Caro's Albrecht Proves to be Quick Study
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
August 29, 2017
Before the first cross country race of his life, Yami Albrecht stepped to the starting line without much of a plan.
Then a freshman at Caro, Albrecht knew he could run, but didn’t know how to pace himself over the course of a 5K or what type of strategy to employ other than “follow Zak.”
“During the race, I didn’t know what I was doing and thought that maybe cross country wasn’t for me, because I was dead tired in that race,” Albrecht said. “Zak Drews was my teammate at that point, we had trained together all summer and I was always right behind him in the workouts. So that was my expectation, to stay behind him. I did that until after the first mile, then I broke down a little bit.”
Two years, several wins and an MHSAA championship later, everyone is following Yami, and the junior is working to make sure it stays that way.
“Obviously I want to win more, but it pushes me to train harder,” said Albrecht, the reigning Lower Peninsula Division 3 champion. “In my training, I think about how people have a target on me now. I have to train that much harder if I want to be a state champ again. It’s definitely not a guarantee that just because I won last year that I’ll do it again.”
Albrecht’s talent was noticeable long before he ran that first cross country race in the late summer of 2015.
“I knew he was going to be good,” Caro coach Jeff Schember said. “He came over (from Ethiopia) in second grade, and I’m an elementary teacher, so I knew right away when I saw him in second grade that he was something special. I would throw a soccer ball on the field and nobody could catch him to take it away from him.”
Albrecht was born in Ethiopia and adopted at the age of 7. Sports were a way for him to connect to his new classmates.
“When I first came here, my first love was soccer,” he said. “I love sports, and that’s what I did, that’s how I met most of my friends. At recess, we would play basketball and soccer. It just went on from there.”
As a middle schooler, Albrecht ran track, where his mix of speed and endurance translated into plenty of success. In the fall, he wasn’t running on a cross country course, but rather a football field, where he was excelling as a running back.
He decided not to continue with football in high school, however, and cross country was a natural fit.
“It was well established that he was pretty athletic,” Schember said. “But we didn’t know how good he would be because he had never trained. He just came out and tried it, and after our first cross country meet his teammate beat him and he placed (fifth) and he was like, ‘Man, what did I get myself into?’ He’s ultra-competitive, but he’s coachable and he listens.”
Albrecht dazzled his freshman year, even while figuring the sport out. The fifth-place finish in that first meet was tied for his lowest of the season until he went to the Division 3 Final, where he finished eighth, securing an all-state honor.
As a sophomore, Albrecht said, he started to figure out racing even more. He proved it by never finishing worse than fourth and winning the Division 3 title with a personal best time of 15 minutes, 47.4 seconds.
He opened his junior season Aug. 24 by cruising to a victory at the Mike Jackson Memorial Meet at Croswell-Lexington – the same race in which he made his high school debut – in 16:16.4, more than 40 seconds faster than he crossed in the same race a year ago.
That type of improvement, mixed with the success he’s already had, should lead to plenty of opportunities at the college level for Albrecht, who has already had interest from several schools, including University of Nebraska.
“I want to run at the next level, for sure,” he said. “I always thought about it, but I wasn’t sure how big I would make it as a freshman or sophomore, or even now. I for sure want to run in college, though.”
Before he leaves, however, Albrecht wants to bring more than an individual title to Caro, which finished fifth as a team in LPD3 in 2016.
“It can be a lot more fun winning it as a team,” he said. “It’s not just me having the joy of winning, it’s the whole team, so it’s a lot better that way. In our practice, even when the coaches tell us to go easy, the four juniors, obviously our pace is a little faster. But the freshmen always want to stick with us, and to see that from them is great.”
Keeping up might be difficult, but trying to stick with Albrecht could definitely pay off in the long run for the younger Tigers.
“When you’ve got a kid like that, a special talent like that, it does elevate everyone else around them,” Schember said. “He’s such a team player. He’s won his state title, now he’s focused on getting his teammates a state title. It’s fun when you’re sharing rather than just being an individual. He’s definitely a team player. It’s exciting.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Caro's Yami Albrecht sets the pace at Thursday's Mike Jackson Memorial Meet at Croswell-Lexington. (Middle) Albrecht is the reigning champion in Lower Peninsula Division 3. (Photos by Mark Rummel.)
Anderson Shows Way for Fenton Runners
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
October 10, 2018
The runners on the Fenton girls and boys cross country teams admired and respected coach Jesse Anderson before he placed 20th overall at the 2018 Boston Marathon.
