A Track Season Without A Track, Chapter 1: Indoor
Note: Below the writeup you’ll find full results, photos, updates to our all-time indoor records (varsity and f/s), and scoring leaders. So make sure to check those out.
Recently, a coaching friend jokingly suggested that I write a book about coaching a track team without a track (if you’re reading this and aren’t aware, our facility was ripped down to the studs in November for a complete rebuild). If I were doing that, Chapter 1 would be a great one, albeit stressful at times. Being stuck inside, weird trips to other tracks to try and get a week’s worth of work in (while we do our best to stay out of our hosts’ way), lingering health issues… but what has stood out above all else during the first month of the 2026 season is our kids’ resilience, talent, and character. And perhaps greatest of all, their commitment to each other and to the program that we’ve all built together.
Side note: if you get tired of me mentioning that we don’t have a track, apologies. But it’s tough to articulate just how much the lack of a proper place to train weaves into everything we do. So I may refer to that quite a bit just to give proper context to the things our kids have accomplished this spring. Moving on…
Coming into the season, we found ourselves ranked by the two major Illinois track publications, MileSplit and Illinois Running News. The kids and I don’t talk about rankings all that much because they can be pretty volatile, and I don’t really want them getting wrapped up in them. Indoor is even more unpredictable. Teams without indoor tracks, which I’m guessing is about 97% of Illinois programs, are forced to treat this season as exhibition or preseason. Most programs like us also rely heavily on winter athletes who typically don’t join us until 2 weeks or more into the season.
It’s getting tougher and tougher to keep that mindset each year as more opportunities to compete become available. We attend 4–5 meets during indoor now, and our athletes continue to have more and more success. But we do our best to keep an even keel. Rarely do I ever put athletes in more than 2 events during indoor season. We don’t really go after relays and instead use them as an opportunity to give less experienced guys a chance to compete at meets where entries can get extremely tight. If a guy is battling something, we are even quicker than normal to rest him. Those things aren’t going to boost your status in the rankings, but taking the long view is the right thing to do for both our athletes and our team.
Without even having an outdoor track to walk out to when we get a randomly nice day in February or early March, we had zero reason to be in a rush. We care much more about what happens in late April and May than we do in March. With all that said, our kids floored me. Indoor records from guys who should have struggled without legit time on a track. Team wins at a couple of massive invites. All-time bests from some already very decorated athletes. And the list goes on. Trying to figure everything out as we go has been tough. I always seem to have to learn how to do things the wrong way multiple times before learning how to do them right. But our kids have been patient and understanding, and they’ve absolutely torn it up every chance they get to step onto a track. All the little unknowns have made it tough for me to even keep up on things like these write-ups, but their efforts demand to be acknowledged. They’ve been incredible by any standard, regardless of whether or not there’s a track across the street. In fact, it’s not an exaggeration to say they’ve made history.
Team Accolades
To my knowledge, Olney Tiger Track and Field has never won an indoor invitational. It certainly hasn’t happened during my time as coach. To be fair, last year’s group very well could have won one. Mt. Zion’s Apollo meet didn’t keep team scores, and we were only 4 points short of 1st at EIU even though we split our squad and sent quite a few of our guys to SIU the night before. But team scores are seldom our objective during outdoor season, let alone indoor, and we certainly weren’t about to change our approach going into this season for the reasons mentioned above. So I was a little surprised when I looked at the team scores following Mt. Zion’s big Apollo Indoor and saw our name at the top.
But I was a lot more surprised to ride home with the 1st-place trophy from U of I the following weekend. About 50 teams attend that meet every year. It was the 46th time the meet had been held. The last five 1st-place teams had been Mascoutah, Mascoutah, Mascoutah, Normal Community, and Chicago Heights. In short, winning that meet was a huge accomplishment, and we even rested our nationally ranked 2-miler. Despite being done competing for the day after Ian Pianfetti’s 200m, where he turned in an all-time best 23.13 indoors, we actually had to wait around for another hour to find out for sure who the winner was. Belleville East’s triple jumper had a jump good enough to knock us out of 1st, but Normal Community’s jumper used his final attempt to edge him out for 4th place by an inch, giving us the win by 0.5 points. The triple jump went on for so long that by the time they were ready to hand us the trophy, we were the only team left in the place, and U of I’s staff had already started turning off the lights. We didn’t care. Walking out of that place with a 1st-place trophy is another one of those things from the past few years that Olney Tigers aren’t supposed to do, but we did it anyway.
