Health Challenges Can't Ground Dobies
By
Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half
May 18, 2016
MACOMB TOWNSHIP – Look at Kayla Dobies and one can see a vibrant young woman with an engaging personality that locks on to those around her.
Look at Dobies’ accomplishments, athletically and academically, and one will marvel at her ingenuity and perseverance.
Hidden are ailments that would prevent a lesser person from achievements that flow from Dobies in a variety of forms.
Dobies, 18, is a senior at Macomb Dakota and has been accepted to Princeton University. In addition to her studies, Dobies plans on competing collegiately in cross country and track and field. The high jump is her best event – her best is a jump of 5 feet, 7 inches. But she is also a fine distance runner. Dobies placed eighth in Lower Peninsula Division 1 her freshman season in the high jump and was all-state again her junior season as she placed fourth in the 800-meter run.
Her best cross country time is 18:27, a school record. She qualified for the MHSAA Finals in cross country her junior and senior seasons but failed to place. The reasons will become obvious later.
For six years she practiced taekwondo and holds a first and second degree black belt in the sport.
As a junior she started a robotics team at Dakota, but did not compete. Although Dakota did not fare well in the state competition this year, the team competed at the world championships, a four-day event held in late April, in St. Louis, and won. The name of the team is the Thunder Chickens, and among Dobies’ responsibilities was as an assistant mechanic. When one of the machines broke down, she would assist in fixing it, thus earning the nickname, ‘Baby Chicken’.
Dobies has a 4.07 grade-point average entering her final semester and scored a 33 on her ACT. She was named a winner this winter of the MHSAA/Farm Bureau Insurance Scholar-Athlete Award and was one of six finalists for the recently-awarded Detroit Athletic Club Female High School Athlete of the Year.
She plans on entering the pre-med program at Princeton and possibly majoring in neuroscience.
As impressive as is her list of accomplishments, Dobies often has had to miss competing because of her illnesses. Every day Dobies confronts them. She tries to hold them off with daily medication, and sometimes even that doesn’t work.
Topping this list, Dobies is an asthmatic. Offshoots are the allergies from which she suffers. She’s also anemic and suffers from hypoglycemia, a blood sugar disorder. She can’t eat candy. She can only consume pure sugar. And she can’t eat fast food or pizza, or other like fatty foods because of their trans-fatty acids.
It’s the pizza part that upsets Dobies most, even as that seems like one of the lesser obstacles she continuously must hurdle.
“I have every type of asthma you can imagine,” she said. “I use a breathing machine at night and two inhalers every day. I get allergy shots. I’m allergic to mites. I have to have special sheets on my bed to help prevent an attack.”
The attacks continue to occur. The reason she did not compete in robotics her junior year was her health. Most days, Dobies is fine. The medication she takes helps combat her diseases, but it’s not foolproof. When the seasons change, Dobies suffers most.
A leg injury kept Dobies from possibly making all-state in cross country her junior year, and this past November she suffered an asthma attack at the MHSAA Finals. Though cross country and running in general is one of her favorite sports, fall changing to winter is the worst season for Dobies.
“When others are improving their times, my times get worse,” she said. “I was in the hospital a couple of days during the cross country season. When I have an asthma attack, it’s not fun.”
Because of her condition, Dobies prefers to run in warm weather – the hotter the better. That’s why she’s hoping for warm weather, at least warmer weather, Saturday when Dakota competes at the Division 1 Track & Field regional at Warren Mott.
The spring didn't start well for Dobies. She suffered a pulled quadriceps (right leg) in the first meet of the season, and it wasn’t until three weeks ago that she could run the way she knows she can.
“I’m better now,” she said. “I’ve just got to get my times to drop.”
No one will doubt that she will. Dobies has always been highly motivated. This comes from her parents, Jeff and Jody Dobies, and she’s received a push from others including Dakota assistant track coach Tom Zarzycki. Jeff Dobies introduced his eldest daughter to soccer when she was 2 years old, and sports has been a big part of her life ever since.
“I watched the Olympics at Beijing and I saw the high jump,” she said. “I said, I can do that. So I asked my dad, what’s that? And he told me it was the high jump.”
Ever the inquisitive child, Dobies was inspired after viewing the Disney animated film “Mulan” to try martial arts.
“I’ve always liked sports,” she said. “I’m really, really passionate about everything. Take robotics and martial arts. I figure if you’re going to do something, do your best.
“Like running. I love to run. High jump is the reason I got into running. It gets down to a deep level. I just love running. I love running with my friends. I love running to compete.”
Whatever the task, whatever the challenge, anything Dobies dives into she gives it her best.
Her most recent project is experimenting with rats. It’s a class project, one she must complete to earn a grade. What she’s attempting to prove, with the aid of the rats, is that fear is innate.
“I’m still working on it,” she said. “I don’t expect to change the world.”
But she might.
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) Macomb Dakota's Kayla Dobies (14) rounds the bend ahead of three competitors during the 800 at last season's Lower Peninsula Division 1 Final. (Middle) Dobies stands with other Scholar-Athlete Award winners in March at the Breslin Center. (Top photo by Carter Sherline/RunMichigan.com.)
