Cooper Closing In On Fantastic Finish
By
Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half
May 2, 2017
OAK PARK – As good as he is as a runner, Cameron Cooper understands he can’t do it alone.
Running one last high school season guided by knowledgeable veteran coaches and with a friend to help set their team's pace, the Oak Park senior is sprinting toward a captivating conclusion to his high school career and with more exciting possibilities ahead.
Cooper, 18, helped the Knights win the 2016 MHSAA Division 1 title, the program’s first boys track and field championship since 1972, as he placed first in the 800-meter run with a time of 1:51.68.
He then became just the second runner to go under 1:49.5 indoor when, while running with the Motor City Track Club, he placed first at the New Balance Nationals (March 10-12) held in New York City. His time of 1:49.46 eclipsed his personal-best of 1:49.7. Robbie Andrew of New Jersey owns the indoor record of 1:49.21 run in 2009.
Minutes after running the second-fastest time in the half mile, Cooper said he thought he could run faster – and he believes a time of 1:46 is attainable now that he’s competing outdoors.
“Outdoors, you can run faster,” Cooper said, noting there are only two turns on outdoor tracks instead of four at smaller indoor venues.
Although his times don’t reflect this outdoor advantage yet, Cooper is finding his fastest stride as the season’s most important meets draw near. Cooper has won all of his races this spring – individually or as part of a relay – and his top 800 time of 1:51.79 is only a tenth of a second slower than last season’s MHSAA championship performance.
Mentoring and hard work
Cooper began running competitively at the age of 8 with the Detroit PAL (Police Athletic League). He ran the sprints before his coach, Reggie Osborne, moved him to the 400 and 800 runs at age 10.
“When I was younger, it was way easier,” Cooper said. “In high school now, it’s more competitive. There (are) better runners.”
Cooper said there’s no secret to his success. Sure he’s a gifted runner, but it’s the hours of training that enable him to compete at such a high level.
His coaches at Oak Park – longtime Detroit Public School League coach Bob Lynch, now in his third season at Oak Park, and his protégé, Brandon Jiles – both work with Cooper almost daily. Officially, Lynch is the boys track coach and Jiles coaches the girls team, but in essence they team to coach both squads.
Jiles won the Class A Finals 800 in 1999 at Detroit Mumford with Lynch as his coach. Mumford won the Class A team title that season. The Mustangs would win three more MHSAA Finals titles (Division 1, 2002-04) with Lynch.
Then there’s Chris Richards, a Detroit Pershing graduate, who works with the sprinters on both teams. Although Richards doesn’t work directly with Cooper, his presence allows Lynch to spend more time with a runner like Cooper.
“Lynch’s specialty is the sprints,” Richards said. “I don’t know where, all of a sudden, he became an expert on the half mile and mile.”
That was said partly in jest. Lynch is highly regarded in the sport and has worked well with all athletes in running events whether they’ve been hurdlers, sprinters or distance runners.
Lynch has coached many greats, Olympian Marshall Dill for one, and he said Cooper is one of the best he’s had.
“It’s the work he puts in,” Lynch said. “Whatever I make him do, he does it. But I have to push him. His older brother (Corey Jones) influenced him. (Jones) was decent as an age-group runner, but he wasn’t a great runner. He worked hard to be where he was at.”
Jones ran for Lynch when he was the head coach at Detroit Mumford. Five years older than Cooper, Jones continues to have a positive influence on his brother.
“He wasn’t that talented,” Cooper said of his brother. “He’d run a lot on his own. Just seeing his work ethic made me want to run. He still works harder than I do. I do a lot of stuff on my own, too, like pushups and stuff. Corey had to work harder just to get his times. I have more talent, so I don’t work as hard.”
Even so, Cooper, who also placed fourth in the 1,600 at the Division 1 Final a year ago, understands he needs to work harder to reach his goals.
It’s not easy. When you add that he’s also one of the state’s top milers, Cooper’s work regiment can be overwhelming. To train for the 800 he’ll run 400 meters, then 600 meters, then 200. Then he’ll repeat that sequence. When training for the 1,600, he’ll run 1,200 meters, 1,000 meters and, again, repeat that. By week’s end he’ll run 15 miles or more, not counting what he does in meets.
Last weekend at the Jackson Invitational, Cooper ran the 800 in that season-best 1:51.79, one of the top times in the state. He also ran the 1,600 in 4:18, also one of the state’s top times this spring. Cooper is also the anchor on the 1,600 and 3,200 relay teams, and both ran well in Jackson according to Jiles.
Running mate
Dewan Hawthorne is another senior on a veteran team. Hawthorne is a hurdler and also runs the first leg on the 3,200 relay. Hawthorne qualified for the Division 1 Finals in both hurdle events and placed ninth in the 300 low hurdles last season. Cooper and Hawthorne, along with sprinter KeVeon Clark, are the three athletes Lynch is counting on to set the standard for the other runners – and to score points.
Cooper and Hawthorne feed off of one another and are often seen running laps together in practice.
“Our team is stronger this year,” Hawthorne said. “We have some new guys, but me and Cameron are the big two. We both run cross country, and that helps us going into the indoor season. When the outdoor (season) comes, we’re ready.”
This season’s important meets are coming on quickly. Oak Park will host the Oakland Activities Association league meet on May 11, and the Knights will compete at the North Farmington Regional on May 19. Qualifiers will compete at the Division 1 Finals at East Kentwood on June 3.
