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Over Hill and Dale
By:
Dave Chatelaine,
President of the Minnesota Cross Country Coaches Association
Owatonna H.S.
Greetings cross country coaches! I will be
serving as your association president for the next two years and I look
forward to this opportunity. Jon Wagner has done an outstanding job as
our association president during the past two years and if you haven’t
had a chance to thank him for his efforts, please be sure to do so when
you see him during the season.
The 2008 cross country season got off to a
good start with our coaches clinic at Wayzata High School on August 5th.
We greatly thank Kevin Moorhead from Champlain Park for all of his work
in organizing the clinic. Thanks to Bill Miles for arranging the
facilities for us to use at Wayzata High School. There were many great
sessions and speakers at the clinic which included Bill Miles on
championship peak performance, a demonstration on core strength
exercises, Dennis Barker of Augsburg College discussing distance
training theory, a panel discussion with Minnesota class of 2007
athletes, a discussion on nutrition and Gary Wilson from the U of M
discussing meet preparation and strategy. The State Coach of the Year,
Assistant Coach of the Year, Section Coaches of the Year and Hall of
Fame awards were presented during the coaches meeting. Congratulations
to all of our honorees and the fine work they do coaching our youth.
State Coaches of the Year for 2007 are:
Class A Girls Coach of the Year: Mark Abraham of
La Crescent High School
Class A Boys Coach of the Year: Jerry Zimny of Esko High School
Class A Assistant Coach of the Year: Tim Lindquist of Esko High School
Class AA Girls Coach of the Year: Neil Kruse of Centennial High School
Class AA Boys Coach of the Year: Chris Harder of Rosemount High School
Class AA Assistant Coach of the Year: Carl Schirmer of Brainerd High
School
Our Hall of Fame inductees are Gail Grieme of
Monticello High School. Joe Tamillo, retired coach from White Bear Lake
High School and Dick Davidson, retired coach from Murray County Central
High School. I have included a brief biography of each inductee.
Gail Grieme
Monticello High School
Gail has been coaching girls’ cross country and track at Monticello High
School for 23 years. During that time the girls’ cross country program
has experienced much success. Gail’s teams have competed in the class
AA girls’ state meet 7 times in 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1993 and
1997. The best team finish was 5th in 1987. Gail’s teams
have won 9 conference titles during her tenure and have had a total of
17 top 3 finishes. Gail has coached 3 different all-state runners for a
total of 7 all-state awards. Leah Wurm was her top finisher at the
state meet with a runner-up finish in the 2000 meet. She has coached a
total of 52 all-conference athletes, several of them earning the honor
multiple times. 7 of these athletes were conference champions. Gail
has been a member of the Minnesota Cross Country Coaches Association
since she began coaching. She has served on many different committees
over the years among them being a section representative in the 1990’s,
Coach of the Year committee member since 1991, speaker at our clinic,
member of the state girls’ cross country advisory committee, and
academic rep. Gail was named the Minnesota State Coach of the Year in
1990 and has been Section Coach of the Year 3 times. Gail competed in
track during her high school years at Murray County Central and ran
cross country and track at Moorhead State University where she was a 2
time division II All-American in track as part of the 4 x 800m relay
team that won a national title in 1982. Gail was nominated by Hall of
Fame member Denny Ranta of Plainview. Denny’s nomination letter
strongly emphasizes Gail’s dedication and commitment to the sport of
Cross Country. She devotes countless hours and energy to her coaching
and the development of young women.
Joe Tamillo
White Bear Lake
Coach Tamillo is one of several dynamic individuals who have led the
cross country program at White Bear Lake High School during the past
several decades. Joe is the 4th coach from White Bear Lake
High School to be inducted into the Minnesota Cross Country Coaches Hall
of Fame. He joins former White Bear Lake coaches Wayne Slocum, Don
Glover and Lyle Helke. Joe began teaching at White Bear Lake in 1962.
