McNeill Regaining Finals Form, Aiming to Best Last Season's Close Seconds
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
May 21, 2026
The number 0.01 might be as miniscule as there is in sports, but it certainly was way more gigantic for Novi High School track sprinter Chance McNeill at last year’s Lower Peninsula Division 1 Finals.
First, McNeill nearly won the 100-meter dash but finished 0.01 -- one hundredth of a second -- back of Detroit Catholic Central’s Samson Gash (10.41).
As hard as it was to shake off, McNeill quickly did so and was right in the thick of the 200-meter dash. Ultimately, he finished second in that race as well to Jeremy Dixon of Kalamazoo Central (21.11), once again by 0.01.
Losing out on one Finals title by such a thin margin is tough enough. But falling short by that time twice in a matter of a couple hours? It probably felt like getting kicked in the gut by someone wearing track shoes with all the spikes on the bottom.
“Definitely the first few months after (the Finals), it was crazy,” McNeill said. “I’ve kind of gotten over it by now. But it’s been my motivation for sure.”
Indeed, McNeill is using that experience as fuel for the remaining days of his senior year and as he prepares to compete once again in those events at next week’s Division 1 Finals at Rockford.
Headed to run track next at Alabama, McNeill is actually just ramping back into peak form this spring.
He has been battling a lower leg injury suffered after running a 6.75 in the 60-meter dash during indoor season, saying he sprinted again about three weeks ago for the first time this outdoor season.
McNeill certainly looked to be getting back into form during a competitive Regional last week hosted by Novi.
He won the 100-meter dash with a time of 10.73 and then claimed the 200 meters in a time 21.84. Yes, he and the Novi coaches know he’ll have to be faster to win at the Finals, but it was a great sign of progress given where he has come from – and there is definitely another gear in him.
“To say that he’s back to form probably wouldn’t be accurate,” Novi boys track & field head coach Danny Taylor said. “What I mean by that is given all the personal training that he’s done, given the way in which he’s worked back, I think he’s poised to do great things at the state meet.”
Taylor said that he didn’t know anything about McNeill and his track prowess until he arrived at the high school for his freshman year but discovered quickly that McNeill was more than just an athlete running track to get in better shape for another sport. McNeill legitimately prioritized track & field.
“It seemed that when Chance came to us, he already had that love and that passion,” Taylor said. “We just wanted to stoke it further.”
McNeill said he initially ran track “for fun” when he started high school but got more serious about it when he got more involved with a local club and started running more meets outside of high school season.
Going into this spring, he said he was actually more intent on running the 400-meter dash, but his injury changed those plans.
“I’ve always wanted to do the 400,” he said. “Now, I just have to forget about that, just try it in college.”
McNeill will head to Rockford next week a year older and stronger, but then again so are other competitors. In particular, Gash, a Michigan State football signee, is also back in both events as he hopes to repeat in the 100 meters and improve on a third-place finish in the 200 from last year.
McNeill and Gash are the only top-five finishers in those races from last year who didn’t graduate.
McNeill hopes that he can be at least 0.01 seconds faster this time and end his high school career on top of the podium.
“I think whatever it takes, I’ve got it in me already,” McNeill said.
Keith Dunlap has served in Detroit-area sports media for more than two decades, including as a sportswriter at the Oakland Press from 2001-16 primarily covering high school sports but also college and professional teams. His bylines also have appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, the Houston Chronicle and the Boston Globe. He served as the administrator for the Oakland Activities Association’s website from 2017-2020. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Novi’s Chance McNeill crosses the finish line during last season’s 100-meter championship race at the LPD1 Finals. (Middle) McNeill, second from right, races eventual champion Jeremy Dixon from Kalamazoo Central in last year’s 200, with DCC’s Samson Gash, far left, also among those in the field. (Click for more from RunMichigan.com/Carter Sherline.)
Longtime Coach Lukens Remembered for Building Champions, Changing Lives
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
September 27, 2024
The results speak for themselves as there were conference, Regional and MHSAA Finals championship and runner-up finishes.
But those accomplishments are not necessarily why Don Lukens will be remembered by most. It will be for the lives he touched and successes his student-athletes found after graduation.
Lukens impacted two communities separated by 200 miles during multi-decade coaching tenures for multiple high school programs.
Lukens died Sept. 15 at age 90. He was well-known across the state for his coaching as he spent 27 years teaching at Kalamazoo Loy Norrix, where he coached with Ted Duckett, and 33 years coaching at Traverse City Central with John Lober. Duckett, now 78, and Lober, 82, are still coaching today.
Tico Duckett, one of the most accomplished running backs in Michigan State University football history, is one of thousands of kids Lukens recruited into the running world. Duckett, who went on to play in the National Football League, credits Lukens for recruiting first-time track athletes from challenging life situations and turning them into college scholarship recipients.