After that, Cooper and Hawthorne plan on competing in college, and neither has made a firm commitment to a university. Cooper has narrowed his choices to Clemson, Florida, Louisiana State, Oregon and Texas A&M. Hawthorne is deciding between Michigan State and Morgan State.
Tom Markowski is a columnist and directs website coverage for the State Champs! Sports Network. He previously covered primarily high school sports for the The Detroit News from 1984-2014, focusing on the Detroit area and contributing to statewide coverage of football and basketball. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Oak Park's Cameron Cooper runs his leg of the 3,200 relay during a tri-meet against Royal Oak and Ferndale this season. (Middle) Dewan Hawthorne (left) and Cooper. (Top photo courtesy of Darrell Washington.)
Goals Grow as Gladwin's Klein Seeks to Follow School Record with Big Finish
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
April 24, 2024
Logan Klein wanted to leave his mark on Gladwin athletics – and one could argue, as a starting offensive lineman on the 2022 Flying Gs football team which won the Division 5 title, he had already done that.
But Klein was looking for more, so that spring, he switched from baseball to track & field, and went after it.
“Really, I mean, I wanted a school record,” Klein said. “I had played baseball for freshman and sophomore year, and I knew I wasn’t getting it in baseball. I was good, but I wasn’t that good. I did (track & field) in seventh grade, and I was pretty good. I was really close in junior high (to school records) but then in eighth grade, we had COVID.”
In his first year back in the sport, Klein achieved his goal, setting the Gladwin school record in the shot put and throwing his way to a third-place, all-state finish at the 2023 Lower Peninsula Division 2 Finals.
Now, with a little more seasoning under his belt, he’s looking for even more.
“The big goal is to be a state champ,” he said. “The second goal, with how I’ve been throwing in the (discus) lately, I think I can be all-state in both events. That’s a really big one for me, too.”
Klein’s immediate success as a thrower didn’t come as a total surprise, as he really was quite good in seventh grade. He’s also a 6-foot-3, 270-pound athlete who, as mentioned, was a starter on a state championship-winning football team. The baseline was there.
He also had a willing teacher in teammate Logan Kokotovich, a 2023 Gladwin graduate who was a captain and Klein’s teammate in football, and the Gs’ top thrower prior to Klein’s arrival.
“(Klein) threw in junior high and he was pretty good, and then last year he started off real strong,” Gladwin boys track coach Buddy Goldsworthy said. “After lots of work on just technique stuff, he realized all the things he was doing wrong, then he just started throwing 50 footers. One person that helped make a good transition was Logan Kokotovich – he was good at football, too, and good friends with Klein. He showed Klein how to do a couple things better.”
On May 5, 2023, at the Nike Trax Invite at Meridian, Klein first threw over 50 feet in competition. Five days later, at the Jack Pine Conference meet, Klein had his school record, throwing 51 feet, 9 inches, smashing the old mark of 50-5 set in 1988.
“I was starting to get up into the 50s, and I knew it was going to happen in the next meet,” he said. “I had been on a PR streak.”
He broke it again in his next meet, the first of four times he has eclipsed his chart-topping mark – which now stands at 55-4¼.
“He’s a big, strong kid, and he loved throwing in junior high,” Goldsworthy said. “We knew that he could be that guy. Now, we didn’t know he would be that guy so quickly. That was a pleasant surprise for us. He loves throwing. He spent a lot of time during the summer saying, ‘Hey, can we go up and throw? Can I take a shot or disc home this weekend and just throw?’ ‘I know you’re going to be gone on vacation, but can I have a shot to work on throws?’ He’s a real student of the game.”
Klein said he’s fallen in love with throwing, and there is certainly a part of him that wishes he had started as a freshman, knowing the massive leap he’s taken in such a short amount of time.
But his being so new to the sport makes him a very intriguing prospect for college coaches, if he chooses to go that route. There has been some communication, but Klein hasn’t decided yet if wants to follow up on throwing at the next level or go into the workforce by becoming an electrician, something that is waiting for him if he wants it.
“I was definitely not planning on (throwing in college),” he said. “I was actually a four-year starter for football, so that’s what I thought I was going to do. I’ve only been doing this for two years now, and I definitely can grow a lot more. A couple colleges have talked to me, and that’s what they were saying, that I really have a lot more potential.”
While he mulls over that decision, he’s working toward reaching those end-of-year goals he’s set, and also bringing along the next wave of Gladwin throwers.
“We talk about it a lot,” Goldsworthy said. “You want to leave a legacy. If you’re a jerk, no one’s going to remember, or they’re going to remember you not in the ways you want. He’s really taken that to heart and he’s the person that people want to be around. He’s going to be remembered that, yeah, he threw 60 feet, but he helped (junior Jacob) Hurst, he helped (freshman Harvey) Grove, he helped (freshman Nick) Brasseur. They’ll remember, ‘We wouldn’t have been as good if we didn’t have Klein around.’”
Klein said coaching also is in his future, whether that’s next year as he starts his career, or later down the line if he chooses to go to college.
With his mark already firmly left on Gladwin athletics, he wants to make sure others can do the same.
“I just like seeing my teammates grow,” he said. “We’ve got a freshman right now that’s really good. I told him, ‘I don’t care if you beat my record. I just want to be there to coach you through 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) Gladwin’s Logan Klein prepares to launch during a turn in the shot put circle. (Middle) Klein has high aspirations in both the shot and discus this spring. (Photos courtesy of the Gladwin athletic department.)