TERRE HAUTE — Vigo County is home to just four IHSAA state championships in team sports. Most recently, Terre Haute South won girls titles in basketball (2002) and tennis (2001).
For the other two, Vigo County sports fans have to go back to the early 1970s. Terre Haute North won the baseball championship in 1974, and coach Bill Welch and the Patriots boys cross country team held off two-time defending champ Southport for the 1972 state title.
“You young men have broken the jinx of always a bridesmaid and never a bride,” North athletic director Woody Roloff told the team days later at a pep rally, according to a report in the Terre Haute Star.
Welch, now 88 years old and perhaps the biggest fan of the current Patriots, said this to the community back in 1972: “We don’t care what’s happened in the past. We’ve brought a state championship to North.”
While North isn’t likely to add to the county’s state title count today, both the boys and girls teams have realistic shots at receiving medals among the top five teams.
The Terre Haute North programs have been back in the state finals many times this decade: the boys are making their seventh apperance today, and the girls are making their sixth consecutive appearance.
The Columbus North boys team showed its dominance by winning the toughest semistate in Indiana last weekend at Carmel, and the defending champion Carmel girls team will be tough for anyone to unseat.
For the North girls team, which features four standout freshmen and two quality seniors this year, its highest finish in the state meet is 16th.
“We’re just trying to make the podium,” coach Mike Dason said. “It might be one of our goals in the future to win a state championship.”
The boys obviously have a higher standard to meet. The Patriots were in third place in 1973 and 1974 and seventh in 1976. As good as Columbus North is this season, equaling those third-place finishes would be a huge success for the Patriots. A repeat of the 2008 seventh-place finish would be disappointing, North’s runners said earlier this week.
Coach Lon McDonald, who will be back next year with a senior-dominated team, isn’t ready to hand over the hardware to Columbus North just yet.
“You can’t count Carmel out, I don’t think you count us out,” McDonald said, also mentioning the other top contenders from Indianapolis North Central, Chesterton and Noblesville.
Welch, who can only recall missing one state finals meet in the past 40 years or so due to a schedule conflict during his tenure at Rose-Hulman, follows the cross country results all around the state on the Internet.
“I think you’re going to find that there’s going to be at least seven teams that are battling pretty good. It’s probably six teams battling for second place,” said Welch, who retired at Rose-Hulman in 2004 and has enjoyed watching many big NCAA and high school meets in Terre Haute.
Welch has enjoyed seeing the Terre Haute runners take an active role in the city’s recent prominence in U.S. distance running due to the Gibson course, which is here thanks to the vision and work of former Terre Haute North standout runner Greg Gibson, Larry Bird, ISU coaches John McNichols and John Gartland and Welch.
“The two teams from North are among the leaders in the state which hasn’t happened since the seventies and early eighties,” Welch wrote in an e-mail. “Vigo County finally can be counted again as a runner’s area for high school athletes.”
In a column by the late Carl Jones after the 1972 win, Welch and his staff was commended for having “rolled up their sleeves to make themselves a cross country team and a darned good one too.”
McDonald and Dason — aided by assistant coaches Kenny Depasse for the boys, Dr. Mike Urban, Tom Dever and Jeff Andrew for the girls — deserve similar praise today.
Craig Pearson can be reached by e-mail at craig.pearson@tribstar.com or by phone at (812) 231-4357
Given to Fly
October 30, 2009
CRAIG PEARSON: North has strong history in cross country state finals
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GIVEN TO FLY: Come to expect new standards of excellence
Records are definitely meant to be broken; athletes today are faster and stronger than those in the past in many endeavors in athletics.
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GIVEN TO FLY: ISU women have solid recruiting class
The caliber of athletes that the Indiana State women’s basketball coaching staff is bringing in is on an upswing.
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GIVEN TO FLY: Major leaguers John, Dorsett meet up at tonight’s game
Terre Haute’s only two big leaguers of the last 50 years — Tommy John and Brian Dorsett — will catch up with one another today.
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FOOT NOTES: Valley natives perform well on national stage
Several Wabash Valley natives continue to shine on the national track and field scene.
