I DON’T BELIEVE WHAT I JUST SAW

Flashback to 1988. “Gibson…swings and a fly ball to deep right field. This is gonna be a home run….unbelievable! A home run for Gibson! And the Dodgers have won the game, 5-4! I don’t believe what I just saw!” ~ Jack Buck.

Sports are a microcosm of life. Spontaneous reality. Predictable and unscripted. Tragic and magic. Forever stretches of repetition with a few shocking interruptions. Sometimes we get lucky and yell, “I DON’T BELIEVE WHAT I JUST SAW”.

The 2001 Harrisburg Invitational had a good vibe going. Amazing food, electric atmosphere, and a terrific announcer. The weather was perfect. Earlier, that week, Fred Kendall, the head basketball coach at Red Hill called me about bringing his track team to our meet. I didn’t know Fred was Red Hill’s track coach and I didn’t know Red Hill had a track team. When Fred faxed me his handful of entries, I laughed at the seed time for a junior named Matt Scherer. The sub-50 400m time seemed to be one of those bullshit times entered by a know-nothing coach from a half-ass track school. Less than 300 students attended Bridgeport Red Hill High School. I think they came to our meet in a station wagon.

Every week I received Mike Stine’s and Marty Bee’s “Top Times” publication in the mail.  I memorized the Class A leaderboards. I had never seen a mention of the Red Hill flash going by the name of Matt Scherer.

Even though I was coaching at a school of only 600 students, we were very sophisticated (uppity?) compared to other small schools. We traveled more than any team in Illinois. In late April we attended the Jim Arnold Invitational at Glenbard West High School, one of the premier meets in the state. We had placed THIRD as a team at that prestigious invite one week earlier. It was a 790-mile round trip.

Back in those days, I seeded everything by hand.  I re-seeded heats after the scratch meeting. There’s nothing worse than half-empty heats. Hate them.

Should I disregard the seed time of Matt Scherer? Why should I let a country-bumpkin with a fraudulent time get rewarded with lane-four at the Harrisburg Invitational? A travesty!

I knew we would dominate our own Invitational, We always did. I decided that my two stars, Braden Jones and Brad Brachear, would both run the 400. We’d show this Red Hill Saluki a thing or two.

Jones was in lane-3, Scherer in lane-4, Brachear in lane-5. 

At the mid-point of the race Brad Brachear was clocked at 22.1 (Brachear was fast, 10.70 and 21.64).  Matt Scherer was in second at the halfway point. Braden Jones was 3rd. In the final 100m, Brachear died. Jones looked slow. Matt Scherer won the race by a mile. 

Brachear ran an ugly 49.9. Jones ran an ugly 48.8, breaking the school record set by Chad Lakatos in 1993, 49.2. Matt Scherer was clocked at 46.7.

Check out the video from 2001. The video is old and grainy but I assure you, life in 2001 was every bit as high-def as it is today.

At the time, Terre Mastrino of York owned the state’s top 400 time, 48.5. Matt Scherer had just shocked the world. “I DON’T BELIEVE WHAT I JUST SAW!”

National attention came to Matt Scherer compliments of the Harrisburg Invitational. The atmosphere, the crowd, the announcer, and the competition created a mystical vortex at Taylor Field on that day, May 5, 2001. A day I will never forget.

We won the meet scoring 133 points, more than doubling the point totals of good programs like Marion, Paducah Tilghman, and Carbondale.  I went home, like everyone else, thinking about the magic we had seen in the 400 meters.

Matt Scherer never repeated that performance in his high school career. However, that one magical moment at the Harrisburg Invitational launched Matt Scherer into the national spotlight.

2001: The Golden Age of Illinois Class A Track

In 1995 Harrisburg won the Class A State Championship. That same year, Chicago Leo won the Class 2A Championship. (The three-class system did not begin until 2009). Chicago Leo’s enrollment went down (now at only 262, all boys). The Harrisburg vs Leo years in Class A became quite a show.

In the ten years between 1995-2004, Ed Adams of Chicago Leo won SEVEN trophies and FOUR state titles. Leo’s nemesis, Harrisburg, also won SEVEN trophies (and three state titles). The two schools separated by 323 miles had totally different demographics, but both could sprint and jump. I don’t think the state has ever seen anything like it. I loved it.

I would argue that 2001 may have been the best year of Class A track. Harrisburg won the state championship, Leo placed third.

Check out the power of small schools in 2001. Remember that Ryan Shields and Matt Scherer were juniors. Also, it’s important to note that the weather was awful on May 26, 2001. Temperatures were in the upper 50s, consistent winds of 20 mph with a 46 mph gust recorded at 2:41. We lost our tent. It also rained for an hour.

Class AA 100m, 2001:

 1  Ron Mitchell (Sr.), South Holland (Thornwood)          :10.60
 2  Teddy Jackson (Sr.), Peoria (Manual)                   :10.64
 3  Luke Stenberg (Sr.), Joliet (Catholic Academy)         :10.68
 4  James Keim (Sr.), Batavia                              :10.72
 5  Morris Virgil (Sr.), Urbana (H.S.)                     :10.79
 6  Brandon Tripp (Sr.), Harvey (Thornton)                 :10.82
 7  Jeremiah Walker (Sr.), Chicago Heights (Bloom Twp.)    :10.89
 8  James Cooper (Sr.), Harvey (Thornton)                  :11.10
 9  Marquice Cole (Jr.), Country Club Hills (Hillcrest)    :11.16

In Class A, Ryan Shields ran 10.64, Brad Brachear 10.70, Matt Scherer 10.87.