Last but certainly not least, we finished the season by qualifying 8 athletes, a new school record, in 10 total events, tying last year’s school record, for the Illinois Top Times Indoor Championship. We walked away with 3 medals, tied for the 2nd most we’ve ever had. Last year we brought home 4. We also tied last year’s group with 5 top-10 finishes. Keep in mind, qualifying for this meet is roughly akin to making it to the state finals in some events, and pretty darn close to that in the rest. Huge accomplishment for our guys, who again compete in a class where many of the top schools are roughly double our size.
Not everyone finished like they wanted to at that meet. There were some forced smiles in the team photo afterward. But keeping in mind how much the deck was stacked against some of our kids without a facility, it was nothing short of amazing to compete like they did in March.
Throws
We’ll start with the elephant in the room (technically, it’s a 6’7”, 300-plus-pound offensive tackle). Our returning all-state thrower, Casey Thomann, was forced to bow out this spring after surgery to repair the labrum in his right shoulder. The U of I commit wanted badly to return. He had plans to race through rehab in time to make it back for Conference, chase our school records, and hopefully help put our team in a spot to compete for a trophy at State again. He was the #2 returning shot putter in Class 2A. Ultimately, though, it wasn’t in the cards. I cannot move forward without saying how grateful I am that we got to have such a talented and high-character guy in our program for the past 2 seasons.
I wish that one of his final acts as a Tiger had been etching his name on our record board. But Casey has already created a legacy within our program, and he continues to add to it. He comes in and coaches our young throwers 1–2 times a week despite rehab sessions, driving up to Champaign to catch spring practices, and all the other things a guy goes through when he’s getting ready to change his life forever. When we got back from Decatur at 1 a.m. last year, he was here at 8 a.m. the next day to compete with our local Special Olympics crew. He’s a big-time athlete with a shockingly low amount of ego. He finished his career #1 since 2010 in the shot, #2 in the disc, a 3-time individual Conference Champion, a 2-time state finalist, and an all-stater in the shot put in 2025. As much as it stinks that he won’t be back, I can’t feel anything but gratitude for the time we had him.
I’m also extremely excited about the guys who remain. They’re all young (freshmen and sophomores) and talented, and they’ve inherited a great camaraderie and work ethic from the guy who led the way for them (Thomann) over the past 2 seasons. They coach each other up, go out and put in extra work on their days off, and just have a really positive vibe about them. They’re led by our only returnee in the group, Taylor Levitt. Taylor finished up last season as our #3 freshman since 2010 in the shot and #5 in the discus. He had a solid indoor season, setting a new best of 37’8” in the shot. No disc indoors, obviously. He has also emerged as a fantastic leader for the new guys, paying forward what was modeled for him.
Mattux Hart, a fantastic kid with great size and a ton of athleticism, has me extremely excited. No doubt Coach Carmody is excited about what he’ll do on the football field over the next few years as well. His best of 37’5” edged him past Taylor for the #3 spot on our freshman indoor list. We’re excited to get him going in the disc. His length, power, and athleticism make him a pretty phenomenal candidate for success in that event. And he is just one of those guys you root for. Again, an outstanding young person.
Our two newest and least experienced throwers, Dreyton Denton, a freshman looking to improve his power and athleticism for football, and Koy Stevens, a sophomore, one of the most improved returnees on this fall’s Tiger football squad and also a powerlifter, have been putting in the work, and I’m excited to see how much they can improve. One of the coolest things about this sport is that it is very few guys’ primary sport. Many of them come in looking to become better athletes for whatever it is they love most. The fun part is that you just never really know who’s going to blow up and do things you never imagined. That could be any one of these guys, or several of them.
