CHARLESTON, IL – High above the blue track of O’Brien Stadium, in the last row of bleachers beneath the press box, Oak Park and River Forest High School boys track and field coach Tim Hasso watched his athletes climb one last time—up the steep cement steps to the team cheering area, and even higher into the school record books.
It was four tired runners, four smiling faces, four silver medals around their necks, and four big hugs from Hasso, the proudest man in the building.
“You earned it,” said Hasso to the group. “You earned every second of it.”
The 3,200-meter relay team had just run to a school-best second-place finish, with a time of 7:44.37—a mere second off the school record they’d set weeks earlier.
And if Hasso was proudest, Coach Jose Sosa was happiest. Coach Abel Reyes was most emotional. Coach Matt McMurray was most ecstatic.
“You guys have a top ten time in the nation!” said Hasso, still beaming, jazzed up from a race that had the whole stadium on its feet.
All afternoon, under the hot Charleston sun, the coaches sat huddled together in the bleachers recording split-times, calculating the other teams’ championship odds, and hoping through it all for the first OPRF track & field championship since 1987.
With six athletes competing on the final day, having advanced from Friday’s preliminary round, the coaches saw a chance for something special.
But with no halftime, no timeouts, no set plays or replay challenges during the race, it came down to the athletes. On their own, striding through the tented gate, onto the blue track that signifies an annual congregation of the heroic, the herculean, the best of Illinois best. From Galesburg to East St. Louis, Oak Park to Naperville.
And with the hay, as they say, already in the barn.
The starter’s gun shot off with a cloud of smoke. Huskies’ senior Sean Lonergan, the lead-off leg of the 3,200, dashed to the front from the outermost lane position. And a minute and fifty-three seconds later, charging down the homestretch, before a crowd of almost 10,000, he handed off in the lead. Thirty yards ahead of the pack.
The coaches watched from overhead—their only remaining tools a stopwatch, a hoarse set of vocal chords, and the confidence they’d drilled into the quartet all season long.
Lonergan passed the baton to second-leg Jack Monaghan, then on to third-leg Alex Staples, and finally to Kimathi Johnson to close it out as the anchor.
In the end, each leg tied or beat their personal bests. Each had the tangible weight of a silver medal to their names. And the highest finish in OPRF history.
In nearly any other year, the Huskies’ quartet may also have been crowned champions with a time of that caliber—but for the nation-leading Sandburg team, who set an Illinois state-record for first place.
After initial disappointment, with Kimathi Johnson grimacing at the finish line, the mood soon switched back to fun—just as it’s been all year.
For the rest of the afternoon, the foursome donned their laurels up in the bleachers, joining the coaches and Oak Park contingent to cheer on teammate Irwin Loud—in the 3,200 and 1,600—and Luke Nelson in the pole vault.
“We had nothing like this four years ago,” Johnson said. “The transformation from freshman to senior year was unimaginable.”
And were they nervous before the race, four seniors feeling the weight of a final high-school race? In their words: not a chance.
“We walked over to the track all nervous at first,” Lonergan said. “Then we realized—wait a second, this just isn’t us!”
So on the track, huddled up before the start, they joked about prospective tattoos, if they were to eventually win. They had fingernails painted, one for “distance,” another for “sprints.” They recalled the soundtrack to their long-runs at practice all season—”A spoonful of sugar…”
And they remembered the positive words of their coach, one Abel Reyes, who’s been shouting Run like frijoles!! for decades, doling out enough one-liners to fill up volumes of joke books, alongside partner-in-humor Jose Sosa.
“Go run your race,” Reyes had said, sending them off into the pre-race tent.
And his reaction after the race, to a team he’d believed in all year? No jokes, no funnies, but the joy, pride, and tear-filled eyes of a coach on cloud nine.
The big-time performances for the Huskies continued, and by the end of the afternoon, they’d amassed 25 points for a 10th place finish (ten points for a first-place, eight for second, and so on).
Irwin Loud, already a two-time all-stater, was up next in the 3,200-meter run. He’d placed second in the event last year, and looked to rebound from a dominant cross country season cut short by a bout of pneumonia.
He crossed the line in third place, a time of 9:14.71. And just under two hours later, he was back on the track—post-nap, post-shower—to place fourth in the 1,600, a time of 4:17.88.
“The weekend went well,” Loud said. “I wish I could have scored a few more points for my team, but I think I had a good double.”
In 2012, Malachy Schrobilgen completed that very double for OPRF, with a first-place and third-place finish—a feat Loud will look to match (or top) next season.
By the end of the afternoon, with the whole team assembled but one, Coach Hasso roused the pack of thirty-plus OPRF athletes, coaches and parents—pointing across to the far side of the track.
Senior Luke Nelson was readying for the pole vault, gathering himself before a sprint down the runway into a soaring arc over the bar for a sixth-place finish.
“Easy!!” shouted Hasso, with the Huskies’ crowd all cheers. Nelson landed onto the pole-vault cushion, the final piece to a historic day of track & field.
With all the events scored, the dust settled, Hasso sounded both satisfied and hopeful for the future. He recalled how they’d limped with injuries into prior State Finals, and now had athletes hitting their stride at the right time.
Now, with the help of the other coaches, and a new collaborative system using Google docs for track workouts, they’ve found a system for annual success.
“I didn’t think it would be this hard to win a state title,” he said, after more than a decade at the helm for OPRF. “But we’re getting after it.”
They’re on their way.