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'Til It's Over: Sycamores ‘in a good place,’ but searching for more in MVC
Can Teri Moren lift Indiana State, last year’s seventh-place team in the Missouri Valley Conference, to one of the league’s contenders in her first year on campus?
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'Til It's Over: Two sets of identical twins should keep North Central baseball a contender
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'Til It's Over: Robinson 7-footer more focused in postseason; 6-foot Jones keeps producing
Robinson 7-footer Meyers Leonard is not going to be the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA some day, but his odds of reaching the league are pretty solid if his game continues to evolve as it has during high school.
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- 'Til It's Over: Indianapolis ISU recruit rolling along in senior season As Indiana State recruit Anna Munn approached Christmas with the Decatur Central basketball team, the senior guard didn’t seem to need much of a wishlist.
- 'Til It's Over: Magic’s still there for '79 Sycamores For the former Indiana State players who visited the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in late November, the weekend was a chance to relive memories with teammates and see Larry Bird’s career with the Sycamores celebrated again.
- CRAIG PEARSON: North has strong history in cross country state finals Vigo County is home to just four IHSAA state championships in team sports. Most recently, Terre Haute South won girls titles in basketball (2002) and tennis (2001).
- 'Till It's Over: It’s been rough year but no need to break up Cubs' core Chicago Cubs general manager Jim Hendry is only in the first year of a three-year contract, and aren’t back-to-back division championships enough to keep him around despite this year’s season filled with bad luck?
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- Given to Fly: Schilli’s Rodman-like performance aids ISU With Indiana State’s women’s basketball team ranking eighth in the Missouri Valley Conference in field-goal percentage (36.5), the Sycamores need as many shot attempts as possible to maintain their standing on top of the league.
- Given to Fly: A classic in every sense of the word What tournament director and co-founder Gary Fears had in mind when creating the tournament came to fruition Tuesday. Marshall, with an enrollment of 438 students, became the smallest school to win the Pizza Hut Wabash Valley Classic in the ninth season of the tourney.
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Given to Fly: ISU women should build confidence off strong outing
Indiana State did not pull off the monumental upset Saturday against No. 23 Kansas State, but the Wildcats are —aside from Connecticut in 2005 — the best team the Sycamores have played in the Jim Wiedie era.
- Given to Fly: ISU women's hoops team slides onto commercial radio Coach Jim Wiedie expects the Indiana State women’s basketball team to have a bit of a retro feel this season, meaning the Sycamores have the potential to get back to creating havoc with their full-court press.
- Given to Fly: ISU vets hope to prove pundits wrong Indiana State’s only two seniors were surprised to see they were picked ahead of just three Missouri Valley Conference women’s basketball teams Tuesday morning.
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Footnotes: In first marathon, former Sycamore comes out a winner
Indiana State graduate Dani Prince made her debut in the event with a victory in the Columbus Marathon on Sunday.
Prince’s goal was a time under 2 hours and 50 minutes, and she ran a 2:48.56. -
Given To Fly: ISU volleyball turning things around
It was an extremely busy weekend for Indiana State athletics this weekend.
- Footnotes: Here’s hoping perfect weather is still around for Nationals in November The weather made for a perfect fall afternoon Saturday at LaVern Gibson Championship Course. For what it’s worth, the Farmer’s Almanac calls for more sunny conditions from Nov. 20-24, with the NCAA Championships falling on the 24th this year.
- Terre Haute natives cherish memories of ‘House that Ruth Built’ Yankee Stadium was packed as usual on Easter Sunday in 1979. George Steinbrenner’s Yankees were one loss away from being swept by the Milwaukee Brewers to start the season. That was no way for the two-time defending World Series champions to perform, so the boss had a conversation with his new veteran left-handed starting pitcher prior to the game.
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Footnotes: Oregon men and women have strangehold on preseason NCAA cross countryrankings
The Oregon men and women were almost both unanimous picks as the No. 1 teams in the nation in the preseason cross country national rankings released recently.
- Given to Fly: Bronze medalist has strong ISU ties One of the remarkable American medalists of this 2008 Olympics thus far also provided one of the most sparkling stories in the brief history of the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course here in Terre Haute.
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