McBain Twins Geared Up for Last Finals
May 24, 2019
By Chris Dobrowolski
Special for Second Half
MCBAIN — It’s been said that records are made to be broken.
McBain twins Keegan and Klaudia O’Malley seem to have taken that notion to heart.
The seniors’ names are all over the school record books for track & field as they wind down their standout careers. Klaudia holds the all-time marks for the 800 meters (2 minutes, 17 seconds), 1,600 (5:04), 3,200 (11:06) and as an integral part of the Ramblers’ 3,200 relay team (9:57), while Keegan broke a 42-year-old school record in the 3,200 earlier this season in a time of 9:33, shaving five seconds off what had been the longest-standing boys track & field record on the school’s board.
“They hold all those distance records,” said McBain boys track & field head coach Pat Maloney. “Going down in history, they’re going to be talked about. People will be compared to them for years to come.
“It’s a lot of hard work behind the scenes. People don’t see how many miles they put in year after year after year.”
The O’Malleys certainly come by their running prowess honestly. Their father, Tim, has been the cross country coach at Cadillac for the past 18 years and has spent the last seven years as an assistant track coach at McBain. Their mother, Tasha, coaches cross country at McBain. Both parents have been active in competitive running as well, with Tasha having competed in multiple Boston Marathons among myriad other races.
“Our life pretty much revolves around running — in a fun way, not in a bad way,” said Tim O’Malley. “My wife raced a lot. I would just take the kids and pace them in the 5Ks that they wanted to run. They seemed to like it.”
The O’Malley children – including Maggie, the twins’ younger sister by two years – didn’t know any differently than being immersed in a running lifestyle.
“I’ve grown up with running,” said Klaudia.
Tim O’Malley jokingly says Keegan and Klaudia’s running careers actually began with running as a form of babysitting. Even when they were as young as 7 years old, the O’Malley twins would tag along with their father to practice. They attended cross country camps with the team, would run right along with the group, and even get to compete in open races following meets.
“I loved it and his team was so supportive, so I just got into it,” said Keegan.
Not only did the twins enjoy running, but it became quickly apparent that they were good at it too. Really good, in fact. Keegan and Klaudia started establishing school records in elementary school, and that continued as they moved into middle school and then high school. No one was surprised to see them become dominant runners at the high school level, to say the least.
“They hold all those distance records,” said Maloney. “People have been waiting for them to shine, and they haven’t disappointed by any means.”
Klaudia is the four-time Highland Conference champion in the 800 and 1,600, and a three-time winner of the 3,200 — she didn’t run that event this year. She has qualified for the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 3 Finals four times in the 1,600, three times with the 3,200 relay team, and twice each in the 800, 3,200 and with the 1,600 relay, earning all-state honors a total of six times across four events. She is qualified for the Finals in the 800, 1,600, 1,600 relay and 3,200 relay this season. Three of the four school records she holds came as a result of breaking her own record-setting times.
“Last year I didn’t feel as confident, but this year I feel a lot stronger and a lot more confident with my running,” said Klaudia. “It’s sweet to show, just because I’m from a small school, you can still have a lot of talent.”
Keegan is a three-time league champion in the 3,200 and twice has won the 1,600 and ran with the winning 3,200 relay. He also has four Regional crowns to his credit — twice winning the 3,200. He is qualified for the Finals in the 1,600, 3,200 and with the 3,200 relay. He battled an injury a year ago but has seemed to make up for any lost time with a dynamic senior season. That includes shattering Ron Eising’s school record in the 3,200 that had been around since 1977 with a stunning performance at the Shepherd Invitational that eclipsed Keegan’s personal best by 16 seconds.
“It was kind of like a dream come true because the guy who had the record (Eising) is very supportive of me,” said Keegan. “He came to the track and mentored me. Told me he wanted me to beat it. He wanted me to take after him. I put in a lot of training in the offseason, and I was really surprised when I got it, but I knew I could do it. I wasn’t terribly close. It was kind of a big PR (personal record).”
The twins will complete their high school careers at the Lower Peninsula Division 3 Finals at Jenison High School, then are taking their talents to Grand Valley State University in the fall. They say they are close and relish the idea of heading in the same direction for the next chapter of their careers.
“At first I didn’t really want to (go to the same school),” said Klaudia. “But senior year got going, and we got running together again. Now I’m glad I chose the same college as him. I’ll have a buddy there right away and I can still watch him and cheer him on at meets.”
Maloney has seen the work Keegan and Klaudia put into running, and he’s witnessed the records fall. He will be watching keenly to see how the O’Malleys perform at the collegiate level.
“They’re going to do a great job representing McBain, their family and northern Michigan runners,” he said. “I think they’ll be right in the heat of things for the next four years.”
Chris Dobrowolski has covered northern Lower Peninsula sports since 1999 at the Ogemaw County Herald, Alpena News, Traverse City Record-Eagle and currently as sports editor at the Antrim Kalkaska Review since 2016. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) The O’Malley twins, Klaudia and Keegan, run their respective events during last season’s Lower Peninsula Division 3 Finals. (Middle) Klaudia O’Malley, second from right, gets ready to start the 800. (Click to see more from RunMichigan.com.)