Distance
In 2025, the Tigers had one of the most promising freshman classes in the state. Two of them, Quaid Berger and Judah Dicks, were state qualifiers in the 3200. One, Tristin Butler, just missed qualifying in the 1600 on a horrible weather day for distance runners. And Quaid walked away with an all-state performance at the finals. Those 3, along with another fantastic first-year man, Landon Livingston, wrote their names all over our freshman honor roll and racked up numerous top-10 performances for us since 2010, regardless of class. Guys like Austin Kuenstler and Oliver Fehrenbacher worked their tails off as well. Together, they have already made the case for being considered the best overall group of distance runners we’ve had in my time as head coach, and they’ve barely even gotten started. Fast forward to 2026, and they have burst out of the gates and gone from being a great group of young runners to one of the best distance crews in the state, period.
We came into the season expecting that Quaid Berger would be writing his name in the history books before the season was over. He decided not to wait until outdoor season to start writing. He began by breaking our indoor 1600 record, set by Max Gassmann back in 2010. Max ran 4:26 on his way to winning the unofficial indoor state title at Illinois Top Times. Quaid ran 4:22 at our first meet of the season, Mt. Zion’s Blazen Brave Invite, and then hit that mark 3 more times during the month of March, the final effort earning him 5th at Illinois Top Times. He currently sits about 6 seconds off Tiger great Mike Bridges’ all-conditions record.
The feature event for Quaid, though, was the 3200. After coming within a half second of breaking the all-conditions school record of 9:16.04 (again set by Mike Bridges) earlier in March at SIU, Quaid shattered it at Top Times, running a 9:03.07. On top of the raw time, we’re talking about an indoor 200m track, which means twice as many laps and curves with tighter turns. That run earned him an indoor state title, a win over the super-talented Greer twins from Marion, and put him at U.S. #18 (and #1 in the sophomore class). As I’ve written elsewhere, the former record holder, a former runner for the Fighting Illini and likely the greatest distance runner in school history, would have been proud to see Quaid break his record (Mike passed away just a few weeks ago)… Quaid is that kind of kid.
While Quaid Berger was putting the state on notice, his teammate Judah Dicks quietly made some history of his own. Judah battled through an indoor season that at times didn’t meet his expectations, which are ridiculously high for a sophomore, but he just made the cut for Top Times and more than made the most of it on race day, finishing 9th with a 9:30.06. I’ll caution folks against dismissing that time as being 27 seconds off Quaid’s pace. Up until last season, the fastest 3200 runner I’d ever had was Braden Nicholson. Braden, for those who don’t know, went from not running track or cross country until his junior year of high school for us to becoming a 2-time NCAA champion for North Central College. His senior season, 2019, Braden finished 3rd in the 3200 at the IHSA Outdoor Championships, running 9:35.88. Again, Judah ran about 5 seconds faster, and he did it indoors. As has happened so often in recent years, we find ourselves spoiled with multiple phenoms in the same event.
Tristin Butler, our #1 freshman in the 800 and #2 freshman in the 1600 since 2010, looks poised for big things during outdoor season based on what we saw in March. In addition to breaking 4:30 in the 1600 at the Gene Armer Invite, making him just the 3rd Tiger to ever do that indoors or outdoors since 2010, he also became the first Tiger to break 2:00 in the 800 indoors, which earned him his first trip to Illinois Top Times. He didn’t have the race he wanted to finish up indoor, but he is on track to do some big things over the next few months. Like the guys mentioned above, he’s chasing history. He probably has the best chance of any runner I’ve coached to break Ron Sager’s fantastic school record in the 800, 1:54.64, before he’s done. Yet another record that has stood for decades. About 50 years ago, we routinely had enrollments pushing 1,000–1,200 students. The pool of athletes was phenomenal, and the records show it. Tristin knows there’s work to be done, but there’s no question he has the talent to go after it.
