Howell Puts Heart Into Memorial Meet

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 12^th-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.)