Saturday, May 26, 2007 1:12 AM CDT
Our View: Championship tradition continues today
By the JG/T-C Editorial Board
editorial@jg-tc.com
What does legendary football player Red Grange have in common with Mike Simpson?
Both were 100-yard dash champions at the Illinois High School Association Boys State track Meet.
Grange was state champ in 1921 before going on to University of Illinois and Chicago Bears fame.
Simpson, from nearby Casey, was a back-to-back winner, in 1977 and 1978.
Memorial Day weekend, the first holiday of summer, also marks the end of the high school track season in Illinois.
Thousands of high school boys have converged on Eastern Illinois University again this weekend. And today is the final day of the Illinois High School Association Boys State Track and Field Championships, the culmination of months of dedication for those who are talented and fortunate enough to reach this level.
It’s the place where memories are made.
The Charleston and Mattoon communities have hosted this quality event every year but one since 1972.
While the boys meet was around for about 75 years before the first girls meet at EIU in 1973, the boys state meet also has grown in the years since it first settled at EIU’s O’Brien Stadium.
My, how it has grown.
This weekend, more than 2,000 boys from almost 600 high schools in all corners of the state of Illinois are competing.
In addition to football legend Red Grange, other state champions of Illinois high school track have included Ralph Metcalfe, who ran in the 1932 and ‘36 Olympics and later was a member of the U.S. Congress.
Dike Eddleman of Centralia and University of Illinois fame, distance runner supreme Craig Virgin of Lebanon and pro football stars Bill Brown of Mendota, Mike Pyle of Winnetka and Dave Butz of Park Ridge Maine South all were IHSA state track champs.
So were Dale Dilley of Tower Hill in Shelby County, which no longer has a high school, and Biggsville.
Dilley of Tower Hill won the 220-yard dash in 1939 while tiny Biggsville in western Illinois, just a few miles from the Mississippi River, won back-to-back team titles in 1899 and 1900, breaking the string of team championships won by schools from Chicago, Peoria, Urbana and Aurora.
The newest class of champions will be determined today. Finals in both the small school and large school classes begin late this morning at EIU’s O’Brien Stadium.
And O’Brien Stadium is an excellent facility for track. Because thousands of spectators pack the stands just a few feet from the action on the track, the atmosphere is as electrical as any summer storm when competitors head out of the last turn toward the finish line.
We believe the Charleston-Mattoon area and Eastern Illinois University have been good for high school boys track, and the IHSA state track meets certainly have benefited the community.
We are happy to host the IHSA Boys State Track and Field Championship here and we look forward to many more years of hosting this event which creates lifelong memories for thousands of young athletes and their families.
JG/T-C Editorial Board
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