and we spent a good two hours on the charter bus, waiting out the frost delay. Eventually though, we found our way to the course and got to work. Regardless of the outcome, I know my teams worked very hard, and I couldn't be prouder. The finality of senior year hasn't hit me yet, but when it does, my memory of this last state meet-and the wonderful weeks that lead up to it- will be some of my best remembered. We will all miss each other, but I can't wait to visit next year and see everyone running again. Thanks for a great season, everyone. Maia Jackson - Senior Captain Well the final week before state has come to an end and with it the official season. It all began on Monday with some windy weather. The kids going longer mileage had the option to get dropped off north of town to avoid running into the strong winds. It was a lot of fun to run on the gravel roads, see a few cows, and even play a little "I Spy". On Tuesday we paid our last visit to the home xc course for the year(although we didn't know it yet). There we did a little speed work and practice ended early. The next day everyone met in Coach Allan's room to go over a little race day strategy and some goals. Afterwards, we went on a normal run down a bike path in East Grand Forks. Despite keeping our eyes peeled, we failed to see and any deer this time. On Thursday, the weather turned nasty and we went to the cardio room to do our final speed workout of the season. The intervals went by fast thanks to the incredible cheering led by Alexis. After, the whole team gathered and had our annual pre-state potluck where former GFC runner, Camron Roehl, gave a speech about his experiences as an athlete to motivated us for Saturday. On Friday, the girls team ran down a route we like to call "Apples". Since I've been on the team it's been sort of a tradition to take that route during the final week. Unfortunately, all of the girls got stopped on our way back by a train. However, we made the most of it and spent the long wait chatting and moving to stay warm in the cold. Finally, on Saturday, the team rode down to Valley City for the North Dakota state meet. Upon arrival we were told that the races were delayed as a result of frost on the course. It was okay though because we watched a movie, snacked, and hung out on the bus. After a couple hours, we were allowed onto the course. Excitement filled the air as everyone prepared for their races. At the end of the meet the boys team finished 12th, seven places better than expected at the beginning of the year. The girls team walked away as runner-ups in what I dare say was the closest North Dakota state meet in history. The scores ended up to be as follows: Davies 88, Central 88, Century 89(with Davies winning the tie with their sixth runner). In the end it's bittersweet to be so close. At the end of the day there's one thing I can say: I'm proud to be a Knight. Rachel Torrey- Senior- Captain |
NEW Google drive to share pictures:
Parents please feel free to share. trade, and copy your Track & field pictures Google Drive AuthorVarious people will write about what is happening with the teams. Coach Allan and captains will be regular contributors. Alumni and parents are also welcome to submit entries. Archives
March 2024
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