Record Falls, Goals Attained at LPD1 Final
By
Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half
May 30, 2015
ROCKFORD – Jaron Flournoy had his mind set on winning an MHSAA Finals this season.
In order to do so, the sprinter from Westland John Glenn knew he had to do two things: train harder and make a change.
Flournoy finished third in the 200-meter dash last season and failed to make the final in the 100. But he started Saturday’s Lower Peninsula Division 1 Track and Field Final with a burst as he won the 100 with a time of 10:56. In the 200, his best event, Flournoy won with a time of 21.25.
Flournoy had to fend off a charge from friend Skyler Bowden of Saline to win the 200.
“I worked hard this year to get here,” Flournoy said. “I expected (to win the 100). A lot of guys I train with ran with me today. I knew what to expect.
“It’s just a friendship,” Bowden added. “He was going to win the 100. I won the 400. It came down to this.”
Last summer, Flournoy worked with Stanley Edwards, a former track and football star at Detroit Kettering and the University Michigan, and then with Ann Arbor Huron boys track and field coach Rad Greaves.
“The workouts had more intensity (with Greaves),” Flournoy said. “I got stronger. I’m more flexible. Speed-wise, coming out of the blocks, I’m faster.”
Flournoy also quit competing in the 400 to concentrate on the other two sprints. The changes and the hard work paid off. Flournoy, who also played football at John Glenn, signed with Louisiana State University for track.
Bowden had the last laugh, however. Saline won the MHSAA team title, its second and first since 2006, with 71 points. East Kentwood, champions in five of the previous six seasons, was second with 52½ points. Monroe was third with 36, Ypsilanti Lincoln fourth with 27 and Grand Blanc took fifth with 26 points.
“It’s been about team total all year,” Saline coach Al Leslie said. “Skyler Bowden worked hard to get here. He was a baseball player as a freshman.
"I have so much respect for the East Kentwood program. We try to pull all of our best athletes from the other programs to compete. We had 200 kids in the program last year and we have 165 this year. I’m the defensive line coach, and we got three football players to come out for the first time.”
Saline reached the MHSAA Finals (Division 1) in football for the first time this past season.
For Grant Fisher, his final day competing for Grand Blanc will be something for the record books.
Fisher won the 1,600 run with an all-Finals record time of 4:00.28, which also will place him second all-time nationally. For much of the race Fisher seemed to be running by himself, and indeed the last half he was five to six seconds ahead of his nearest competitors. Logan Wetzel (4:08.04) of Saline finished second with a time of 4:08.04, leaving Fisher to finish the race all by himself.
The 3,200 run held more drama. Senior Ryan Robinson of Waterford Mott set the pace and Fisher stalked, conserving energy by drafting. With 220 meters remaining, Fisher made his move and passed Robinson. Fisher raced down the final straightaway as if he was finishing a 200 dash, winning easily with a time of 8:53.41. Robinson was second with a time of 9:00.65.
“I felt really good,” Fisher said of his fabulous kick. “It was tough on Ryan. (Running) into the wind it, helped me tremendously to follow him. He’s a great runner.
“The plan was to kick whenever necessary. I just had to gauge it.”
Last week, Robinson won the Oakland County meet with a time of 8:56.6.
Fisher’s time in the 1,600 crushed the previous all-Finals record held by fellow Grand Blanc graduate Omar Kaddurah. Kaddurah ran 4:07.67 in 2010.
“I never raced against Omar,” Fisher said. “I thought it was incredible he ran a 4:10. It’s nice to keep it in Grand Blanc. He was someone I looked up to.”
Next up for Fisher, who signed with Stanford University, is a mile run in New York City in two weeks. It’s a race he’s competed in before, and he said it should be fun because “there’s a rabbit” in the field.
Robie Webster of Ypsilanti Lincoln won both hurdles events, the 110 with a time of 14 seconds and the 300 with a time of 38.03. Webster missed qualifying for the 110 final as a junior, then increased his offseason training to reach his goals.
“I actually hit a few hurdles (in the 110) today,” he said.
Webster signed with Boston University and is looking forward to even greater challenges.
“My mom and I talked about colleges,” he said. “And she wanted me to look at schools with high education and athletics. My first option was BU. I went there on two visits and knew it was the place for me.”
Two more all-Finals records were broken, but by those who already held them. Grand Rapids Kenowa Hills' Donavan Brazier lowered his 800 record time to 1:48.98. Saline's 3,200 relay, made up this season of Logan Wetzel, Josiah Humphrey, Austin Welch and Kevin Hall, lowered its all-Finals record to 7:38.97.
Both records previously were set last season; Wetzel was the only Saline 3,200 relay runner who also was part of that record performance in 2014.
PHOTOS: (Top) Jaron Flournoy (middle) stays ahead of the field during a championship-winning sprint Saturday. (Middle) Grant Fisher set an MHSAA all-Finals record in the 1,600. (Click to see more from RunMichigan.com. Photos by John Brabbs.)