Lukens knew how to get the best individual performances out his athletes, recalled Duckett, whose high school running career ended with a hamstring injury sustained during Regional preliminary sprints.
“I can tell story after story of kids that he plucked out of class, and they are successful today,” said the first MSU back to rush three times for more than 1,000 yards. “Between him and my dad, they would take kids that had no direction, no future, no hope and bring them in and teach them track and teach kids what you put into it is what you’re going to get out.”
Lukens had graduated from Western Michigan University where he’d participated in football and track. During his 38 years coaching track, Lukens’ teams posted a dual meet record of 220-24, won 20 conference championships, nine MHSAA Regional championships, a Lower Peninsula Class A title and finished runners-up twice.
Lukens’ cross country teams also were impressive with a record of 198-60 during his 34 years of coaching. They won 14 conference championships and 12 MHSAA Regional titles.
Tico Duckett has memories of being recruited to the sport as a child while his father served as an assistant coach at Loy Norrix.
“Coach Lukens would say, ‘I can’t wait ’til you get here,’” the former MSU star fondly recollected. “Coach Lukens loved track – he breathed and ate track.”
Loy Norrix hosts the highly-competitive Don Lukens Relays every May. Duckett attended this year’s meet as he often does. It was Lukens’ ability to recruit and coach track that made the Knights stand out across the state.
“Loy Norrix track was special,” said Duckett, proudly noting the Knights’ dual-meet dominance. “When we would go places and get off the bus, people would literally say, ‘There’s Loy Norrix,’ and they would literally talk about us, and we would show ’em on the track and we backed it up.”
Inside the halls and walls of Loy Norrix, the Duckett name is engraved on trophies and next to track & field records earned by Tico Duckett and his brother TJ, who also went on to play professional football. Ted Duckett took over the head coaching duties when Lukens retired and moved to Platte Lake in Benzie County.
Word traveled fast that Lukens had arrived in Northern Michigan, and he immediately was asked to help Benzie Central by another legendary coach, Pete Moss, who died in 2019.
Lober ran across Lukens at a meet at Benzie and recruited him to coach distance running at Traverse City Central – which at the time had just five athletes committed to participate in those races.
Central had a prior history of success in sprints and field events, but the Trojans won the 1992 Class A title as their distance runners had become competitive enough to start contributing points at the Finals.
“We started coaching together in 1989, and we had 30-plus glorious years together,” Lober said. “We ended up qualifying right off the bat for the state finals, and we went 16 years in a row.”
Lober too was known for his recruiting to the sport.
“When we talked with kids, I’d be talking in one side of the kid’s ear and Don would be talking in the other,” Lober said with a laugh. “By the time we were done, the kid didn’t have a prayer of not joining the team.”
Lukens continued at Central until 2021, stepping aside as he ended 62 years of coaching.
Cody Inglis, now a senior assistant director for the MHSAA, served as Central’s athletic director while Lukens coached. He was well aware of Lukens’s coaching at Loy Norrix as he grew up a distance runner for nearby Portage Northern.
Inglis noted most of Northern Michigan knew very little of Lukens’ resume prior to his coming north. Inglis was coaching and serving as athletic director at the time for Suttons Bay when Lukens first joined the Trojans.
“People in Traverse City didn’t understand the success he had at Loy Norrix,” Inglis said. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, Traverse City Central was good, and they’ll be even better’ and it’s no secret that the reason their cross country program took off was because of Don Lukens.”
Lukens won the inaugural Coaching Legacy Award at the 2019 Traverse City Record-Eagle/John Lober Honor Roll Meet. Going forward, the award will be named after Lukens.
Lukens is survived by his wife Rosinda, daughters Paige Gray of Gladwin, Wendy Pohl of Kalamazoo and Donyelle Hayhoe of Lansing, and five grandchildren: Brynn Rusch, Ian Gray, Westyn Hayhoe, Travis Hayhoe and Lucas Hayhoe.
The Trojans will host a memorial tribute to Lukens the day after next year’s Bayshore Marathon in Traverse City. A graveside service was held for Lukens on Monday at the Benzonia Township Cemetery.
Tom Spencer is a longtime MHSAA-registered basketball and soccer official, and former softball and baseball official, and he also has coached in the northern Lower Peninsula area. He previously has written for the Saginaw News, Bay County Sports Page and Midland Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Longtime coach Don Lukens, far left, is pictured during the 2015 LP Cross Country Finals with past Traverse City Central runner John Steen (center) and Trojans coach John Lober, with Jane and Jack Steen standings in front. Jane and Jack Steen are current Traverse City Central runners. (Middle) The Niles Daily Star published this 1976 photo of Lukens (back row, second from right) and coach Ted Duckett (back row, center) receiving the championship trophy at the Daily Star Relays from publisher Bill Applebee. (Top photo courtesy of John Lober.)