State Cross Country 1986

My son, Michael, will be running in the State Cross Country meet this Saturday. It causes me to remember my senior year of Cross Country and the four S’s, the boy’s cross country team, Peter Henkes and of course, Dan Trepanier.

It was in 1986, my senior year at Horlick High, that I had some of the best fun in high school. Our boy’s team and one of the S’s, Shellie Bolman, had qualified for State the previous year and most of the girls had driven to Madison to watch them compete. It gave us the motivation to work hard enough to qualify in 1986. We had a great core group of runners…..the 4 S’s, 2 Tammy’s and Nicole were our top seven. We had a huge rivalry with cross town school, Case. It is funny, because Case still has the same Coach as they did then; Coach Frasier has not changed a bit, just a little greyer on the edges.

The four S’s consisted of my cousin, Sandy Heck, Shellie Bolman, myself-Sue Isen, and Karen Ingles aka Spaz. The other three varsity runners were Tami Langdon, Tammy Dale and Nicole Janaky. Our head coach was Dan Trepanier, but our work outs were designed by Wisconsin Runner Co-founder and boy’s head coach, Peter Henkes. Dan recently retired and I used to see him occasionally at races. I still see Peter regularly, because he times most of the races that are run in my area.

That group of varsity girls was tight. We trained together, studied together, ate lunch together, went to football games and partied together. Occasionally, we paired off and my counterpart was Karen. We referred to Karen as Spaz. The funny thing about Karen is she was an awesome hurdler in track. We competed at a distance of 3200 meters or about 2 miles in cross country and it was quite a transition for her to switch to sprints in track. Michael has a teammate like that now, Mason Waynes. Mason is a natural runner, love that kid! When we ran, we would sing popular songs usually from the Violent Femmes. When I hear "Add It Up" and "Kiss Off," it instantly takes me back to those long runs. We had a stuffed Rebel mascot that we named, Walter Stenovich. Walter had retired as principal the year before and it was our tribute to him. Walter would give the stink eye to the other teams and always accompanied us to the awards ceremony at meets.

Karen and I used to spend lots of afternoons and evenings in her room looking at teen mags, watching TV and just talking. I lost touch with her after high school, one of my regrets. She was a great friend, lots of fun to hang out with, and even more fun to go tp’ing with.

Dan was like a second dad to me. One of my favorite memories of Dan is that I would meet him before school and we would sell candy together. I don’t think anyone else got to do that with him. It gave us a chance to talk one on one and he made a huge difference in my life. He had an understanding of teenage girls and their psyche that made him a great coach. I really disappointed Dan on one occasion though. The winter of my junior year, our basketball team qualified for the state tournament. There were booster buses that took us to Madison for the games. I got really drunk with a friend before we boarded the bus, and passed out for the entire ride to Madison. Dan was the chaperone on my bus. He never said a word to me about it until Monday morning at the candy sale and all he had to say was “Don’t ever let that happen again!” I can’t say I never drank again in high school, but I was a lot more careful about the amount after that.

Our trip to state was so fun! The boy’s team had qualified too. The coaches had the difficult decision of assigning rooms. In the end, they let the four S’s have their own room. John Pomeroy, Ronn Blaha, and Scott Druschke joined us in our room until curfew. I remember laughing so hard it hurt and staying up way too late for the race the next day. The adrenaline rush was the best and I remember feeling like I sprinted the entire 2 miles. We did really well in the race and we will always argue that we got screwed by the officials and we really did beat Case at state!

Front Row: Sue Isen, Sandy Heck, Shellie Bolman, Karen Ingles (Spaz), Back row: Maren Kozlik, Jennifer Berby, Nicole Janaky, Tammy Dale, Tami Langdon, Heidi Wolff and Coach Dan Trepanier