Ovid-Elsie Running Legend Darling Seeking to 'Win the Day' on Trading Floor
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
August 13, 2024
Maverick Darling’s competitive running days have been behind him for nearly a decade, but the eight-time MHSAA Finals champion from Ovid-Elsie isn’t done competing.
Darling, who was also a five-time All-American at Wisconsin, is now fighting for wins on the Viking Forest Products lumber trading floor in Minnesota.
“Our trading floor is very unique,” Darling said. “We have 60 traders, and probably 30-35 of them are former student-athletes in college. It’s very competitive, but kind of like a locker room. It’s kind of a unique way for me to still be competitive even though I’m not in athletics. I really love it.”
Darling is a commodity trader at Viking Forest, trading mostly OSB, plywood and dimensional lumber to buyers throughout the United States. He lives with his fiancé Danielle and their two dogs in Plymouth, Minn., a suburb of Minneapolis.
Lessons learned while working toward Finals titles on the dirt roads of Ovid and national goals on the trails of Madison, Wis., are helping him find success again.
“My lessons I learned from running and the reward, whether good, great or OK, is that no matter the day, you have to go put in the effort and work, and it carries over to my work,” he said. “I now literally start over every day. We had a saying: ‘Win the day.’ And ‘Win the day’ kind of means something different for every day. I try to apply that to my life. It’s motivating to be successful every day.”
Friendly competition between teammates leading to greater success also carried over from cross country and track to the trading floor.
“We have a department where it feels almost like my cross country team in college,” he said. “One guy will put up 30 orders that day, and we’re all happy for that person. The synergy between the group is awesome. But it motivates me to be like, tomorrow that’s going to be me.”
Darling had spent his first three years out of Wisconsin running professionally and had coaching stops at Iona and Cal-Berkeley after that. But when the pandemic hit, he stepped away from coaching and made the move to trading.
That ended a spectacular career in the sport, which was actually second choice for most of Darling’s childhood.
Growing up, he was a top snowmobile racer, along with his brother.
“My first (high school) cross country race, I took seventh,” Darling said. “I didn’t know better, but that’s pretty good. My mom was like, ‘Seventh? You know, we’re used to first or second (in snowcross).’ We’re not a running family. I started at about 18 minutes in the 5K, and at the state meet I finished eighth and ran 16:13. I was like, ‘OK, maybe this is something I can really be good at.’”
It was at the end of his junior year, after winning his heat at the Nike Outdoor Nationals, that Darling turned his entire focus to running. By that time, he had already won two Division 3 cross country titles, two 3,200-meter titles and one 1,600 at MHSAA Finals.
He was training often, but knew he was undertrained because of the limitations on where and when he could run during mid-Michigan winters. Colleges knew it, too, and that led to a barrage of communication as soon as they were able to reach out.
“I probably had 150 of those (hand-written letters) sent to the house,” Darling said. “I would get two to three phone calls a night after July 1. It wasn’t like overwhelming, because I was pretty confident at that point where I wanted to go to school.”
Darling committed to Wisconsin on the day of the Lower Peninsula Cross Country Finals his senior year. He also won his third Finals title that day with a then-Division 3 record time of 14:52. At the time, it was the third fastest time ever run in Michigan.
He would later win his second straight 1,600/3,200 double at the Track & Field Finals, running 8:58 in the 3,200 during the season, which was the 12th-best high school time in the country that year.
The choice to go to Wisconsin was based on his drive to be challenged as much as possible.
“I thought, ‘If I come into this room, I’m probably the eighth or ninth best runner in this room – maybe,’” Darling said. “I had such a great recruiting trip. I grew up in Ovid, and everything I ran there was pretty much dirt roads. Wisconsin has a lot of dirt trails, and I kind of loved that. I could run from our locker room and be on a trail in a mile, mile and a half.”
Darling’s collegiate career proved he had made the right decision. He was the Big Ten Freshman of the Year for the 2009 cross country season, and an All-American in 2010 and 2012. He was a three-time All-American in track, as well.
The Badgers also had massive team success during Darling’s tenure, winning a cross country national title in 2011, four Big Ten cross country titles and two Big Ten track & field titles.
Darling was surrounded by great runners throughout his time in Madison, including close friend Mohammed Ahmed, who finished fourth in the 10,000 meters at this Olympics, one spot behind another Michigan distance star, Grand Blanc’s Grant Fisher.
Watching the results of a distance boom he was a big part of has been a joy for Darling this summer.
“I thought I was pretty good, then watching these guys – it’s jealousy,” he said with a laugh. “And also, it’s just cool to see. Michigan is one of the best distance states men’s and women’s-wise. It’s great to see them not only be on the international level, but to have that success.”
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PHOTOS (Top) At left, Maverick Darling crosses the finish line during a race as an Ovid-Elsie senior in 2007; at right Darling poses with fiancé Danielle. (Middle) Darling rounds a turn during a high school race. (Below) Darling and Danielle enjoy a sunset over the water with her parents. (Photos courtesy of Maverick Darling.)