Dear George:
Back in February, Ray Mayer, my former teammate and co-captain of the cross country team at St. Ignatius High School in Chicago made it possible for the current St. Ignatius track team to participate in a track meet in Bethesda, Maryland.
Another teammate, Paul O'Shea wrote up the meet for the Cross Country Journal and the St. Ignatius Alumni Magazine.
This is the article. There is a photo that goes with it. If you think the article would be of interest, I can try to get the photo sent to you.
Take care,
Tom
The St. Ignatius College Preparatory High School
Is there a future Tom O'Hara in this pack?
A Trip From the
Past
By Paul O’Shea
When you give back, others go forward.
In the l950s Ray Mayer’51 was a leading miler in the
Midwest and student at one of Chicago’s prestigious high schools, St.
Ignatius. Later, he went on to distinguished service in the
military, serving as a Green Beret in Vietnam, and to a successful career in
real estate.
Mayer never forgot the education he received from St.
Ignatius High School and the opportunity it gave him to explore his athletic
potential. To help his school’s current athletes,
his generosity recently funded a trip to Washington, D.C. for the St. Ignatius
Wolfpack track team. By giving back he’s helping kids three generations behind
him create their own legacies.
The initiative began last fall when Mayer was
impressed with the performances of the distance runners at St. Ignatius (now St.
Ignatius College Prep High School), particularly Jack Keelan ‘13. In 2012 Keelan won the Illinois state
3-A division cross country title, was 26th at Nike Cross Nationals and ran a
4:09 mile. When Mayer competed he was a 4:35 miler, running about
20 miles a week, common then for top distance runners.
Mayer asked St. Ignatius head coach Ed Ernst to find
an opportunity to showcase Jack and the rest of the team in a high-profile
competition that would also provide an educational experience.
Answer: the Jesuit Invitational Track and Field Meet at Georgetown Prep
High School in Bethesda, Maryland. Mayer offered to provide the financial
support to St. Ignatius for it to fund the 21 runners, jumpers and throwers
competing against other top Jesuit schools in the East.
“My high school years were considerably enriched by
participation in the school’s championship cross country and track programs,”
Mayer remembers. “Because today’s Ignatians have many more
opportunities to develop their God given talents, I contacted Ed Ernst, the
boys’ coach to find out what I could do to help the team. He
responded that he would love to enter the Georgetown Prep meet in D.C., not far
from where I live in Fairfax, Virginia. From that moment it was
written in the stars that the team could enter—and win. For me,
this was a partial payback for what I received by going to St. Ignatius.”
Mayer’s St. Ignatius co-captain and running partner,
Tom Coyne ‘51, also backed the Washington venture and attended the February
meet. He understood its value after serving as vice president for
student services at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo where he now
lives. Coyne believes the trip helped the students prepare for the
pressures of juggling academics and athletics at the university level.
“By participating in an East Coast meet the St.
Ignatius students jump started their potential roles as college athletes,” Coyne
said. “Traveling by air to quality away meets is what the big guys
do. However, in the way they competed with respect for their
opponents, their mature, enthusiastic behavior and individual, all-out
performances, the lads demonstrated they have the qualities good universities
want in their students.”
What did the opportunity mean to Keelan as a student
and athlete?
“Just the act of getting on the plane to compete set
the tone for our team
and season, saying, ‘we are serious about what we do
and we mean
business.’ So taking home the trophy was
more like the cherry on top.”
For Coach Ernst, “the Washington trip was a reward for
the hard work of these particular boys.
We hope we will be able to do something like this for other athletes in
the future, as an incentive for hard work. As far as what it means
for the team in the future, I believe the older boys set the example and tone
for the younger boys. They teach each other year after year how to
work hard—and how to succeed.”
In a storybook ending, St. Ignatius took the Jesuit
Invitational team championship by four-and-a-half points, scoring in the final
event, the triple jump. Keelan won both the 1600 and 3200 yard
races in record times and in the fall, joins the perennial distance powerhouse
at Stanford University.
Not long after the announcement that the team had won,
one of the St. Ignatius athletes asked a semi-serious question: “Will they let
us take the trophy on the plane?”
At the airport, TSA got
on board. And so did the trophy.
-----------
Publisher’s Note: A former high school cross country
coach, Paul O’Shea writes about the sport from his home in northern
Virginia. From l949 to l951 he was a teammate of Ray Mayer and Tom
Coyne at St. Ignatius. O’Shea’s
e-mail address is Poshea 17 at aol.com.
From Coach Ed Ernst came these comments and video youtube links
With
the help of a generous gift from Ray Mayer of the Class of 1951, the boys and
girls cross country teams travelled to Washington, DC, on Saturday, October 12
to compete at the Georgetown Prep Classic. Mayer was in attendance to watch the
varsity boys finish first out of 13 teams in the seeded varsity race. Sophomore
Dan Santino was third overall, first for Ignatius, running 16 minutes and 14
seconds on the 5,0000-meter course on the Georgetown Prep campus. The Wolfpack
placed three more runners in the top ten, and six overall in the top 20: Senior
co-captain Chris Korabik 8th,
senior co-captain Taylor Dugas 9th,
junior Andy Weber 10th, senior
Patrick Manglano 14th, junior Kallin Khan 16th, and junior
Brian Santino 44th. The
girls varsity team finished second out of 13 teams in the “seeded varsity” race,
beaten only by Centennial High School of Ellicott City, MD. Junior Olivia Meyer
was the top Wolfpack finisher in sixth, running 19 minutes and 28 seconds.
Junior Alexis Jakubowski was eighth in 19:30, junior Jill Poretta tenth in
19:52, sophomore Anastasia Bouchelion 21st in 20:23, senior Kirstyn Ruiz 25th
in 20:33. Junior Maggie Connolly and senior Cara Zadeik rounded out the Varsity
race by finishing 27th and
33rd. The Wolfpack won medals and trophy plaques in the meets other
races, as well: Twenty of the 24 members of the girls’ team, in fact, won
top-20 finisher medals in their races. The girls junior varsity team won easily
over 12 DC-area teams. The freshmen team also won, as all six runners finished
in the top-12 of the race. On the boys side, a team of juniors and seniors
finished second in one junior varsity race, and a team of sophomores was third
in another.
The
meet itself is as much a cross country running festival as it is a race. Later
in the day Ignatius senior co-captain Dugas won a dance contest in the New
Balance cross country store tent. Two announcers manned a booth near the finish
line, where they did some race play by play, as well as post-race interviews
with the winners. When they heard that the Ignatius team had come to the race
from Chicago–and had won the boys seeded team race–they invited the team on
stage. Sitting in front of the stage during the interview, benefactor Mayer
accepted public thank you-s from the announcers, the crowd–and the Ignatius
team.
There
are also race videos available on Youtube:
Boys
Varsity: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbPxi9m8kpo
Girls
Varsity: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSjNosERD14
Girls
Freshman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gyd16CrdFhU
Coach
Ed Ernst also wrote about the trip on his blog:
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