Mid Pen Champs: Like Mom, Like Daughter
October 31, 2017
By Dennis Grall
Special for Second Half
ESCANABA – Daisy Englund had a couple of very reachable goals when she began this fall’s Upper Peninsula cross country championship race.
The Rock Mid Peninsula freshman wanted to finish ahead of her running partner and teammate Landry Koski and get into the top 15 placers to earn all-state laurels.
Not only did she reach those goals, she also joined her mother as a U.P. champion.
Englund won the Division 3 girls championship Oct. 21 at Pictured Rocks Golf Course near Munising, finishing in a season-best 20 minutes, 31.3 seconds. Koski, an eighth-grader at Mid Pen, finished fifth in 20:55.1 as they helped the Wolverines claim runner-up team honors at the Finals.
Chassell took the team trophy for the third time in the past four years, with 40 points. Mid Pen edged Munising 72-74 for second place.
Daisy's mother, the former Faye Peterson, won U.P. Class D titles in 1994, 1995 and 1996. Her 1995 team won the Upper Peninsula championship. Faye’s best time of 19:59 came as a freshman at the U.P. Finals at Presque Isle in Marquette.
That title team was coached by Duane Englund, whose son Ken is married to Faye. Daisy's sister, Kennedy, a sophomore, finished 33rd overall at Munising two weeks ago.
Daisy Englund came from behind to claim the title, edging Munising junior Madeleine Peramaki by 6.1 seconds. Chassell junior Lela Rautiola, the 2016 champion, was third.
"I really didn't think I would win because Peramaki beat me every single meet (this season)," said Englund, who also finished seventh as an eighth grader in 2016. (Eighth graders are allowed to compete on high school teams for schools with fewer than 100 students).
Englund trailed Peramaki by a couple of seconds coming out of the final turn, then used a strong finishing kick up a gradual hill and into a stiff breeze. With about 800 yards left, Englund trailed Peramaki by about 15 yards. She trailed by perhaps 30 seconds in the earlier stages of the race, trying to set a pace that would allow her to have enough kick at the end.
"If I kicked too fast, I knew I could lose it," Englund said of biding her time down the stretch. After striding into the lead with about 40 yards remaining in the 3.1-mile race, she said, "I got scared. I knew I had to stride out and keep my head down. When my foot crossed the finish line, I knew I had her. "
The victory didn't sink in until "people started congratulating me. I thought I actually did it. It was really a big thrill."
She said getting the victory and the team runner-up finish "are both kind of cool. The team really wanted it."
Faye Englund was an intense spectator, with her own running experiences helping her understand what was happening in the stretch run. "There was a little bit of adrenalin, a lot of screaming and hugging," she said during an interview at Mid Pen High School. "Knowing all the hard work and effort she put out, it makes me realize what an accomplishment I did. It makes me feel prouder, and I didn't have to run.
"I don't think I realized how much of an achievement it was. It is completely thrilling that Daisy was able to follow in my footsteps."
Daisy said she had a game plan for the race of trying to keep close to the leaders. "I was just running, I wasn't thinking. I was tired, but the faster I ran I didn't get so tired," she recalled during that recent interview with her parents at Mid Pen.
She had been nursing a sprained ankle prior to the Finals. "I didn't think about it, but when I had to sprint at the end I noticed it more," she said.
Faye Englund remembers her parents encouraging her to participate in athletics.
"They were my biggest cheerleaders. Many nights I didn't want to go for a run; all those fears would come back. But without fears, you never take the chance," she said.
The Englund sisters lift weights and run frequently, with speed workouts part of the plan.
"We are there helping those kids do everything they want to do. We are their biggest cheerleaders, but we tell them if they do something they have to finish it out," Faye said of the support she and Ken provide.
Daisy and Kennedy also play basketball and run track for the Wolverines, and there is a definite sibling rivalry. "We are always competitive. It helps us because we can push each other, and we strive to win," said Daisy. "We can look up to (our parents) and say we can do the same things they did."
Ken Englund added: "They don't let any grass grow under their feet. When they do something, they do it all out."
Denny Grall retired in 2012 after 39 years at the Escanaba Daily Press and four at the Green Bay Press-Gazette, plus 15 months for WLST radio in Escanaba; he served as the Daily Press sports editor from 1970-80 and again from 1984-2012. Grall was inducted into the Upper Peninsula Sports Hall of Fame in 2002 and serves as its executive secretary. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for the Upper Peninsula.
