Joe Stewart's 'Kelso experience' is worth soaking in
Sunday, September 21, 2008 12:03 AM PDT
By Rick S. Alvord
Printable version
E-mail this articleJoe Stewart gathered his Kelso boys cross country team around him for a pre-race chat that sounded a lot more like a life lesson than a pep talk.
“You — you’re leading us,” he said in a soft voice to one of his wide-eyed runners, moments before the start of the Kelso Invitational. “And you — do what you can do, not what you can’t do.”
Stewart teaches as much as he coaches when it comes to cross country. He looks his athletes straight in the eyes and challenges them to dig deep and discover something about themselves they didn’t know existed.
It’s part of the “Kelso experience,” according to the veteran head coach, who graduated from Kelso High in 1972 and has been using running trails as teaching tools ever since.
The Kelso experience isn’t just for the competitors. As always, there was plenty to learn and observe at Saturday’s Kelso Invitational, a competitive and fun event that was the brainchild of Stewart nearly three decades ago.
While a Kelso cross country meet lacks the intensity and loudness of a football game at Schroeder Field, it more than makes up it for with character.
It involved more than 250 kids from seven schools — and a lot of enthusiastic parents, who were in just as much pain watching the races as their sons and daughters were running them.
A father and mother trot to different spots along the 3-mile course to see their son compete, with their four other children in tow. At one point, the mom shouts encouragement as she gallops alongside a pack of runners — a baby stroller gliding through the grass in front of her.
The father of a Sunset runner spots his daughter at the midway point of the girls’ varsity race and tells his wife, “She’s in fifth place!” His daughter is at least a quarter-mile away.
“You must have good eyes,” proclaims another parent.
“Yes, 20/10. But I know the way my girl runs,” he says. “She’s been running that way since she was 3 years old.”
It’s the final 100 meters of the girls’ varsity race and Crystal Fricker of Canby is bouncing off the track like a human pogo stick. Her arms are flailing as her daughter, McKayla, finishes in first place by five seconds over Kelso’s Elle Mustion.
As McKayla makes the long trek down the finishing chute, her mom is there to dole out hugs and kisses.
“It’s just one of those mom things, I guess,” says Crystal, herself a former distance runner. “Her father (Mark Fricker) ran the 1500 (meters) for Oregon State when he was in school, and she wants to run for OSU in the future, too. I just think it’s important to always cheer on your kid and be there for them, no matter what place they finish in.”
McKayla seemed more concerned with finding a dress for homecoming than with her winning time.
“It has to be a formal dress and she wants it to be a pink one. It’s a Disney theme,” Crystal Fricker says. “We have one day to find the perfect dress.”
But it’s not all pink dresses and hugs at this event. Hang out at a cross country meet for a few hours and you’ll see countless expressions of agony on the runners’ faces.
Eyes bulging, veins popping, cheeks tinged in red. Not all of the strolls down the finishing chute are as pleasant as McKayla Fricker’s.
Running cross country is not recommended for the faint of heart. There are football players, good ones, who wouldn’t last two days in this sport.
It’s blue-collar and unassuming. The glory is fleeting. The headlines are few and far between.
In other words, it’s right up Joe Stewart’s alley.
Earlier this month, Stewart flew to Pennsylvania to meet up with his son, Jake, a former Kelso distance runner currently employed as the assistant cross country and track coach at Iona College in New York. Jake’s wife also was there, along with Stewart’s daughter, Jenne, who drove up from Virginia.
The purpose of the gathering? To watch Stewart’s beloved Oregon State battle Penn State in one of college football’s most hallowed arenas — Beaver Stadium, capacity 107,282.
Although OSU got crushed, Stewart enjoyed every minute of the experience. One of his heroes is 81-year-old Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, whose teaching philosophy doesn’t differ all that much from Stewart’s.
“He does it right,” said the old-school Stewart. “He epitomizes work ethic. It’s hard to believe they wanted him fired a few years back for having a couple bad seasons. Everyone thinks you get lousier when you reach a certain point. That’s nuts.”
Stewart won’t be around for that many more Kelso Invitationals. He already has retired from the school district and expects to coach “one or two” more seasons of cross country.
When he finally does coach his last meet, let’s hope enough people remember how special Joe Stewart made the Kelso Invitational.
It has his signature on it — thank goodness.
Rick S. Alvord is sports editor of The Daily News. He can be reached at ralvord@tdn.com or 577-2527.
kelsograd wrote on Sep 21, 2008 8:59 AM:
Kelso, WA wrote on Sep 21, 2008 10:54 AM:
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