A finish to end all finishes, just Short
A finish to end all finishes, just Short
By STEVE KODAD
Herald Sports Editor
Another high school sports season has come and gone. Many times through the years, during the course of a season, athletes and teams representing high schools have made their mark on their respective school's sports history with outstanding endeavors and exploits on various fields of play. I know if I make a list of history I'll leave out a ton of outstanding athletes who have graduated from EHS through the years.
No doubt people in Evanston will be talking for years to come about Jaycee Carroll, arguably the most outstanding basketball player to ever don thered, white and blue of Evanston High School. Jaycee Carroll, the sharp-shooting guard now playing for the Utah State University Aggies. Anyone who knows football in our fair city knows about Brady Poppinga, a keyplayer on the Red Devils' 1997 Class 4A state football championship game. That same Poppinga who starred on the gridiron for Brigham Young University. That same Poppinga who now plays for the NFL's Green Bay Packers. That same kid from the Poppinga family one of the best well-known in this community. Dad Dennis (BYU), brothers Casey (Wyoming, Utah State) and Kelly (Utah State, (BYU) that have all been standout college football players.
I've seen a lot of great prep athletes come and go in my years as a sportswriter. I've developed some great relationships with athletes, coaches and fans. I've witnessed some great moments in athletic history.
Probably tops on my old list is Jaycee Carroll against Green River back in 2003. The Devils were one of the top teams in the state, and Coach Bubba O'Neill had a bonafide superstar in Carroll. The week before the game at Green River, several senior members of the EHS team got in a little trouble, and suspensions were handed down.
With all the rest of the seniors sitting out for the first quarter, Carroll simply took over. Several scorebooks had different totals, but the official book at the end of the game, if my memory serves me correctly, credited Jaycee with 56 points. All he did was hit 14 of 16 shots from three-point range, most of those shots with at least one Green River defender draped all over him.
Yours truly would have honesty said, after that wondrous night in Green River, that I'd witnessed in person the most outstanding effort by a prepathlete that I would ever see in my lifetime.
Sorry Jaycee, but I think you were topped last weekend, at least in my eyes. Athletics are hard work. The truly standout athletes are filled with ability and also determination, courage, heart, cliche after cliche. High school athletics are supposed to teach kids many lessons, and they can offer lessons to those of us who are spectators.
I'm not sure I have ever witnessed an individual effort that embodies the spirit of competition, of an effort that defines the true spirit of
competition, of trying to be the very best, the likes which I had the privilege of seeing at the state high school track and field meet last weekend in Casper.
I truly hope someone got the race on video, I would love to see it. Here's a kid who I know has not had smooth sailing. Yet he laid everything on the line, literally right on the finish line, in trying to become the best at what he does.
I've witnessed first-hand football players diving into the end zone, trying to score the winning touchdown as the clock runs out, and defensive players diving the opposite direction trying to stop the score. I've seen basketball players diving on the floor for loose balls trying to gain possession of the ball. I've seen wrestlers diving at their opponents desperately trying to score a last-second takedown to win a match.
I've seen young runners in track collapsing from exhausting at the finish line as they struggle to end a race. I've never seen a young athlete running in a track event dive for the finish line trying to get across that finish line first.
Maybe this isn't such an oddity, I'm sure it's happened before. But to me, I think the nature of the situation is what compels me to write this. But just seeing the photo at the finish line might be enough to convince others that this was truly amazing.
Jamis Short literally dove across the finish line in the finals of the Class 4A 300-meter intermediate hurdles at the state track meet in Casper last Saturday morning.
Whenever I get the chance, I like to chat up Frank Gambino, the lead sports announcer on Wyoming's K2 Television out of Casper. He's a pretty decent guy, and although I've never introduced myself, I have chatted with him on the sidelines of University of Wyoming football games, state tournaments, etc.
I did the same last Saturday morning as Mr. Gambino was filming near the finish line at Harry Geldien Stadium in Casper as the state track finals were getting underway. During our conversation, we talked about several athletes who were having outstanding performances at the state meet. Mountain View freshman Amber Henry's name came up (Henry, in her first state meet competition, won four individual events to pace the Lady Buffs to the Class 3A girls' team championship).
I was going to tell Frank to watch the 4A 300 hurdle finals, to be sure to get Jamis on film when he won the race. Short has hinted to his mom, yours truly and several others that he was going to win the race. I thought that too, not so much because of our home town connection, but I had that feeling that Jamis was going to prove that he was the best hurdler in the field. Something stopped me, and I never mentioned my feelings to Filmin' Frank.
Part of that came from perhaps not wanting to sound too cocky. Jamis surely wasn't coming off that way when he predicted a victory, instead he had that quiet resolve in his voice, not arrogant, just knowing his abilities and knowing his will to win. Another part of not telling Frank was I didn't want to jinx Jamis.
I drove back from Casper Saturday evening, arriving home too late to see K2's Saturday night sports show. Did Gambino get Short's flying finish on film? Now I regret a little not telling him, maybe I could have convinced him to tape the finish, perhaps the greatest ending to a race in Wyomingstate prep track history.
I would love to see that race on tape. If anyone out there has it on film, let me know.