PHOTOS: (Top) Daisy Englund, left, followed her mother Faye as a U.P. champion earlier this month. (Middle) Faye Peterson won three straight Finals titles for Rock Mid Peninsula from 1994-96. (Below) Englund (345) kept pace with the pack early before breaking out with the leaders Oct 21. (Top photo by Dennis Grall, middle courtesy of the Englund family and below photo by Cara Kamps.)
Pioneer's Huff Blazed Cross Country Trail
October 3, 2017
By Ron Pesch
Special for Second Half
Today, you’ll find her seated behind a desk in Denver. A CPA and the mother of three, including a former Olympic speed skater, Beth Jurgensmeyer still runs. The MHSAA’s first girls individual cross country champion, she was introduced to the sport as an 8-year old.
The daughter of Reverend Robert O. Huff, a Lutheran minister, and his wife Jane, she was born in Indianapolis. The fifth of six children and the couple’s first daughter, she and the family moved to Midland when Beth was a baby.
“I had a kidney infection,” said Jurgensmeyer, “and a doctor had told us that running would help clear it up. Now I don’t know if that was true, but I started running for Fleet Feet in Midland. It was fun.”
Still going strong today, Fleet Feet was formed in 1967. A track and field and cross country program, it was designed with the goal of keeping kids active. The club competed in AAU competitions, and Huff excelled.
A friend and fellow runner from Fleet Feet introduced her to speed skating.
“Cindy Kressler invited me to skate with her family in the park in Midland. Her brother, Craig, was a pretty good speed skater and ended up an Olympian in 1980. So, I did that in the winter.”
Huff excelled in that sport as well, skating for the Midland Speed Skating Club and earning “Pony Girl“, “Midget” and “Junior” recognition at Michigan Skating Association-sponsored events across the state, and at other races around the Midwest.
“My brothers were all older than me, and they all played sports,” she added. “Football, basketball, baseball, hockey. So I competed too.”
But in sixth grade Huff’s family moved. Pastor Huff had received a call to a church in Ann Arbor. It was his fourth assignment.
“There, I continued to skate, now with the Wolverine Club (based out of Detroit). I ran with the Michigamme Club, and we were coached by (Kenneth) ‘Red’ Simmons.”
Born in 1910, Simmons was a football and track star at Redford High School in Detroit, then at Michigan Normal College (now Eastern Michigan University) before serving 25 years with the Detroit Police Department. Upon retirement Simmons, along with his wife, formed “The Michigammes,” a women’s track club designed to allow girls to compete. In 1976, he was named the first coach in the history of women’s track and field at the University of Michigan.
Huff never missed a beat, winning more than a dozen state age group championships between 1973 and 1976.
“I attended Slauson,” she continued. “That fed into Ann Arbor Pioneer. Back then, it was the only high school in Ann Arbor that had 9th grade. I liked that. You go there you’re the little kid, running with the older ones, trying to keep up. You’re able to keep a low key. I wasn’t very big, and the uniform was sliding down my shoulders. My Mom took it to a seamstress and had mine altered so it would fit.
“My parents never pressured me. My participation was never assumed. Each year, my Dad would ask me a question, ‘Beth, do you want to run again?’ I did - I loved to run. I’d sleep in my shorts and shirt, wake up in the morning, slip on my shoes and run before class. Because of Fleet Feet and The Michigammes, I’d run hundreds and hundreds of races before I got to high school. I knew I was pretty good, but I always liked to be kind of unknown.”
Flying under the radar didn’t last long. By season’s end, Huff, along with sophomore Dana Loesche, had emerged as the team’s top runners.
“After my freshman year, people suggested I run between cross country and track seasons,” Jurgensmeyer recalled. “I told them, ‘I skate in the winter.’”
Now coached by Scott Hubbard, Huff was Pioneer’s top runner as a sophomore and led the cross country team through a stellar year.
Hubbard had run in high school for Ann Arbor Huron and later at Eastern Michigan University. Many today know Hubbard as the longtime voice of the Detroit Marathon. “Beth was very, very good. She was just average size, but she was whippet fast,” he said. “(But) at the state level, cross country for girls was not a sport sponsored by the MHSAA in 1977.”
Yet since 1975, an unsanctioned state championship was hosted in Michigan. In both 1975 and 1976, the event was held at Ann Arbor Pioneer. The 1977 event was run at Potterville High School in November. A total of 370 runners from 105 schools competed in the meet, a substantial increase from the 243 runners that had participated a year previous. Miriam Boyd of Port Huron, one of Michigan’s all-time great prep distance runners, finished with the top individual time, followed by Carol Schenk of Flint Kearsley and sophomore Huff. Crosstown rival Ann Arbor Huron ended the day with the team honor, while Pioneer finished third in Class A.
