For Jackson, coaching was all about meeting people

Dave Jackson was a 1974 Evanston graduate, but he’d never heard of Hinsdale South until he interviewed there for a teaching and coaching job fresh out of the University of Kentucky.

Three decades later Jackson is still in Darien, in his final year as a physical education teacher, track assistant and head boys cross country coach. There are few in Illinois’ running community he doesn’t know, and vice versa.

“As a teacher and a coach you meets hundreds and hundreds, thousands of students you’ve had over a 33-year period. You remember colleagues you teach with. Teaching is a very difficult, stressful thing, but you share some tremendous bonds with your colleagues, and also your coaching colleagues,” said Jackson, a 2006 inductee into the Illinois Track and Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

“When coaching track or cross country the bond that you have between coaches is tremendous. Not just coaches in the building, but I know hundreds of coaches all through the state. I know tons of people,” he said.

Saturday, Jackson will take the Hornets to his last cross country sectional, at Lockport.

“You would be proud to have any of these boys as your son,” he said.

He knows of which he speaks. He and his wife, Margaret, sent a son, Alan, and a daughter, Barbara, through Hinsdale Central — both runners like their dad, who lettered on Evanston’s 1972 and 1974 state championship track teams.

(Running for legendary coach Ron Helberg, Jackson jokes that Helberg’s sons Ken and Don, now hall of fame track coaches at Wheaton Warrenville South and Wheaton North, respectively, once “held my sweats.”)

Alan Jackson graduated from the University of Louisville Medical School in May and is in his residency in internal medicine; Barbara is in her second year as a special-education teacher and Special Olympics coach in an elementary school in Lexington, Ky.

Barbara’s inspiration was her younger sister, Erika, born with Down’s Syndrome. Erika, now 21, swam for Hinsdale Central, and in 2008 was named “inspirational athlete of the year” by the March of Dimes’ Illinois Chapter. Erika delivered a speech, along with people like Andre Dawson, at the Comcast SportsNet Sports Awards at the Hilton Chicago. Jim Thome joined the Jacksons at their table.

“I’m blessed with kids who’ve turned out pretty good,” Dave Jackson said.

Other than visiting his children in Kentucky and other relatives here and there, the coach has no concrete retirement plans.

“Nothing real specific other than to have more time,” he said.

Jackson has produced five top-seven boys cross country teams. Among his highlights was watching Ed Slowikowski barrel toward a second-place Class AA finish in 1984. Another was seeing one of his runners with mild cerebral palsy finish a 3-mile race in less than 22 minutes.

“It’s an interesting sport in which you get just as much joy from a kid in the back of the pack to a kid winning,” Jackson said.

Speaking of cross country

A sprinter from the start, after finishing second at the Fenwick cross country sectional Glenbard East senior Lindsey Rakosnik was asked what she’d learned about herself through distance training.

“Distance is a lot different from sprints. It takes strategy, it’s a lot more mental. So always think positive,” she said.

“And also taking care of my body, as it’s really important in recovering healthy. Never giving up during long runs. Freshman, sophomore year I thought a 3-mile race was impossible.

“I’ve learned (in) cross country and running all these miles, it’s definitely a lot tougher than what people would think,” she said. “I think it’s made me stronger as a person. I think it helps me cope and get through a lot of things. I don’t think I would be sane if I didn’t run.”

Have a ball

A 2001 Waubonsie Valley graduate who became an international star, Matt Miller owns a burgeoning basketball skills development business, M14 Hoops. He’s hosting a unique event from 1-4 p.m. Sunday at the Illinois Basketball Academy in Naperville, open to all.

Miller, whose M14 camps have increased from 33 kids to more than 150 in little over a year, is offering a relaxed skills development session with a catch.

The cost is $1 and a nonperishable food item from everyone who attends. That includes his development staff, which includes former Neuqua Valley greats Bobby Catchings and Mike Rose and Waubonsie stars Jarrett Starwood and Nick Daniels.

Miller will donate part of the proceeds to Wellness House, a cancer support center in Hinsdale; Hesed House, a homeless resource center in Aurora, will receive the food.

Miller, who in August played in his final international basketball tournament, in Madagascar, is enlisting a disc jockey to accompany some 5-on-5 and 1-on-1. But as he wrote on the M14 Hoops website (m14hoops.com), Sunday’s event “will have little to do with name recognition, jersey numbers or team names.”

How refreshing.

“It’s not about basketball, it’s about being a good person. This basketball thing’s going to end, but you’ve got to do something afterward,” he said.

“It’s about being a well-rounded person, a good player, a good citizen. You need to know there’s something else going on in the world, and you need to help somebody.”

Rock n’ Roll

Chris Siemers, a 1999 Fenton graduate, overcame more than a year of hip and groin injuries to win the Rock n’ Roll Denver Marathon on Oct. 9.

He’d won it before in 2009. But the big news for Siemers, 30, wasn’t simply that according to the Denver Post his time of 2 hours, 18 minutes, 48 seconds set a state marathon record. Or that his brothers Mike and Will flew in to join another brother, Art, among a cycling entourage that yelled encouragement and time splits along the course.

The big news was that his time also qualified Chris for the 2012 Olympic Trials. One of seven siblings to graduate from Fenton, he will head to Houston on Jan. 14 for the Trials.

“I do think I have the talent to go out and surprise people,” said Siemers, who helps Art coach the Colorado School of Mines cross country team.

The Arvada, Colo., resident figures running in thin Denver air is more taxing than in the elevation he’ll find in Houston. Also, his injuries had limited him to one race, the U.S. Mountain Championships in New Hampshire in June 2010 — which he also won — since his 2009 Denver Marathon win. He had only about six weeks of training before Oct. 9.

“The thing with the marathon is you can’t predict it. It’s unlike any other event. There’s going to be some dark horses who maybe sneak in. I think I might be one of those guys,” Siemers said.

“Hopefully, I can stay healthy and get to the starting line and have a shot.”

doberhelman@dailyherald.com