Tuesday, April 24, 2018

HS Track - Dave’s Midwestern Ohio Memories

A Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

HS Track


FISH REPORT does such a great job covering high school track; so I thought maybe sharing some of my high school exploits with that sport may be of interest! Track and field at Ft. Loramie High, as it was called back in the ’60’s, was rather an after-thought sport. Basically, an announcement would come over the loud speaker inviting all high school boys to meet after school to practice for the upcoming county track meet. There was no girl's team till years later after Title IX legislation. Literally the county track meet was the only event of the entire season, so needless to say we made a rather poor showing. Houston always had the best track team in the county back them, as they had and still do have a wonderful track facility next to the school along SR66.


I’d be remiss in not mentioning Minster’s girls track led by renowned coach Katie Horstman that started shortly after my time in high school. During the 50’s, Katie was a star baseball player in the All American Girls Professional Baseball League commemorated in the 1992 Tom Hanks and Geena Davis movie “League of Their Own”, which may soon be turned into a TV series. This excerpt about Katie from Wikipedia says it all:
After attaining a college degree, Katie returned to her hometown of Minster, where she initiated girls sports programs, including volleyball, gymnastics, basketball, track and field, cross country and softball. By 1980, she focused her coaching on track and cross country. For the next five years, her girls teams never lost a track meet. After being runner-up State Champions in 1975, the inaugural year of girls track and field, her track team won five consecutive state championships (eight overall). She also guided her cross-country running squad to two state championships.
Horstman has been named Midwest Athletic Conference League Coach in all sports numerous times, and has been inducted in five hall of fames in baseball and track. In 1988, she attended to the opening of a permanent display at the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York that honors those who were part of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. She gained induction in the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame, and also is the first woman honored in the Ohio Track Hall of Fame and the first woman elected into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame.[13]
Horstman has been widely recognized for her coaching skills and by opening doors for women in sports. In total, her teams have won seven state high school track meets and have been runner up four times; has won one state high school cross country championship; has won all 12 track and five cross country conference meets; has won 11 track and two cross country district/regionals, and has coached 29 individual state high school track meet champions.
Katie’s indeed a legend! And that legacy continues as Minster won the 2017 girls cross country state championship last fall.

 

Let’s shift gears back to my track specialties (that’s a stretch), which were the field events of pole vault, high jump and long (back then politically incorrect broad) jump. I defaulted to them because of being tall and lanky, without much speed for the sprint competition or heft for the shot put, while not motivated to get in shape for the distance races. I distinctly recall the makeshift area for the field events next to the 1st base foul line of the baseball diamond about where the current Ft. Loramie elementary stands today.


The baseball team was practicing at the same time and deliberately punched foul balls our way to disrupt our bumbling track team. But after baseball practice was completed, several players came over to give track & field a try.

  
 

The landing areas for the field events were filled with sawdust that got in all the wrong places, if you get my drift. The stuff was always wet from spring rains. Indeed the landing areas were pits dug into the earth rather than the raised and cushioned pads today. Literally the fall was further than the jump, which in my case really wasn’t very far given my lack of skills. The pole used for vaulting was a thick aluminum rod that had no flexibility whatsoever and was usually slippery from falling on the wet grass or sawdust. It was really a challenge to get some height, especially since the indentation where the pole was planted just prior to the jump was a small hand dug hole in the ground that was easy to miss. The high jump technique was a traditional scissors-style jump in the pre-Fosbury Flop days.


The long jump was my best event, primarily because I could leap decently (thanks to basketball) and didn’t have to deal with a pole vault or high jump bar so flimsy and light the wind would sometimes blow it off. In the County meet, I recall not being able to clear the initial height for both the pole vault and high jump events. Maybe I should have passed on the first round or two to psych out my opponents! With the long jump, avoiding a fault was the only real challenge. So that event provided my greatest track and field achievement, by not coming in last! No long jump medals for me, but at least I got beyond the initial round, unlike pole vault and high jump. In fact, I don’t recall the winners even getting medals, but probably I left the meet in disappointment before the medal ceremonies!




Ft. Loramie high school’s website includes records for all the various sports and I noticed the oldest track record was in 1968 for the 100 meter dash at 10.9 seconds by my cousin Tom who was three grades behind me. He was indeed quite a speedster. I also remember a younger kid built like a fireplug from Houston who could really throw the shot put way beyond anybody else. Looking at Houston's track records, I noticed the shot put record holder is Steve Pence in 1968 with a throw of 50’2”, likely the same guy, no doubt even bigger and stronger as a senior when he made that record-setting shot - or is it put?.

My track escapades are nothing compared these record holders or even more so, to today’s outstanding athletes, as evidenced by Ft. Loramie boys track school records being broken during the 2017 season in 7 of the 17 events. Go Redskins!


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