Leading the rest of our returnees is Landon Livingston. Like Judah, it might be easy to miss what he’s already accomplished because of some of the talent around him, but he finished up last season in the top 7 of our freshman honor roll since 2010: #3 in the 800, #5 in the 1600, and #7 in the 3200. Landon is a competitor, and he wasn’t always totally satisfied with his performances. The standards are pretty sky-high with this group, which is a good thing. But perspective matters. He finished indoor up #4 on our freshman/sophomore top 10 list in the 800 and became just the 6th sophomore to crack 5:00 in the indoor 1600. Everyone is on their own timeline, and you never know when guys are going to blow up in this sport. Landon is one of the most talented distance athletes I’ve ever coached, and he is definitely on my short list of guys I’m most interested to watch over the next few years.
Austin Kuenstler and Oliver Fehrenbacher also return, both great kids and both talented in their own right. It’s a blast watching them compete against themselves. It would be easy in this group to feel unnoticed, but they bring their lunch pail and hard hat to practice every day, and they just keep getting better. Austin finished indoor at #6 on our freshman/sophomore honor roll in the 800, and Oliver finished #8. Both are guys who are just super easy to root for. And speaking of guys who are easy to root for, Nathaniel Zwilling has quickly won over our staff with his work ethic and positive attitude, and he has ability too. His older brother, Isaac, was one of the best kids I’ve ever coached. He was a sprinter, but always willing to do whatever was asked of him. Excited to have another Zwilling in the program.
Jumps
Perhaps more than any other realm of the sport, the jumps have been the backbone of our success, especially in the postseason. We’ve brought home 10 medals from the state championship in the jumps over the past 4 seasons, 7 of those being all-state performances, 2 of them being state runners-up (Cothern in the high jump in 2023 and Hallam in the long jump in 2025) and 1 being a state champion (Cothern in the long jump in 2024). Graduating an All-American, Rex Hallam, to the Illinois State Redbirds is obviously a tough hole to fill, but few teams would be able to counter that with a former state champion in the long jump and 2 guys who have medaled in the high jump. In other words, we’re lucky to still have plenty of weapons in the jumps.
We’ll start with the guy who at this point essentially has no peer in the history of our program in a number of ways. Gavyn Cothern enters his senior season already as our all-time leading point scorer, holds the school record for all-state medals with 6, and is the only state champion in school history. He does it all for us, including playing a major part in our sprint relays. But this spring he was extremely limited due to some lingering issues from football season. We elected to have him concentrate solely on the long jump during indoor season until we were sure he was ready to take on more. Despite limited workouts and, yet again, not having a track, Gavyn had his best overall indoor season in the long jump of his career, finishing with a season best of 22’6” at U of I and taking home a runner-up finish at Illinois Top Times. That’s his 5th medal in the jumps at the unofficial indoor state meet over the past 3 years.
I really do believe that being without a track is likely to matter more now than it will at the end of the season. As time goes on, meet reps become much more important than practice reps do. Add to that Gavyn being held back for essentially all of March, and it’s difficult to look at indoor season as anything other than a huge success. And by the way, he’s cleared to rock and roll. No limitations. Expect to see the most decorated athlete in the history of our 100-year-old program doing incredible things all over the track once we get outside.
Gavin Root is yet another returning state medalist in the jumps, our 4th different Tiger to bring home at least one medal since 2023, after he finished 9th in the high jump in his first-ever state appearance last season. After starting to take off during his sophomore season athletically, Gavin blew up over the next several months. He got bigger, stronger, and faster, and his vertical leap went completely off the charts in the fall. So I wasn’t completely surprised when he hit 6’7” at the first indoor meet of the season back in February. That mark trails only Gavyn Cothern’s 6’8” effort at the 2025 Top Times meet in program history (dating back to 2010). But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at least a little surprised, if only because it was such a phenomenal performance, and because it was February. That jump ended up as the 5th-best performance of the entire indoor season for Class 2A.