Class AA 200m, 2001:

 1  Ron Mitchell (Sr.), South Holland (Thornwood)          :21.92
 2  Maurice Jones (Jr.), Rock Island (H.S.)                :21.96
 3  James Keim (Sr.), Batavia                              :22.08
 4  Morris Virgil (Sr.), Urbana (H.S.)                     :22.24
 5  Sean Dickerson (Sr.), Springfield (Southeast)          :22.28
 6  Kelvin Hayden (Sr.), Chicago (Hubbard)                 :22.33
 7  Luke Stenberg (Sr.), Joliet (Catholic Academy)         :22.39
 8  Robert Beach (Sr.), Lockport (Twp.)                    :22.73
 9  Ryan Bennett (Sr.), Carol Stream (Glenbard North)      :22.79

In Class A, into a brutal wind, Ryan Shields 21.83, Brad Brachear 21.99, and Matt Scherer 22.42.

Class AA 400m, 2001

 1  Sean Dickerson (Sr.), Springfield (Southeast)          :47.98
 2  Dion Ballentine (Jr.), South Holland (Thornwood)       :48.46
 3  Felix Anderson (Sr.), Harvey (Thornton)                :48.66
 4  Terre Mastrino (Sr.), Elmhurst (York)                  :49.10
 5  Devon Clark (Sr.), Chicago Heights (Marian)            :49.40
 6  Mike Mitidiero (Sr.), Chicago Heights (Marian)         :49.98
 7  Tyreese Andrews (So.), Chicago Heights (Bloom Twp.)    :50.35
 8  Kurt Laughary (Jr.), Morris                            :50.43
 9  Mark Eckerle (Sr.), Downers Grove (North)              :52.07

Ryan Shields ran 47.73, faster than the AA champ. Matt Scherer ran 48.06. Harrisburg’s Braden Jones ran 50.18 (after running the 4×2 in the previous race!). Amazing times when you think of the howling winds on that day!

Class AA 4×1, 2001

 1  South Holland (Thornwood)                       :41.64
 2  Plainfield                                      :42.44
 3  Harvey (Thornton)                               :42.48
 4  Springfield (Southeast)                         :42.54
 5  Mundelein (H.S.)                                :42.69
 6  East St. Louis (Sr.)                            :42.78
 7  Bolingbrook                                     :42.81
 8  Machesney Park (Harlem)                         :43.17
 9  Chicago Heights (Bloom Twp.)                    :43.30

Harrisburg set the Class A state record running 42.50, Leo 42.72.

Class AA 4×2, 2001

 1  South Holland (Thornwood)                       1:26.83
 2  Harvey (Thornton)                               1:28.15
 3  Chicago Heights (Bloom Twp.)                    1:28.73
 4  Decatur (MacArthur)                             1:28.84
 5  Plainfield                                      1:28.89
 6  Rock Island (H.S.)                              1:29.13
 7  Danville (H.S.)                                 1:29.36
 8  Darien (Hinsdale South)                         1:29.38
 9  Batavia                                         1:30.11

Harrisburg set the Class A state record running 1:28.06. Small schools don’t usually run the second-best 4×2 time at the state meet.

Harrisburg’s Braden Jones would have placed 2nd in the AA Long Jump, jumping 23’3.75″.

Jones, Brachear, and Shields

Braden Jones went on to play linebacker at Northwestern, tight end at SIU, and played two years with the Minnesota Vikings. Braden is now an orthopedic surgeon.

Brad Brachear went on to star as a defensive back at Southern Illinois University under Coach Jerry Kill. Brad followed Jerry Kill to Northern Illinois as a grad assistant before becoming a state policeman. Brad was like a member of my family, being the boyfriend of my daughter, Adrienne.

Ryan Shields led Leo to the team title in 2002, with Harrisburg placing second. Ryan Shields accomplished “The Trifecta”, winning the 100 meters in 10.77, the 200 in 21.41 and the 400 in a Class A-record 46.76. The 200 and 400 times were faster than those of the Class AA winners. The next time I saw Ryan Shields was on TV, running for Jamaica. Ryan Shields ran a wind-aided 9.89 in Stockholm on June 18, 2017, fifteen years after his high school exploits.

Matt Scherer never won an event at the IHSA State Track Meet. He did lead his team to a third place trophy scoring all 28 of Red Hill’s points. Scherer ran 47.55 in the 400 and 22.16 in the 200, placing second to Ryan Shields in both. Scherer also placed 3rd in the 100 and 5th in his new event, the triple jump.

Track Town

Matt Scherer spent his college years in Eugene, Oregon. Four years running at Hayward Field, the home of Bowerman & Prefontaine. The Mecca of track and field. #TrackTown.

Matt Scherer was a star at Oregon with career bests of 45.19 in the 400 and 1:46.11 in the 800.

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This is my fourth quarantine article.

How many Matt Scherers out there will miss their life-changing moment this spring? What mind-blowing performances at the IHSA State Meet will we miss? How many life-long memories would have been created? We will never know… dust in the wind.

Since track and field is a measured sport, freaky performances are always lurking. Always. Track coaches know this. It’s what makes our sport exciting.

It’s now been 35 days since I’ve seen my team. On they day we met for the final time, CNN reported a total of 2,800 cases of Covid-19. Since March 14, there’s been an additional 733,790 cases. God knows how many cases there would have been without mitigation.

The number of deaths on March 14 was only 58. Incredible. Since March 14, there’s been 38,862 deaths. The experts knew the tsunami was coming. We were still caught unprepared.

Stay safe.

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