Sprint Star Pacing Kent City's Run at #1
May 15, 2019
By Tom Kendra
Special for Second Half
Giovanni Weeks has always been fast, racking up plenty of blue ribbons during his elementary school days in Kent City.
But now his coach looks at him and sees something else.
“He’s a beast,” said 26th-year Kent City boys track coach Jeff Wilson. “He is thick and strong as an ox. Now he’s like a locomotive coming down the track.”
Weeks, a two-time all-state running back and three-sport athlete, is barreling toward the finish line of his prep career – starting with Friday’s MHSAA Division 3 Regional meet at Saugatuck.
His ultimate goal is to improve on last year’s impressive performance at the Finals, where he won the 200 meters, placed second in the 100 meters and fourth in the long jump.
The hardest part might be choosing which four events to do.
“I think I could do good in the 400, but that is so close to the 200 and I really want to defend my title in that,” explained Weeks, who helped the Eagles place third as a team at last year’s Finals. “And I’d like to do both sprint relays, but then there’s the long jump. I’ll just do what Coach puts me in.”
Weeks said it was his year-round weightlifting and speed and agility training which allowed him to emerge as one of the most decorated competitors at last year’s Finals as a junior.
“I’m most proud of how I kept sticking to it,” said Weeks, who was a key part of Kent City’s resurgence on the football field the past three seasons. “I put in the work and got faster and stronger. You can’t become a state champion any other way.”
The bigger and stronger Weeks won the 200 meters last year in 22.25 seconds and narrowly missed sweeping the two sprints, finishing three hundredths of a second behind winner Caleb Schutte of Grandville Calvin Christian in the 100.
Weeks and Schutte are back as seniors and expected to duel once again in the 100 and 200, at both Regionals this week and the Finals on June 1 at Jenison.
Weeks believes if he can get a good start that he can pull off the double.
“I have been working on my starts a lot, which is my biggest weakness,” said Weeks, whose best times are 11.06 seconds in the 100 and 21.9 in the 200. “Last year in the 100 at state, I lost it in the first 30 meters. If the race was 10 meters longer, I would have won, so I just need a better start.”
He also has a shot in the long jump, where he placed fourth last year at 20 feet, 10.25 inches. He recently leaped a career-best of 21-8.75.
Weeks is the third of four children of Chris and Michelle Weeks. Chris Weeks is the pastor of Kent City Baptist Church and a former college rugby player. Gio’s younger sister, Jasmine, is a sophomore sprinter for Kent City’s girls team.
Wilson describes his star sprinter as a “great all-around kid,” who is committed to academics, faith and sports. Weeks tries to encourage his teammates and younger kids in the community to reach their full potential.
“You need to work your tail off if you want to be successful,” said Weeks, a 3.87-GPA student who represented Kent City athletics at the West Michigan Student Showcase event in March.
He said the secret to his success is hard work and his Christian faith, adding that his only superstition is that “I pray before each race.”
Kent City has become known around the state for its terrific distance runners under Wilson, a former distance standout at Sparta who also ran at Central Michigan University. Wilson guided the Eagles to a second-place Finals team finish in 2009 and third place in 1998, primarily behind its strength in the longer races.
Last year, it was Weeks who sprinted and leaped for 23 of his team’s 32 points as Kent City took third.
Wilson hopes for another strong showing at both Regionals and the Finals behind Weeks and about “seven or eight good sprinters,” a crew which also includes Will Wright, Mateus Mello and Jayden Williams. Dolan Bair has produced consistent points in the two hurdle events and Evan Jones (800) and Nick Flegel (1600) are the leaders in the longer distances.
Weeks will take his work ethic and strong character to Wheaton College (Ill.) this fall, where he will play football for the traditional Division III powerhouse. He plans to study business economics and may also run for the track team.
Weeks, who has grown from about 5-9 and 140 pounds as a freshman to 6-1 and 200 pounds, holds career records at Kent City with 3,725 rushing yards and 57 touchdowns. He led the Eagles to three consecutive Central States Activities Association Silver titles and three straight playoff appearances.
He said a freak accident that occurred when he was little convinced him that he was called to play football.
“When I was little, a curling iron fell on my hand in the bathroom and it left a scar in the shape of a football,” Weeks said with a laugh. “I always tell people that I knew because of that I was meant to be a football player.”
Tom Kendra worked 23 years at The Muskegon Chronicle, including five as assistant sports editor and the final six as sports editor through 2011. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Muskegon, Oceana, Mason, Lake, Oceola, Mecosta and Newaygo counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Kent City’s Giovanni Weeks, second from left, paces the field during a sprint this season. (Middle) Weeks lands a long jump, one of three events in which he placed at last season’s Lower Peninsula Division 3 Finals. (Photos by Mary Wilson.)
Comeback Jump as Meaningful as Record
June 4, 2016
By Bill Khan
Special to Second Half
HUDSONVILLE — Because it was wind-aided, the performance by Jackson senior Anthony Owens on Saturday won't count in the MHSAA track and field record books.
But while it won't go down officially as the best long jump ever at an MHSAA Finals, it was one of the greatest jumps, given the circumstances.
Owens was in third place going into the final jump at the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 1 meet on Saturday at Baldwin Street Middle School. He not only had to overtake the two jumpers ahead of him, he had to overcome the pain of a hamstring injury that he suffered on his second jump of the day.
