A Hat-Tip To Coach Groves: Penn State Track And Field Alumni Golfers Make Great Coaches: Part 2

It was a bang up day again across the fruited plain for Coach Harry Groves' coached athletes.  Honestly, I think this has a little to do with Coach Groves himself.  He instilled a love of the sport(s) in each and every one of us.  He taught us values, organization, goal-setting, and hard work, even when we disagreed and b*tched about it among ourselves.  All of us came out of it much better off than when we entered his domain.  (Even prodigal sons are welcomed with open arms to our Group!) Here are a few of the recent coaches achieving great things on cross country courses with a little help from Coach's past tutelage:

• Coach Mark Haywood's Class A Camp Hill boys won the PIAA State title for the first time in school history. Here's his wife's thoughts on this.  I was at their wedding and did I mention it was a great affair?

  

  Mark Haywood, right.

• Coach Jayson Jackson's St. Joseph's Academy won the PIAA Class A girls title.  Jayson is another Nittany Lion I have had the pleasure to meet because of my efforts at herding cats to our Reunion and golf outing.  You should think of attending too so you can realize just how great members of our Group are! Absolutely everyone is invited to join.

  

  Jayson Jackson's St. Joseph Academy victors.

• Matt Lincoln's Chandler Wolves won the Arizona Division 1 title.  A Canadian in Arizona via Happy Valley!

  

  Matt Lincoln, right.

• The State College boys were 9th in the PIAA Class AAA race.  Coaches Steve Shisler, Dave Felice and Nick K. keep the Little Lions near the top of the game!

  

  Dave Felice, Steve Shisler and Nick K., right.

• The State College girls were 5th in the PIAA Class AAA race with Artie Gilkes and Rebecca Donaghue guiding them.

  

  Artie Gilkes, Rebecca Donaghue, left.

• Dominic Hockenberry repeated as Class A Champion and will be headed to Syracuse in the Fall.  Dominic was is coached by Bill Kvashay until his retirement this year.

  

  Bill Kvashay, left.

• Gettysburg's lone runner placed 10th in the PIAA Class AA race.  He is coached by Group Friend and William and Mary liaison Brian Mount.

  

  Brian Mount, center.

• I'm sure I missed some.  Let me know!
• John Mahoney, Assistant Coach of Central Bucks West, helped his team to 3rd in the PIAA AAA race.  (Thanks to Beth Shisler for the update!) 
• Here's an update from Tom Rapp on his season: 
  

  Hey!

   

  I wanted to bring you up to speed on our recently-concluded season. After winning the state meet last year, we stepped into this year knowing we were a bit depleted by graduation. Add in a couple of injuries and illness and basically we lost numbers 1,2 5, 6 and 7 from last year. Still we had a very successful season winning our league, district and regional (SW Ohio - one fourth of the state) meets. We scored the second lowest total ever at regionals - 35 points.

   

  We finished runner up at state to Cleveland St. Ignatius, a perennial power currently ranked #10 in the country. We actually scored 25 points less than our championship team last year but couldn't quite match St. Ignatius. In Ohio, only two teams make the podium and receive medals and trophies. We were thrilled to be one of the two. We have been on the podium three out of the last four years. I feel like this might have been my best team ever, but part of winning a championship is picking the right year to be good. Guess we didn't quite do that. We lacked a solid number one and had four different guys at that spot this year. However, our 1-5 split was usually between 15 and 25 seconds. Lots of pack running which made it fun, but sometimes hard to coach during a race because they would all zoom by at the same time - tough to give individual instructions like that.

   

  Anyway, thanks for reading.

   

  Run Happy!

   

  Tom