Reed City's Sami has Spring in her Step
June 6, 2012
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Sami Michell knows her starts could be better. And she's sure she can improve her arm position when she’s going over hurdles.
The Reed City junior is a self-admitted perfectionist. And she’s already thinking about next season.
The rest of Michigan should watch out.
Michell established herself as one of the top hurdlers in MHSAA history at Saturday’s Division 3 Final while becoming the first in Lower Peninsula girls history to win four events at a championship meet since Mason County Eastern’s Maria Shoup in 1979. And she’s got a few more goals she’d like to achieve before moving on to a future that's looking brighter with every stride.
"I'm always thinking about next year and what I want to do, the times I want to run -- even after I won four events Saturday," Michell said. "I want to run a faster 200 and get the Division 3 record, and I want to get the all-division record in the 100-meter hurdles. It's just not hard for me to think about it. I know there are things I don't do perfectly."
Michell gets a Second Half High 5 this week as arguably the brightest of an incredible group of stars who combined to break 19 meet records during Saturday's Finals.
She set Division 3 milestones in three events at Comstock Park – the 100 hurdles (13.84 seconds), 300 hurdles (42.23) and long jump (18-6.5). Her 300 hurdles time also broke the all-Finals record set by Benton Harbor’s Carolyn Ferguson in 1984.
The four championships gave her eight total with a season left to compete. She just missed winning four in 2011 as well – she finished runner-up in the 200, five hundredths of a second back. But her mom Vikki, also Reed City’s girls track and field coach, knew something special was coming long before Sami’s first high school competition.
At a youth meet when Michell was 10 or 11, she won the long jump – despite being so much smaller than her opponents that when she climbed to the top step of the medal stand, she still stood shorter than the runner-up next to her but a level below.
Soon after, Michell began pulling out her smaller 12-inch hurdles during her parents’ practices – dad Brent is the Reed City boys coach – and during seventh grade, she was able to switch from four-step to three-step hurdling. That step was a significant one in helping her go from good to great.
In her first high school race, Michell broke her mom’s school record in the 100 hurdles that had stood since 1987.
“She had made the finals (as a youth) but never won sprints. But I knew as a coach, if I could get her to love hurdles, with her speed, if she perfected her hurdling form, she’d go a long way,” said Vikki Michell, who also ran at Ferris State. “I never honestly dreamed she’d go (this far).”
In some key ways, Michell is a natural for hurdles and jumps. She’s 5-foot-8, but with more than half of her height in her legs. She’s pushing 30 inches in the vertical jump, good enough to touch the metal that connects the rim to the backboard on a basketball hoop. She’s been her volleyball team’s setter since freshman year, and this fall also began playing middle blocker.
But her rise to elite didn’t come without work to back up that talent – fueled by that aforementioned attention to detail.
Reed City is about two hours drive from the nearest indoor track facility, so Michell spends winters running the 75-meter straightaway of her school’s main hallway. The uncharacteristic warm winter allowed her to continue training on the school’s track into January, but often she competes in winter indoor meets to also take advantage of a rare opportunity to practice hurdles and long jump.
She’s also doing some heavy lifting, literally, taking a class daily and focusing on squats and other lifts that have increased her leg strength significantly over the last two years.
“She’s a dedicated person. She doesn’t do anything halfway, I can say, as both her coach and her mom,” Vikki said.
As a child, If Sami made any kind of mis-mark on a math assignment, she’d tear it up and start over – but got over that after realizing how much extra homework she was doing. She's ranked first academically in her class, with a 4.0, and for a long time she did everything she could extra to get 100 percent in every class. These days, she's decided she'll be good with a 95, as long as it still gets her an A.
She'll work on track skills with both parents, but does plenty of research on her own watching YouTube videos of the best from her sport.
Michell likes winning, like anyone else. But she's possibly more driven by distaste for losing.
"I get frustrated. Kinda disappointed and mad at the same time," she said.
"I guess I just hate losing when other people just think they're fast. It's so much fun to just beat them."
And she can do so in more ways than what she showed Saturday. Michell also is the fastest in school history in the 400 with a time of 56.83. She ran the 800 only once, in 2:24.9, and she’s run the 100 three times, the fastest in 12.39. Those 400 and 100 times also would've been good enough for first place at this Division 3 Final.
Clemson, Michigan State and Stanford are among those showing the most early interest in her post-high school plans, and she'll likely hear from many more when college coaches can contact her later this summer.
Click to read more about Michell's track family connection and future plans.
PHOTO: Reed City's Sami Michell (center) edged Bridgeport's Kimberly Balls (left) in the 200-meter race at the Division 3 Final at Comstock Park. (Photo courtesy of RunMichigan.com.)
Sargent Takes Charge as Elite Thrower
April 22, 2016
By Bill Khan
Special for Second Half
FLINT — If Nikole Sargent decided early on to specialize in her favorite sport, she never would've discovered her best sport.
Track and field, actually, ranked no higher than third on her list when she began competing in high school. She made the varsity volleyball team as a freshman at Linden in the fall of 2012, then made the Eagles' varsity basketball team in the winter.