For a brief moment Saturday morning, as I anticipated the 4A 300 hurdle race, I thought about moving down to the curve and trying to snap a photo of Jamis flying over the hurdles, as he slid over the last set of hurdles on the curve before beginning his customary sprint down the homestretch. I nixed that idea quickly, thinking instead that I would stay on the finish line and try to get a shot of Jamis crossing the finish line and hopefully areaction on his face when he won the race.
Gun's up, the starter calls the runners to the blocks ... get set, boom! The hurdlers take off, Jamis laying back a little as he always does on the backstretch, poised to round the curve at the far end of the track, then rocket off the curve and fly to the finish.
I'm watching the runners go over the hurdle flights, it's hard to see the curve at the other end of the track with spectators, high jump competition taking place inside the far-end curve, other obstacles. As the runners round the turn, the crowd gasps, and as I look down the track it looks like Jamis has stumbled.
The kids I cover in this fantastic job I have, I'm rooting for them all. Deep down I want all the kids from Evanston, Mountain View, Lyman and Kemmerer to be state champs. Outside I try to keep a cool cover, no overt acts of cheerleading for the hometown, or at least not too obvious. But on the inside, I'm jumping up and down, trying to cheer my kids on to victory. I look down the track and it looks like Jamis is running weird. From over a hundred yards away he almost looks like he's tip-toeing. What happened? Did he fall? What happened, I'm wondering, as I see Sheridan's Ben Soukup break to the lead.
I pull my camera back up and focus down the track, quickly finding Jamis through the viewfinder in lane five. I peek over my camera, and it appears Jamis has fallen behind. My heart sinks a bit, my quick reaction is that he won't be able to recover. So I pull my camera back to my eye and hear a sound, Jamis has hit a hurdle, second to last flight I believe, not enough to slow him much but not "clean" as the coaches like to say when a hurdlergoes over the standard without a hitch.
Now I'm thinking, he's probably going to finish second (or worse), he's too far back, so I try to focus on the final hurdle with hopes of getting a good shot of Jamis flying over that last barrier. I've forgot about the Sheridan runner now, not realizing that Short is quickly chewing up the track and making up the deficit caused by Soukup's teammate, Robert Walters. The other Sheridan hurdler hit a hurdle next to Short's lane on the curve. Walters tumbled to the track and rolled right into Short's lane, right at Jamis' feet, and forced Jamis to chop his steps and almost run out of his lane coming off the curve.
I snap a photo of Jamis over the last hurdle, but the focus is not as sharp as it should be,and neither is mine. In the back of my mind, I'm thinking how this kid has worked so hard and to have this victory snatched away by an act he had no control over. In the next split second, the camera pulls away, where is Soukup? As I watch, Jamis clears the final hurdle, and after a quick stride or two he's airborne, stretching out like Superman, his arms reaching out, his body parallel to the track surface.
It's too late to try and get a photo. I can't believe what I'm seeing. At first I think maybe Jamis stumbled and fell across the line. But I watch himhit the track chest first, watching him slide on his belly, realizing he was in control as he pops back up and hardly flinches in what had to be apainful landing. It looks like he's got track burns on his elbows and shoulders.
He actually dove head-first in an attempt to catch Soukup and beat him to the finish line. When we sat down for an interview several hours later, I asked him what he was thinking when he tip-toed, or cat-walked as he put it, around the tumbling Sheridan competitor? "Trying not to go out of my lane and get disqualified," was the answer.
I asked Jamis what went through his mind when he regained his stride after avoiding a collision with Walters? "Catch Soukup," was the short, to-the-point answer. I also asked him why he dove at the finish line like he did? "I was trying to win," he said.
An electronics company, Daktronics was the name, I believe, had set up an electronic scoreboard near the finish line at the Casper stadium. Results from the races would flash on the screen. Jamis picked himself off the floor, then paced on the track, serious look on his face, waiting for the results.
After what seemed like an eternity, the results finally came up on the board.
Soukup, Sheridan, first, 39.28 seconds. Short, Evanston, second. 39.29. Thirty nine-point-two eight. Thirty nine-point-two nine. Just one
one-hundredth of a second. Can't get much closer than that. I case I haven't made the point yet, here it is. I don't think I've ever
seen a more prolific finish to a high school sporting event. Yep, I've seen last-second, game-winning shots in basketball, I've seen long touchdown runs on final plays of the game in football, I've witnessed last-second takedowns and escapes and reverses to win wrestling matches, I've seen dramaticwalk-off home runs that have ended games in the home team's final at bat. I just don't think I've ever seen a young high school athlete with that desire for victory, so hungry, that they would sacrifice their body in an all-out, tremendous, last-gasp act of throwing that body into danger, into risk of pain and injury, like Jamis did last Saturday.
The record books will forever show that Jamis Short was oh, so close, and just short on the stopwatch in his attempt to win the boys' Class 4A 300-meter intermediate hurdle finals at the state track meet last Saturday. Short's name will be in the history books as coming in second in that race by the slimmest of margins, one-hundredth of a second, maybe a half of a half of a blink of an eye. But Bud, you will certainly be labeled as a winner by this sports writer for as long as I have the capacity to tell people about your fantastic finish. You are a champion in my book.
Thank you for a fantastic finish to an outstanding prep athletic career.