The rest of the way had some ups and downs for Gavin, which should be expected in some ways. If high jump isn’t the most high-stress and technical event in the sport, it’s right up there. I often refer to it as the baseball of track and field. It takes talent and skill, but there’s an enormous mental aspect to it. Precision and focus are essential. In my opinion, the 2 groups most impacted by our lack of a facility are the jumpers and our dual-sport athletes. Root happens to be both (he’s also one of RCHS’s best baseball players). Ultimately, Gavin has a great season ahead of him. His baseball coach, Ian Laughlin, recently praised him for his ability to brush it off and move on when things don’t break his way. That will serve him well this season, because his tremendous talent isn’t going anywhere.
It’s always amazing watching our kids do incredible things. But I’m not sure anything tops watching a kid break through after battling and struggling to take that next step. Maverik Cordell has probably persisted as much as any athlete I can remember. He’s certainly put in the time it takes to be a good vaulter. It’s a specialized event that requires as much dedication as any in the sport. If you want to be good at it, there’s no substitute for reps and time. Which I’m sure ate at Maverik at times as he battled to break through that 11’6” mark last year. Unfortunately, he never did. He hovered between 11’0” and 11’6” for much of the season and hit that same ceiling on 3 occasions.
Since last year, Maverik has put in time at camps, clinics, and on his own with his dad, Erik, as much as they were able to. Again, that requires serious dedication. There aren’t pole vault pits just sitting around or spaces to use them in Richland County during the offseason. He’s continued to battle, getting stronger, faster, and working on the technical side of things, not to mention the painstaking process of finding the right pole for his size and ability. After all that, Mav lined up at our first meet of the season and got 11’0”. He could have been forgiven for being more than a little frustrated, but he shrugged his shoulders with quiet confidence and moved on. He followed up with PRs of 12’5.5” at EIU and then 13’2.5”, 3 inches over state qualifying and less than 4 inches off the all-conditions school record (it was good for the indoor record, though). He earned himself a spot at Illinois Top Times, where opening height was unfortunately right at his best-ever mark. Needless to say, it wasn’t his day, but he shrugged his shoulders again. I think he knows there are plenty more breakthroughs ahead.
We had 2 more returning jumpers perform during indoor season: Ryan Kirby in the triple jump and Xae Owusu-gyan in the long jump. Ryan spent pretty much all of last year as our primary triple jumper, becoming just the 7th Tiger I’ve ever coached to cross 40 feet and winning an LIC conference championship. Like some of our other field event guys, it was up and down for him this indoor season, but like his teammates, he continues to battle. Triple jump has one of the biggest learning curves of any event. Year in and year out, I see more improvement from the start of the season to the end in that event than almost any other. Along the way, Ryno continues to be one of the best teammates I’ve ever had on the team. He has won our teammate award each of the last 2 seasons, and no matter how things are going for him personally, he continues to bring that to the table day in and day out.
I’ll be talking more about Xae in the sprints section, but for now I’ll say that he’s got a ton of talent and looks to be the guy who will step into the role of our top long jumper in 2027. Big shoes to fill, as that will be the first season we haven’t had a guy named either Gavyn Cothern or Rex Hallam in that event since 2021 (that duo has collected 4 all-state medals and counting in the long jump)… But it’s in good hands. Xae is already #3 since 2010 as a freshman/sophomore long jumper, trailing only the 2 guys I just mentioned, and he is being mentored by a former state champion on a daily basis. He hit a new best of 19’7.5” during indoor season, only 4.5 inches away from becoming just the 3rd Tiger to hit 20 feet as a sophomore.
Sprints
Whereas the jumps section couldn’t be led off by anyone other than Gavyn Cothern, this one simply couldn’t start without talking about Ian Pianfetti. Ian entered his senior season as at least the top point earner for any sprinter of the 2020s, and my guess is that when it’s all said and done, he’ll hold that distinction for the entirety of my career dating back to 2010 (he may already, but I’ve got some more historical digging to do to confirm that). As of right now, he sits in the top 3 for us in all the short sprints: #2 in the 60 and #3 in both the 100 and 200. He led off the 2 fastest relay teams in school history last year. The list goes on.