But that performance definitely didn’t hurt his credibility.
“Like everyone else on the team, I was shocked and very proud when I heard the news,” Fenton senior Nolan Day said. “It’s so crazy to think that our coach that we see every day took 20th out of 30,000 in one of America’s most prestigious marathon races. We all feel very lucky to have him as a coach as it is, and this just adds to it.”
Anderson, who finished the marathon in 2 hours, 29 minutes and 19 seconds, is in his fourth year as coach at his alma mater. The 2008 graduate was a two-time all-state finisher and four-time MHSAA Finals qualifier for the Tigers. While he didn’t run competitively while attending University of Michigan, he wound up picking the sport back up on his own and competed in road races before making the jump to marathons in 2013.
“The (Fenton) position came open in 2015, and I was encouraged to apply for the spot because I was running a business in town and I had picked up competitive running at the time after college,” Anderson said. “I cared a lot about the program and wanted to have an impact at that level. It has surpassed my expectations.”
In his first three seasons, the Fenton boys have qualified twice for the Division 1 Finals (2015 and 2017), and the girls qualified in 2017. Both teams are projected to finish first in their regions by Athletic.net, although the boys hypothetical Regional meet sees the Tigers tying Highland Milford for first and just one point ahead of Walled Lake Central. On the girls side, junior Alexa Keiser – who earned all-state finishes in both of her first two seasons at Fenton – has a top time this fall that once again would put her on stage at Michigan International Speedway on Nov. 3.
Anderson gives a lot of the credit for the team’s success to his assistant coaches, Sue Larsen and Nathan Loersch.
“I couldn’t do what I do without those two,” he said.
He also said that both his experience as a high school runner and as a currently competitive runner are what he’s needed to be a complete coach.
“They kind of go hand in hand,” he said. “When I’m talking to the kids and communicating a workout, my experience as a runner in high school is more valuable, especially when it comes to racing tactics,” he said. “But training to be consistent over road races has really taught me about making consistent habits. I wouldn’t feel as complete as a coach without one or the other experience.”
While Anderson acknowledges training for marathons is different than training for 5Ks, he also points out that there are plenty of similarities, which his experiences make him uniquely qualified to see.
The mileage an athlete is running per week may be different, but he said the rhythm of that week – when to rest, what to work out – is very much the same. And, of course, he has a willing participant to test the effectiveness of his workouts – himself. That helps him communicate why his high school athletes are running what they’re running, and what it will do for them, something Anderson feels very strongly about.
His athletes appreciate all of the experience he brings to the table.
“As a person and a coach, we think very highly of him, and his decorated running resume backs his already trustworthy judgment and advice,” Day said. “Just when I think that I couldn’t have any more respect for him as a person and as a coach, his achievements keep on grabbing even more of my respect.
“When it comes to relating to his runners and understanding what they are going through, Coach Anderson’s skills are unparalleled. He knows the stretches and fixes for every injury, and knows how to push his runners to their highest potential while not being detrimental. For these reasons, among many others, I truly feel Coach Jesse Anderson is the best cross country coach in the state of Michigan.”
Of course, not all of Anderson’s lessons are taught from his successes. In 2013, he attempted for the first time to run the Boston Marathon and had to drop out. It’s the only race, Anderson said, he’s hasn’t finished.
“I didn’t prepare very well,” he said. “I was in the midst of starting up a business in town, and I had kept myself busy that weekend and drove out the day before. I didn’t drink enough water. I drank too much coffee. I made a lot of mistakes, and I use it as an example now for coaching.”
The 2013 race also served as a personal learning experience as Anderson prepared for the 2018 marathon, helping him to his biggest triumph at the site of what was previously his rare racing failure.
It was made more special by the group of Fenton runners he has been mentoring seeing that success.
“They’ve always been super supportive, and it was really heartwarming to have a bunch of people reach out to me,” he said. “I really try not to make too much out of it because a lot of circumstances went into being able to place that high, but I would like to think I was just trying to practice what I preach to the kids. This wasn’t the result of some Herculean effort. That said, it was pretty cool, and Boston is pretty recognizable to most people, so it was really cool to see the kids get excited about it.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Fenton coach Jesse Anderson is surrounded by his runners during their preseason camp at Sleeping Bear Dunes. (Middle) Anderson crosses the finish line 10th at the Aug. 25 Crim 10-mile run in Flint. (Top photo courtesy of Fenton cross country, middle by RunMichigan.com.)