“It was different then,” said Jurgensmeyer, laughing. “My Mom would make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. On race days there would be two oranges and a Hershey bar. Now, they’d tell you that all that sugar would not be the best thing for you. After a race, you’d go to the car, grab a clean shirt, go to the awards ceremony and go home. My Dad, he couldn’t really watch many races. Saturday’s were busy, as he had weddings or prepared for Sunday. Sometimes, when I would run, he’d be there standing with four or five others from church, as they prepared to go to a meeting. He couldn’t stay the whole race, and that was OK.”
“While in Ann Arbor I met a man, John McCravey, who was in medical training at the University of Michigan,” Jurgensmeyer remembered. “He was one of the people who really wasn’t afraid to offer something other than praise. ‘Beth, your arm swing is awful!’ It was nice to hear criticism. I could get better.”
Today, Dr. John McCravey still practices in Tennessee.
“I had come to U of M for a one-year residency. I had run at Dartmouth, and coached while going to med school in Memphis. In Ann Arbor, I worked with Elmo Morales, the founder of the Ann Arbor Track Club. We started age group cross country. The running boom was on, and Ann Arbor was a hotbed. Beth was older than many of the pupils in the program, and clearly a lot better than most at that point. We became running pals. (Because of) the skating, she had great endurance.”
The pair logged hours in the streets of Ann Arbor, including time during the brutal winter of 1977-78.
“We talked the whole time. As a coach, it’s great when you can run with a student. You can see what they’re doing, feel the biomechanics, and offer advice. ”
In Class A in the spring of 1978, Huff finished second to Boyd in the two-mile at the MHSAA’s sixth annual Girls Track and Field Meet. In the fall, Huff, now a junior, earned Michigan’s first Lower Peninsula Open Class cross country individual championship.
Seven months later, Huff would win the two-mile in track. Only, it wouldn’t be in Michigan.
In December 1979, the Huff family left Ann Arbor for Janesville, Wisconsin, as her father accepted a new assignment.
At Craig High School, Huff again joined the cross country and track teams and quickly emerged as their top runner. Her 10:53.19 time at the Division 1 Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association championship meet set a new state mark. During her senior year in Wisconsin, a case of mononucleosis and a stress fracture set her back, and impacted her running seasons.
Her next move was on to college, where she ran for the University of Tennessee. There, she competed in the 10,000 meters. After college, she married, had kids, and stopped running competitively. After returning to Midland, she resumed speed skating, and introduced her kids to the sports she loved. She coached them as far as she could.
Jurgensmeyer’s son, Ryan Bedford, excelled in cross country at Midland High School before hanging up the shoes to focus on speed skating. He was a 2009 world champion and a member of the 2010 Olympic team. Daughter Kristin also excelled as a runner and speed skater. Beth’s oldest son stayed with the more traditional sports of football and basketball.
Reflecting back on her years as an athlete and as a coach, she added, “Today, parents are overly involved. It’s so high-pressure so early that kids become miserable. Research shows if you start specializing kids too young in one sport, they will be done by age 18. I always wanted my kids to try all sorts of sports and not just specialize. Just let kids fall. Let them get dirty.”
“Really, women’s sports are the best thing to ever happen to sports,” said Hubbard, remembering the long haul involved in opening up those opportunities to the girls. “I was so fortunate to be witness to that. The world is really much richer because of it.”
Ron Pesch has taken an active role in researching the history of MHSAA events since 1985 and began writing for MHSAA Finals programs in 1986, adding additional features and "flashbacks" in 1992. He inherited the title of MHSAA historian from the late Dick Kishpaugh following the 1993-94 school year, and resides in Muskegon. Contact him at [email protected] with ideas for historical articles.
PHOTOS: (Top) Ann Arbor Pioneer's Beth Huff, right, runs just ahead of South Lyon's Cheryl Scheffler during the Ann Arbor Greenhills Invitational in 1978. (Middle top) Huff, second row and third from right, was a freshman on the 1976 near-undefeated Pioneer cross country team that lost only to Livonia Stevenson. (Middle below) In this clip from the Detroit Free Press' Sunday magazine, Huff is shown running in Ann Arbor with Pete Hallop, far left, and Mike Lutz, who went on to play bass for rock group Brownsville Station. (Below) Huff, top row second from right, starred as well for Pioneer's 1979 cross country team, winning the first MHSAA individual championship in the sport. (Photos courtesy of Beth Huff.)