We're Going (Silver) Streaking

First Day of IHSA Practices
8/11/10

In 2009, Galesburg High School's cross country teams initiated the Midnight Madness practice. Mostly known as the initial practices in division-one basketball, it has trickled down to the high school level on a very small scale.

Only a few squads that I am aware of, conducted a midnight madness practice. Rockford Christian football and Chester football each held one.

I planned on covering the practice at C.C. VanDyke Field in Galesburg, despite having to work a full day on Tuesday and Wednesday. With plenty to do, I pulled an all-nighter of sorts to get it all in. In the end, it added up to me working 30 out of 34 hours, and I certainly did not get a full four hours of sleep.

During the day, a few of the staffers at the radio station were cleaning out our WAIK studios in Galesburg. You can read all about that in the previous blog, about my geekiness!

Since I had an office full of "sports stuff" to go through, and tapes to digitize, I had more than enough to keep me busy from the end of the day until about 11:00 p.m. when I headed out to Galesburg High School.

During that time, I chowed down on some leftover General Tso's Chicken from Chen's Garden that I ordered at lunch. I also conducted a preseason interview with United Township football coach Ron Litchfield. I added that interview, along with Ridgewood Spartans coach Luke Johnston's interview to IHSSN.net, and finished my schedule adding for the database at the radio station. In the meantime, I uploaded old Galesburg radio broadcasts. Some of the games saved forever include; Galesburg vs. Alleman football (1980), Galesburg vs. Alleman football (1983), Monmouth College vs. Knox College football (1979), Galesburg vs. Quincy boy's basketball (1980), Galesburg vs. Rock Island football (1984), Galesburg vs. Quincy boy's basketball (1983), Galesburg vs. Morton boy's basketball 7-overtime thriller (1984), and the 1988 Class AA baseball state championship game between Galesburg and Barrington. Look for these broadcasts online at www.1590waik.com and www.ihssn.net.

Shortly after 11:00, I finished up my work and headed out to Galesburg. Earlier in the day, I felt that I would have trouble killing time until the midnight practice, but I was more than busy with the amount of work I have had.

Driving in on route 34, there was several flashes of lightning in the north sky. Some thunderstorms had gone through the area about an hour prior. The lightning looked more like heat lightning, not the cloud-to-ground lightning.

Around 11:30, I pulled into the GHS parking lot. The lone soul at C.C. Van Dyke Field was boy's cross country coach Craig Hillier. He was getting things set up. We talked shortly about the weather, and let him finish organizing his course. I penned down some questions to pose for a couple of the runners I would interview beforehand.

About ten minutes in, the first of the runners showed up. It was senior captain Mike Darling and his dad. A few minutes later, they began trickling in. I helped untangle some of the flags on the west end of the track, where the practice would begin, and the workouts before the run took place.

Hillier said that Darling would be a good interview, so we talked for a few minutes. That interview can be found at www.ihssn.net. It was shortly after midnight, so I interviewed one of the top returning runners on the girls side, Dorothy Mangieri. Both boy's and girl's squads made a run to the state finals. It was the first time in school history for the girls in 2009. The boy's finished 8th and the girl's 16th. Freshman Stephanie Saey finished 6th individually, but she will miss the first part of the season for the Streaks.

The practice began with the passing out of notes and expectations for the 2010 Silver Streaks. Coach Hillier also made a few quotes in the opening speech. "Take advantage of what you have now, life can change in a moment's notice." This was a hard hitting and heart-felt quote due to the circumstances that recently effected the GHS cross country program. Girl's head coach Jody Chapman lost her husband, John Chapman (Galesburg wrestling coach), to a heart attack just weeks ago while they both ran the Bix 7 together.

He then went over some stretches for the team, explaining what each stretch was for. Honestly, I learned more about cross country in a little more than an hour than I had ever learned. Like many, I thought it was just a sport that requires running a lot.

During the stretches and warmup, I talked with Mr. Darling. I explained that I was working in Galesburg, and was fairly new, just taking over my position as sports director there about two years ago. He said that they had just moved to town three years ago from the Rockford-area, the Rockton Hononegah school district. He did have some family in the Macomb and Colchester areas, so was familiar with that territory.

After the warmups, the Streaks runners took to the streets for their first run of the 2010 season. With that, my night of covering Midnight Madness came to an end, at about 1:15 a.m.

Surprisingly, I wasn't that tired on the drive back to Monmouth. Once I returned to the studios around 1:45, my eyes began to get a little heavy. Upon returning, I took some audio I grabbed before I left from coach Hillier. This clip was in regard to adjusting the practice schedule due to a midnight practice. Between 2:15 and 2:30 a.m. I recorded the morning sportscasts. Finally, around 2:45 a.m. I was ready to curl up on my office floor and get a few hours of sleep.

It wasn't as easy to sleep on the floor as I thought. Normally, I can sleep anywhere and anytime. Even putting in a 19-hour day, I could not fall asleep. Of course, I neglected to bring a blanket or pillow. After a few minutes of tossing around to get comfortable, I grabbed some shirts out of my bag. Nope, that wasn't going to work either.

I remembered there was a throw pillow on the couch downstairs in the station lobby....much better. I fell asleep for about 30-45 minutes, before waking up extremely cold. The girls in the front office like to put the air conditioner setting on "eskimo". It was freezing! I tried putting my arms inside my shirt, looked around for a long-sleeve shirt, but to no avail. Who knew, that when heat advisories had been issued all week, I would have to go outside to get comfortable.

At 4:30, I had enough of the cold. Our news director was in the downstairs studio, and my sleep-deprived self mumbled that I was going to go sleep in my car for a couple hours. I can only imagine what I looked and sounded like stumbling around on a half-hour of sleep.

I curled up with my floral decorated throw pillow and cleared out the back seat of my Exlorer for a little rest. Fortunately, it was dark and nobody could see me carrying around a flowery pillow! About 90 minutes later (6:30), I awoke in a daze. I bucked up, and decided that this was the amount of sleep I was going to get, so I needed to clean up and get some coffee and tackle the day.

I put on the day's work clothes, splashed some water on my face, brushed my teeth, and headed out to get some coffee. I doubled the amount of coffee consumed!

I worked the full day, and at 3:00 I decided that I had not had enough. I headed back over to Galesburg High School to catch the football practice. The second practice in their two-a-day session.

Before the workouts, I talked with a few of the Streaks players, battling the excessive heat. The heat index this afternoon was 110 degrees, and a lot of the practice field is in the sun. Fortunately, there is a long line of trees, so some of the early warmups are conducted in the shade.

Head coach Wes Olson came up before practice started, and we did a quick video interview. The discussion mainly revolved around the excessive heat, and safe guards taken during practice.

After our talk, assistant coach Jake Miller and I talked about a few things. One of our discussions was based on a topic on the PJStar Forums on the proposal to expand the playoffs to 512 teams (doubling the field). Neither of us are in favor of such an idea, but I do like to argue some of the arguments people have. Some of those arguments are injuries in a game featuring a 7-1 team against a 1-7 team. My argument: happens all the time in the regular season. I have many more, but will save for another day.

I took some video of 3-year quarterback Andrew Steck throwing some passes, offensive lineman drills, and running back drills. After about 90 minutes, I decided to finally call it a day...or two days.

I arrived home at 6:00, and had just enough time to sit in the recliner and read the paper (I still read the newspaper in print...not online), and watch some TV. I hit the sack at 7:00, and never looked back. A great night of sleep! Until tomorrow!