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Bloomington IL
Stories from Day one at the Indoor Classic
| | 18th Annual Illinois Prep
Top Times Indoor Classic
Class AAA - Saturday, March 28th, 2009
Illinois Wesleyan University |
Stories from Saturday
Regina George: Friday Night, Saturday Morning
 It was Friday afternoon, when Regina George started her day of events at the Illinois Prep Top Times Indoor Classic.
But it was Saturday morning when she finished. “Long day, long night,” George said, after receiving her trophy as Most Valuable Girls Athlete. “Very long.”
George had to plan her day because she’s in three events, and with the Single A and Double A competing at the same meet, it was going to be a long event.
For George, a senior at Chicago’s St. Gregory High School, it started at about 4:30 when she finished second in the high jump to Miriam Rutzen of West Central High School, with a personal best of five-feet-four inches.
After the jump, George went to the gymnasium, where athletes wait for their events, and went to sleep. “There really wasn’t anything else to do,” she said. “I had a blanket. It wasn’t that bad.”
About four hours later, her coach woke her so she could do her warm ups for the 400. She won the 400 with a season best of 57.23, beating Leann Michl of Newton High School.
Then she faced a monumental decision: What to do in the hour or so before she had to run the 200?
“Did you go back to sleep?” I asked her, as she stood by her father, Phillips George, near the long-jump pit.
“No,” she said. “I relaxed.”
“She talked on the phone,” her father interjected.
Regina George shrugged.
“She loves the phone,” said her father.
“The key is to give yourself enough time to prepare for your competition,” she said. “The adrenaline will get you going.”
As she talked, the final event of the night – the boy’s long jump – was still going on.
“Could you compete right now, if you had to?”
“Usually, I’m in bed by now,” she said.
“Usually, she’s on the phone,” joked her father.
What will you do now?
She laughed and said: “Sleep!”
Greg Foster: The Champion Returns
Standing to the side of the pole vault pit, almost lost in the crowd is Greg Foster, the Olympian and arguably the greatest hurdler in the history of Illinois Track and Field.
He lives in St. Louis, but he's at the Illinois Prep Top Times indoor championship meet to watch the friend a daughter who runs for Plainfield North. Secretly, however, he's rooting for Proviso East. From 1972 to 1976, Foster ran for Proviso East, winning three state championships – two in the 110hurdles and one in the 300 hurdles.
And how did a good athlete manage to stay out of the legendary Proviso East basketball program long enough to run track? “It’s actually a funny story,” said Foster. “My first love was basketball. But I didn’t make the team. So a friend talked me into going out for track.”
Basketball’s loss was track and field’s gain. His coach, Charles Farinella, recognized Foster’s running and jumping talents and taught him how to run the hurdles. “Coach Farinella drilled me and drilled me over and over,” said Foster. “He saw it in me and refused to let me waste it. As much as I wanted to goof off, he wouldn’t let it happen. I just fell in love with it.”
Foster went on to UCLA, where he won four NCAA championships and, course, made three Olympic teams. He won the silver medal in the 110 hurdles in 1984.
As he watches today’s races, out from the crowd pops a friendly face from the past – John Caldow, assistant coach of the Whitney Young girls team. He’s here to remind Foster of a meet that took place over thirty years ago. “Remember Edward Thomas?” Caldow jokes.
“Oh, yes,” says Foster with a smile.
“I was his coach,” says Caldow.
They laugh and shake hands. Back in 1976, Thomas defeated Foster for the state championship in the 300w hurdles. But as Foster gently reminds him, they never ran in the same heat. “They settled it by times,” Caldow concedes. “I don’t think anyone would have beat Foster. He was a champion.”
On the field, a runner takes a wicked spill, tripping over a hurdle and crashing to the ground. He rolls on to his back in obvious agony, unable to climb to his feet.
“Did you ever trip over the hurdles?” I ask him, as two coaches rush to tend the injured hurdler.
He rolls up his sleeve, exposing a scar that runs the length of his arm. “It was on the Fourth of July and I wanted to get in a practice early before we started eating,” he said. “I was doing drills, hurdling over a hurdle that wasn’t that high. What’s ironic, I barely touched the hurdle. But it threw me off balance, I tripped to the ground. I broke my arm. So you see – it happens to us all.”
He watches the young hurdler get helped off the field by two coaches. “It’s a tough sport but it’s a great sport – I loved it.”
 Megan Weller: The Art Of The Pole Vault
There’s a simple equation in pole vaulting: An hour of preparation comes down to a moment of inspiration.
At least that’s how Megan Weller explains it. And she should know. The 17-year-old junior from Lincoln Way East won the pole vault at the Illinois Prep Top Times Indoor Championship meet with a jump of 12-feet-seven inches.
As in other meets, however, her decisive moment came well over two hours after the event had started. While the other contestants worked their way up from the starting height, she waited until the pole was set at eleven-feet-six inches.
“You have to learn to wait – to be patient,” she says. “You have to stay loose.”
Great pole vaulters also have to guard against cockiness. “I’ve been on both sides of it,” she says. “I’ve been jumping at the lower heights while waiting for great pole valuters like Jenna Wexler. Then you step up to jump. I don’t think people see it as having a swagger. This sport is not like that.”
And then when it’s your moment to jump – what are you thinking? “It’s hard to say what is on your mind,” she says. “Really, you’re wondering – did I clear the bar?”
On Saturday, she cleared the bar and won the championship
Natalie Tarter: Finally, A Little Luck
Natalie Tarter wasn’t looking forward to this year’s Illinois Prep Top Time Indoor Championship. And who can blame her?
“This has never been a very good meet for me,” says the 17-year-old sprinter and hurdler from Batavia High School.
In 2006, as a freshman, she didn’t qualify. As a sophomore, she qualified, but brushed arms against another runner in the hurdles and fell from second to fifth place.
Last year, she was disqualified because of a false start. “I came in with the attitude of don’t expect too much,” she says. “I thought I would just go out and run.”
Boy, did she ever. She won the 55-meter hurdles, the 55-meter dash and anchored the winning 1600-meter relay. As a result, she was awarded the trophy for the meet’s Most Valuable Girl Athlete.
It’s a great honor,” she says. “I’d like to thank my coaches, especially Harold Anderson. He’s the coach who introduced me to the hurdles. He taught me so much.”
Next year’s she off to the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where she will run track.
“I’m glad I was able to go out with a good meet,” she says.
Photos by Tamiko Deville |
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