Ian came in with aspirations of knocking down both indoor sprint records, the 60 and the 200, both of which were going to be a tall order for different reasons. For one, our 60 record is phenomenal: 6.97 by Ayden Cothern in 2023. And Ian will tell you that his greatest strength is speed endurance. He continues to pick up speed the farther he goes, and he holds that speed better than just about any sprinter I’ve ever coached… Sprinters accelerate, hit their top speed, and then spend the rest of the race battling to slow down as little as possible. There are so many different speed profiles among sprinters, and Ian’s doesn’t necessarily lend itself to elite 60 times… and yet he has done absolutely amazing things in that event.
He never got that new record in the 60, but he finished up indoor dropping 2 new personal bests along the way and qualifying for his 2nd straight Top Times. His 7.10 further cements him as the #2 Tiger we’ve ever had in that race, trailing only Cothern, who, by the way, just finished 3rd in the OVC conference a few weeks back in that same event. Ian also managed to drop time in the 200 and qualify again for Illinois Top Times. I firmly believe that Ian had the ability to become the first guy to break 23 for us indoors, but without a track, it just wasn’t in the cards. Indoor season is in many ways preseason, and we just weren’t willing to force things early in the year. As it is, he finishes his indoor career trailing only Ayden Cothern and all-stater Gus Lathrop in the indoor 200, 2 of the greatest sprinters in school history. Not bad company. And more on this to come, but Ian has a phenomenal chance to go after and break the all-conditions school record in the 200. Stay tuned.
Next up is Aiden Germak, who’s chasing some history himself, and it’s so fulfilling to watch. Last season, Aiden was a sophomore who returned from his freshman year as a likely major contributor to what we knew had a chance to become a couple of the best relay teams in the state. We wound up state runner-up in the 4x100 and 3rd in the 4x200, obliterating our school records by seconds in races where tenths feel like hours. Aiden had been the lead-off man as a freshman the year before on what was then the #2 4x100 in school history, and on the 4x200 that set a new school record. When he sort of became the odd man out with the return of Rex Hallam from injury and the emergence of Felipe Goncalves, Aiden would have been forgiven for walking away or pouting. That’s not an easy pill to swallow for a kid, especially one who is as good an athlete as he is. But we talked, and I said the words that about 95% of sprinters fear most: “I really think you could be great at the 400.” I wasn’t just making it up. Aiden continuously put up fantastic numbers in our speed endurance workouts, some of the best I’ve ever had, in fact. And I noticed something about him afterward: most guys collapse, see stars, or throw up. Aiden just walked away from them. Some guys just have something different in their DNA, and he is one of those guys.
Luckily, he took that conversation to heart and threw himself into one of the toughest races in the sport. He proceeded to break our freshman/sophomore program record late in the season, edging out Saul Jones from 2023 by a couple tenths. When summer hit, Aiden hit an athletic spurt, started routinely touching 23 mph, and his explosiveness went through the roof. I knew then that he’d have a chance to chase the 400 school record, set just last year by Felipe Goncalves. And he came screaming out of the gates at EIU, running 53.16 and breaking our indoor school record by more than 2 seconds. It was his first time setting foot on an actual track since the previous spring (he was only a few days removed from basketball season at the time). He went on to break that record 2 more times on his way to a 9th-place finish at Illinois Top Times, making him the first Tiger to qualify for that event at ILTT, let alone finish that high. In almost every race, he had an uncanny ability to chase someone down and edge them out at the end (like I said, he’s got something different in his DNA). All things considered, Aiden has a very real chance not only to break the school record of 50.22, but to become the first Tiger ever to break the 50-second barrier in the 400. It’s going to be a blast watching him chase such an enormous milestone.