"It really wasn't working for me and things weren't going my way," Owens said. "But my coaches talked to me and told me this is my last year, to finish strong and leave it all out there and just have fun with it. That's kind of what I did for my last jump. It paid off a lot."
Did it ever.
Owens delivered a jump of 24 feet, 1.25 inches to pass Ann Arbor Pioneer's Terius Wheatley (23-10.75) and East Kentwood's Andre Welch (23-7) and win the long jump championship. Owens' jump eclipsed the 24-1 performance by Flushing's Jeff Kline in the 2009 Lower Peninsula Division 1 meet as the longest ever in any division of an MHSAA Final. However, the wind was at 2.4 meters per second when he jumped, more than the 2.0 that is allowable for record performances.
There is precedent for not including jumps that are wind-aided in the record book. In 1996, Midland's Okoineme Giwaagbomeirel won the Lower Peninsula Class A meet with a jump of 24-6 that was wind-aided.
The guts that it took for Owens to come through and win the long jump means more to him than the record. He was third with a jump of 23-3.25 going into his final jump.
"It was a big deal for me, because I didn't think I was going to be able to get 24 feet with my hamstring pulling on me," Owens said. "The fact I fought through it means a lot. I'm glad I could compete with those guys. Those guys, if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have got to 24-1 and got first."
While Wheatley and Welch are rivals, they are also friends who respect one another's ability.
"I know a lot of them," Owens said. "(Wheatley) is a great kid. I love competing with him. We get the best out of each other. He actually PR'd (personal record) today a lot. I think he was excited as much as me. He deserves the glory as much as I do. Without those guys, I don't think we'd be able to compete at our best, because we all know we're right there by each other."
Owens also felt inspiration from a former teammate, Maseo Moore, who died in an automobile crash on I-94 on May 24, 2015. Moore, a member of the track and field team, would have been a senior this season.
"Going into this track season, it really wasn't all about me," Owens said. "It was about the people around me. Our football coach would always tell us, 'It has everything to do with you and nothing to do with you.' When you take away what you're doing for yourself and define your 'why' and why you're doing it, you'll be successful and be a champion. Once I found my 'why' and why I was doing it and why I wanted to be at the top, it paid off. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for my coaches and Maseo and all the support I have."
One all-division MHSAA Finals record that will stay in the books is the throw of 67 feet, 5.75 inches by Oxford senior Connor Bandel in the shot put. Bandel's throw broke the all-division record of 64 feet, 0.5 inches set by Todd Duckett of Kalamazoo Loy Norrix in the 1999 Lower Peninsula Class A meet. Bandel won by 13 feet, 1.25 inches.
Bandel also chased the discus record of 210-1 set by Cullen Prena of Walled Lake Central in the 2012 Lower Peninsula Division 1 Finals, but he had to settle for a decisive victory with his throw of 198-11. Bandel won by 20 feet, 11 inches.
Bandel's record throw in the shot put came in the fifth of his six throws.
"It definitely felt like a good throw," he said. "I was actually kind of surprised by the distance, because I threw 57-2.5 last week, and that one actually felt better in comparison. I guess I did something a little bit different that I didn't notice and I ended up throwing a little bit farther."
While the wind aided Owens in the long jump, it may have hindered Bandel's bid for the discus record. His personal record is 204-2.
"The big difference today was the wind," said Bandel, who also swept both events last year and hit 198-11 twice on consecutive throws Saturday. "The 204-2, I had a pretty decent headwind to help lift the disc up a bit. The back wind knocked it down a bit."
In the team competition, Oak Park scored 55 points to win its first MHSAA boys track and field championship since the 1972 squad won the Class A title. Rockford was second with 46 points, while East Kentwood was third with 37. East Kentwood had won five of the previous seven Division 1 championships.
Oak Park's only victory came from junior Cameron Cooper, who took the 800 in 1:51.68. Senior Dekaryea Freeman was third in the 800, giving Oak Park 18 points in the event.
Miles Daniel was second in the 100, third in the 200 and ran on the fifth-place 400 relay team for Oak Park.
"The biggest thing we've got going for us is we got some football players to come out," Oak Park coach Robert Lynch said. "The football players came out, have been part of the track team and have put us over the edge."
East Kentwood's Khance Meyers won two events, taking the 100 in 10.73 seconds and helping the 800 relay team set a Division 1 meet record of 1:26.27. Ansel Jeffries, Shane Harris and Welch also ran on that relay team.
The other individual champions were East Lansing's Kentre Patterson (110 hurdles, 14.03); Ann Arbor Skyline's Anthony Giannobile (1,600, 4:11.48); Wayne Memorial's Montel Hood (400, 47.30); Dearborn's Adnan Hamka (300 hurdles, 39.62); Fenton's Jacob Lee (3,200, 9:07.72); Rockford's Jonny De Haan (pole vault, 15-0); and Mount Pleasant's Kalebb Perry (high jump, 6-7).
The other winning relays were run by Rockford (3,200, 7:43.92); Detroit Cass Tech (400, 42.26); and Saline (1,600, 3:19.37).
PHOTOS: (Top) Jackson's Anthony Owens prepares for launch on the way to winning the long jump championship. (Middle) Oxford's Connor Bandel stands atop the awards podium after repeating as shot put champion. (Photos by John Brabbs/RunMichigan.com.)