"Basketball was the sport I thought I was going to go to in college," Sargent said. "Volleyball took over in my mind my sophomore year. I was going to play really high-level volleyball, so I gave up basketball and focused on track and volleyball."
Oh, yeah, track.
It's a good thing she kept that option open, because that's where she's really made a name for herself in high school and where she'll compete as a thrower for Michigan State University.
"My sophomore year, I got letters from schools about track," Sargent said. "I'm like, 'Oh, I never thought about this.'"
Sargent hit the radar of college track and field recruiters when she placed third as a freshman in the shot put in the 2013 MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 2 meet for Linden with a toss of 41 feet, 1.5 inches. After transferring the following school year to her parents' alma mater, Flint Powers Catholic, she took second in the shot put (41-3) and 10th in the discus (109-4) in Division 3.
When Powers moved up to Division 2 her junior year, Sargent was unaffected by the increase in competition. She won the MHSAA championship in the shot put, throwing 45-4.75.
It was a performance that mirrored that of her father, Mike, who won the shot put and discus for Powers in 1984 after the Chargers moved up from Class B to Class A. He was third in both events in Class B as a junior in 1983.
Nikole was already involved in three sports by her middle school years when her father, a tight end on MSU's 1988 Rose Bowl team, introduced her to shot put.
At first, she was underwhelmed.
"When I first threw the shot put in seventh grade," Sargent said, "I was like, 'Oh, my gosh, this is not for me. This is hard. I am not going to be good at this.' Then I went to my first meet and I ended up beating everyone by like 10 or 15 feet. I was like, 'OK, I guess I'll give it a shot.' That's when he really started working with me and said, 'You could be good at this.'
"It was something completely different than anything I'd ever done. I was a basketball player, a volleyball player, a soccer player. I was not a thrower, in my mind. Not until eighth grade did I think of myself as a thrower."
Sargent threw the six-pound shot 43-6 as an eighth grader. Her outdoor season bests throwing the 8.8-pound shot in high school have been 43-7.5 as a freshman, 42-6.5 as a sophomore, 45-6.25 as a junior and a school-record 47-0.75 as a senior.
In the Michigan Indoor Track Series state meet on Feb. 27, Sargent won the championship with a throw of 45-9. She topped a field that included defending MHSAA LP Division 1 champion Emily Meier of Canton and two other top-five finishers from last year's Division 1 meet.
While she already has an MHSAA shot put title on her resume, Sargent is determined to atone for a subpar performance in the discus last season. She was the second seed in the discus last spring with a toss of 132-11, but wound up 12th at 111-3 at the MHSAA meet.
"I threw really bad, so I'm kind of out for redemption this year," Sargent said. "I know I can throw a lot better, and I'm hoping to take a state title in that, as well. My practices have already been 10 times better than last year. Disc is all form. Pretty much throughout this last summer and the beginning of this season, I've just been working on form. I work on my form for 10, 20, even 30 minutes before I start throwing.
"I came in seeded second. When you end up taking (12th), it's not really something good, but you learn from every experience. I try to be a stronger person. I don't let pride get in the way or anything. It just makes you want to work harder."
Sargent has developed consistency in the discus early this season, clearing 130 feet in all three of her competitions. She did so only twice in 2015, both throws coming late in the season.
Sargent not only has the benefit of her father's throwing knowledge, but she's coached by Mike Stuart, one of the most successful throwing coaches in Michigan. Flint Carman-Ainsworth had the premier throwing program in the state when Stuart was an assistant coach with the Cavaliers.
"It helps a lot," Sargent said. "Obviously, he's had so much success. Working with him has brought this whole new world of throwing to me that I never imagined. He has a way of putting things that makes so much sense to me."
Stuart began working with Sargent before her junior year.
"She needed a lot of help," Stuart said. "I had to reteach her the discus the first summer that I met her. Her shot put technique was basically good; we just had to work on using the circle better. She has a 45-foot standing throw, which is off the charts. I've never even heard of that in high school. It's from having basic good throwing technique, and she's awfully strong for a girl; she bench-presses 210 pounds."
If Sargent needs advice on how to deal with the ups and downs of an athletic career, she doesn't have to look beyond the family dinner table.
In addition to her father's athletic background, twin brother Noah was the starting quarterback on Powers' MHSAA Division 5 runner-up football team in the fall and older sister Jordan is a defender on Oakland University's soccer team.
"My mom (Tracy) played sports, as well," Sargent said. "We grew up working out together. We were always watching a football game. Sports has always been a big part of my life. My twin brother and I have always competed against each other, even though we do different sports. We've always been that rival with each other. 'I'll shoot baskets with you if you'll toss the volleyball.'"
An accomplished athlete in her own right, Nikole relished taking on the role of cheerleader when her brother led Powers to Ford Field.
"I was the leader of our student section," she said. "I started all the cheers. I was always in the front row. That was an amazing memory."
Bill Khan served as a sportswriter at The Flint Journal from 1981-2011 and currently contributes to the State Champs! Sports Network. 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) Flint Powers' Nikole Sargent unloads the shot during a meet last season. (Middle) Sargent tosses the discus during the Earlybird meet at Flint Kearsley on April 13. (Photos courtesy of the Sargent family and Flint Powers athletic department.)