Durocher was wrong: Nice guys finish first
On a cool spring Saturday morning a few years back, Glenbard South's boys track team arrived early to Naperville Central to warm up for a meet. The smiling redhead, coach Andy Preuss, led the way.
And he carried a big box of doughnuts.
Also arriving early to study heat sheets, a reporter approached the bleachers at the same time. Preuss extended the box for a yummy glazed offering.
Preuss is one of the many nice people in area athletics. He and his boys track and cross country programs were recently rewarded with the news that he will be inducted into the Illinois Track and Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
He will join former North Central College jumps coach Doug Malinsky in the seven-man Class of 2010 at the ITCCCA Clinic and Hall of Fame luncheon at Oak Park-River Forest High School on Jan. 8.
“It was a nice little surprise, and I called some of the former athletes and thanked them,” Preuss said. “Let's face it, they're the reason you're here.”
Quality attracts quality. Preuss now in his 29th season as head coach, his still-boyish features have you believe he started at age 12 regardless of the graying around the temples earned the nod in a tough year to get in. Nearly 60 individuals were nominated for ITCCCA's Hall this year.
Nine times his Raiders cross country squad qualified for the state finals, winning in 2001 behind individual winner Micah VanDenend. Glenbard South placed third in 2002, finished top-six six times and have thus far won seven conference titles.
Preuss has produced 39 all-state track athletes, including the 2010 Class 2A 400-meter winner, Garret Payne, and VanDenend, 2002 state titlist in the 3,200.
Preuss' foursome of Dan Kuhlman, Kevin O'Brien, Tim Honig and Ben Matthies were 2007 national champions in the 3,200 relay at the Nike Outdoor Nationals. Earlier that year, Brandon Matthies subbed for his twin brother to help set a school indoor record at Proviso East.
They along with athletes such as brothers Eric and Bruce MacTaggart, long-ago Raiders Tim Schaefer and Mike Beebe of whom Preuss said, “kind of set the standard for us” assistant coaches Lee Halberg and Terry Artman, supportive parents like Dawn Mulrow and Judy Kuhlman, got props from the coach.
“I think I'm lucky, fortunate that I was probably at the right school at the right time with the right assistant coaches and the right athletes,” he said. “I think things are built on relationships, and I think the relationship between myself and the kids and the coaches and parents, all that goes together to create certain degrees of success.”
Doughnuts don't hurt, either.
“Obviously,” Preuss said, “I've got a good relationship with the kids, and because of that they would run through a wall for you.”
Pick your poison
Montini football coach Chris Andriano said he printed off the following quotation to preface his Chatham Glenwood game plan booklet for the Class 5A state championship:
“Every morning in Africa a lion awakes. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
“Also every morning a gazelle awakes. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed.
“So it doesn't matter if you're a lion or a gazelle. When the sun comes up you better be running.”
Andriano attributed this to the late Pro Football Hall of Fame coach George Allen. That's not confirmed, but whatever the Broncos won 34-21.
Runners get set
Girls from Wheaton Warrenville South's third-place Class 3A cross country team and boys teams from York and Neuqua Valley will run at the Nike Cross Nationals this Saturday in Portland, Ore.
The young WW South team, which qualified as an at-large squad after running at the Midwest Regional won by Palatine, includes Illinois all-staters McKenna Kiple, Lauren Mordini and Mikayla Kightlinger, Hope Schmelzle, Clare Kelly, Hana Lobsinger and Amy Yong.
Neuqua, also an at-large qualifier out of regionals that place third in the IHSA meet, will bring all-state runner Taylor Soltys, Mark Derrick, Josh Ferguson, Josh Antonson, Matt Coyne, Hirsh Gaikwad and the solid Vincenzo DalPozzo.
York, the 2004 national champion, is the only school in the country to have qualified for the meet all seven years.
Coach Joe Newton's Dukes come off Class 3A and Midwest Regional titles seeking a sixth top-10 finish. State runner-up Jack Driggs heads the pack of Ron and Tom Hedman, Nick Gornick, Matt Simo, Alex Mimlitz and Scott Milling.
Driggs will challenge Sandburg's phenomenal Lukas Verzbicas a fourth straight week. The York senior was runner-up to Verzbicas at the IHSA meet and again at the Nike Regional Nov. 14, and placed fifth to the triathlete's victory at the Foot Locker Midwest Regional last Saturday. They'll meet a fifth straight week at the Foot Locker Nationals Dec. 11 in San Diego.