His first coaching assignment there was assistant football coach. He
became the head boys’ cross country coach in 1967 after the unexpected
death of Coach Wayne Slocum. Joe also coached the girls’ team from 1974
to 1984. His cross country teams made 7 consecutive state meet
appearances in 1967-1973. During that time his teams finished as
runners-up three times and never finished lower than 6th
place. His first team in 1967 finished second place at the state meet
only one point behind Austin. Joe was the debate coach, served as
president of the local theatre and is a poet. He became a student of
the sport of distance running, read the book The Long Green Line by Joe
Newton and researched many articles on distance running and nutrition.
Joe coached many successful individuals among them Dennis Fee who was
the holder of the all-time Minnesota high school record for the 2 mile.
He coached numerous top 20 finishers in the state high school cross
country meet including Ron Watters (state champion), Mike Engh, Dennis
Fee, Joe Schmura, John Woodbury, Craig Wilson, and Doug Lemay. Joe has
coached state champions and numerous top five finishers in the state
high school track meet distance events. Joe has been very active in
athletics, theatre, military and community events during his life. His
biography is extensive. He retired from teaching in 1985 after teaching
and coaching for 35 years. His career as an English teacher and coach
included positions at Cario, Georgia High School, Greenway High School
in Coleraine, Head Football Coach at Itasca Junior College and White
Bear Lake beginning in 1962. Coach Tamillo is a big motivator and
experienced much success in everything he did in athletics, military
experience, community involvement, theatre, teaching, coaching and his
post retirement real estate sales. Joe was nominated by Craig Wilson
and several of his former athletes.
Richard Davidson
Murray County Central
Coach Davidson has coached boys and girls cross country and track at
Murray Country Central High School in Slayton for 34 years. During his
coaching tenure, Coach Davidson’s teams were very successful. His boys’
teams competed in the state cross country meet 9 times with the best
finish being second place in 1975. Dick coached two-time state
individual class A cross country champion Mark Zinnel in 1976 and 1977.
His girls’ teams have competed in the state meet on six different
occasions with the best finish being second place in 1995. Dick has
been named State Coach of the Year three different times. He was Coach
of the Year in Boys Track in 1986, Boys’ Cross Country in 1989 and
Girls’ Cross Country in 1995. He has also been named Section Cross
Country Coach of the Year 8 times and Section Track Coach of the Year 6
times. Dick’s track teams have won 11 conference titles, 9 district and
subsection championships and 5 section championships. His track teams
have placed third at the state meet in 1987, 1991, 1993, 1994 and 1998.
Several of Dick’s former athletes competed at the collegiate level.
Dick was nominated by one of his former student/athletes Gail Grieme who
is also a 2007 Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame inductee.
Gail had many favorable comments about Dick. He is very dedicated to
his teaching and coaching and works hard to be a positive influence on
the development of the young people he works with.
During our coaches meeting at the clinic, the
three class proposal was discussed. Please send your comments and
questions to Jon Wagner or me in the near future as we will present this
proposal and another one for additional medals at the state meet to the
MSHSL in early November. Our association also needs a vice-president.
Please contact me if you are interested in this position. The
vice-president is a two year term which follows with a two year term as
association president. If you happen to see me at any meets this fall,
please feel free to discuss these things with me. Our advisory
committee will be meeting with Lisa Lissimore of the MSHSL on September
18th. Please contact me if there are any issues we need to
discuss at this meeting. Jeff Schmidt our secretary will send out an
updated list of Who’s Who in our association later this fall.
Hopefully your seasons are off to a good
start. It seems as though there are more kids out for the sport of
cross country this year. My team has grown to over 50 boys and John
Long owner of Marathon Sports told me he has seen an increase in the
size of teams that visit his store. I’m looking forward to another
enjoyable season with nice weather. Good luck with your season and I
hope you can make the sport of cross country a great experience for all
of your kids. |