Great athletes have seemed to come in pairs the past few years for us, and it appears to be happening again, this time in the 400. The week after Germak announced himself in that race, fellow junior Carter Seaman walked onto a track for the first time this year (another basketball player) and turned in the #2 indoor 400 performance in my tenure: 53.74. That’s 2 seconds faster than his previous all-conditions best, and it would have broken the previous indoor record by 1.5 seconds. Carter was another guy who blew up over the summer, adding a ton of strength and speed, and when I saw him on the first day of practice, I was stoked. He’s also our top tennis player, and everyone knew doubling up this spring would be tough without a facility. I knew he was poised for some great things if he decided to give it a go, and now here we sit with 2 of the very best 400 runners I’ve ever had. That alone gives us a shot at chasing the oldest relay record on our board, the 4x400 (set back in 1971 by Edwards, Berger, Franklin, and Zwilling). Carter is just one of those guys who is so easy to root for, and I’m so glad he’s with us this season.
Two young sophomores, Xae Owusu-gyan and Gentry Hough, return to us as 2 of the fastest freshmen we’ve ever had. Gentry edged out Xae to become the fastest freshman all-time for us in the 60, and Xae then went on to break our freshman record in the 100. Both are unique talents, and both showed improvement this March. Gentry’s 7.29 and Xae’s7.35 in the 60 place them at #2 and #3 respectively on our freshman/sophomore top 10, and put them both in the top 5 all-time regardless of class. The title of the LIC’s fastest man has gone to an Olney Tiger 9 of the last 12 years, so to be sitting near the top of those lists is a huge accomplishment for these two. Watching them continue to grow and carry that torch is going to be a blast over the next few years.
Along with those two, newcomer Guillermo Tartalo, an exchange student, had a fantastic March as well… We’ve had too many exchange students to count in my time as head coach, and every single one of them has been awesome, hardworking, and a great cultural addition to our program. Having said that, none of them had ever made the kind of athletic impact that Felipe Goncalves did last season. It would be unfair to compare Guillermo to Felipe, but there are some pretty awesome similarities that are hard to ignore. Like Felipe, Guillermo had never run track before (we noticed he had tremendous athletic ability while testing Coach Wheeler’s weight training class over the winter). And also like Felipe, he’s an awesome kid who fell in love with track almost instantly. He came out of the gates during indoor with a 7.44 in the 60, putting him at #8 all-time, and ran some great 4x200 legs as well. He’s all-in, wants to be great, and the guys already love him. I have no idea what stories we’ll be telling about him when the season is over. That’s one of the things that makes this sport so great.
Wrapping up our sprint group: a hardworking returnee and some promising newcomers. Mason Brown continues to be a guy who is just so easy to root for. He works as hard as anyone. This spring, he contributed to our relays on several occasions and ran the 60 for the first time in his career, finishing indoor season in the top 20 all-time for us. Leo Hallam, younger brother of former Tiger great Rex, is an extremely talented freshman. He’s got fantastic length for a sprinter and is already hitting 21 mph, a benchmark for a freshman that points to Leo likely having some impressive milestones in his future. He finished March in the top 15 all-time for us in the indoor 200 and is definitely a young Tiger worth keeping an eye on. Another young guy with a ton of talent is first-year sophomore Daniel Zhu. Daniel decided to give track a go after sitting out last year. He ran in middle school, and the rumors were that he was a fast dude. He has lived up to the hype. Daniel routinely hits 22 mph in practice and is super competitive. I think he has a ton of potential and falls into that same category as Guillermo. I have no idea what he’s going to turn out to be, and I mean that in the best possible way.
Finally, Reid Cordell, who competed for us in one meet during indoor season - the 400 at SIU Indoor. Without a track, the 400 could have been, and maybe should have been, a pretty daunting prospect for a freshman. Reid hadn’t run anything in that neighborhood in over a year, and he was going to be facing some fantastic runners at a big-time meet. But it was one place we had room to get him a chance to compete. Needless to say, I gave him every opportunity to opt out - I don’t like throwing guys into situations where they aren’t comfortable/ready. We want them to want to compete, and he would have been forgiven if he didn’t. But Reid didn’t bat an eye and said, “Sure, I’ll go.” It was a tough race, but Reid continues to show up with his hard hat every day ready to work. Great kid who adds to the culture and spirit of our program, and another one I’ll be rooting for every time he competes.