The McGowan

This is another in the Sunday Story series – no politics here, just the story of a tradition, started half a century ago.

Small Town

It was fifty years ago, in 1974.  A young graduate of Western North Carolina State University in Cullowhee came back home to Pataskala, Ohio.  He became the gym teacher at Etna Elementary, the track coach at his alma mater, Watkins Memorial High School, and he revived the cross country running program there.  John McGowan brought a “kid-centered” attitude to coaching.  His teams became families, tied both to John and each other, some for life.  And as part of their cross country experience, he started a small invitational, just a few teams competing the then-two mile distance. Only boys ran,  girls “couldn’t” run that far, it was thought. They went around the Future Farmers of America (FFA) cornfield behind the new middle school, and into the school woods to run a “short” loop and finish beside the “old” high school.

John was one of the early advocates for women in both cross country and track.  Within three years, there was a girls race at the “Watkins Invitational”, and by 1978 girls cross country was an “official” sport, sponsored by the Ohio High School Athletic Association.  Watkins had a girls team from the beginning. 

 Developments

The length of the race increased, first to two and a half miles, then to the present three miles, 176 yards (3.1 miles or, more exactly, 5000 meters).   The path in the woods was extended too.  If you “know” the woods at Watkins, the two mile path is the “middle school loop”, the two and a half mile path is the “long loop”, and the 5000 meter path is the “super loop”, the same course run today.  John literally built the “super loop” in the early 1980’s, with the help of a local bulldozer operator doing other work around the school.

A lot has changed in fifty years.  The FFA cornfield is now the “rugby pitch”, there’s a baseball field beside it, and the middle school became the high school and now is back to a middle school again.  There’s a new football and track stadium, a soccer stadium and an athletic building with lots of locker rooms and restrooms. It’s a good thing.  The cornfield next to the starting line that used to “relieve” that problem, is now a housing development.

And just this year, they are building a new elementary school on the same site, where the races used to start.  Off the “back” of the super loop woods, there’s a whole new campus, with a new high school and intermediate school (grades four and five).  But the Watkins Invitational still remains on the second Saturday of September.  

The McGowan

But it’s not called the Watkins Invitational anymore.  Twenty-one years ago it was renamed in honor of John McGowan, the “McGowan Invitational at Watkins”, or in Ohio cross country shorthand, “The McGowan”.  And it’s not just a few teams and a single race or two.  Yesterday there were sixteen races, boys, girls, high school, middle school; varsity and reserve.  2,600 kids participated in the meet this year, down from a decade ago, but still one of the biggest meets in the state.  

And on the finish line, “welcoming” kids at the end of the race, was John McGowan.  Welcoming is probably not quite the right word for what happens.  The runners finish;  some “high five” in celebration, some fall over from exertion, some throw up.  As one middle school Dad asked his kid after the race; “Do you still have that beef jerky I gave you to eat?” “No, Dad, I already ate it before the race.”  For most kids, they don’t know the “old guys” at the finish line – they’re just glad to be done, to have tested themselves against the distance, the heat, the roots in the woods and the other competitors in their race. 

They ran “the McGowan”, a unique race in today’s modern cross country world.  Most races today are around athletic fields, closely monitored by carts at the front and back.  But at Watkins, two-thirds of the race is still on that “super loop”, running through the paths among the trees.  Sure, the old creek-crossing now has a full bridge, and there’s a beautiful walkway over the path through the “wetland” (we used to call it the swamp).  There are a lot of folks who contributed time and effort to improve the place.  But the “essence” of the “McGowan” is what John himself planned.

Family

I’ve been a part of the Watkins cross country family for all but the first four years.  While I’m now one of those “old guys” on the finish line, I also help “put out fires” so that the current coaches can coach their kids.  So at one point yesterday, among the thousands of kids and thousands of spectators, I got to go back in the woods to “switch” paths for the shorter middle school races.  With all of the surging, cheering crowds out in front, there still was quiet in the woods.  I ran into other “old coaches”, almost “ghosts of cross country past”, and a couple that I think I had a conversation with last year in the very same place.  One of my runners from two decades ago was sitting on a log, waiting for her kid to run by.

But most of all, there was the calm of the woods, followed by the sound of three hundred feet skipping across the hard dirt path, then the labored breathing of competition.  Finally the leaders came into view, focusing on the path, the competitors, and their own efforts.  

The fiftieth “McGowan” is in the books.  There’s a whole new cross country family with “new” coaches (John Jarvis has been coaching since the 1990’s).  But we all still cherish what John McGowan started fifty years ago.  Sure there’s the races, and the woods; but most importantly, there’s the family.  That’s John’s biggest accomplishment, a half-century later.  

The Sunday Story Series

Author: Marty Dahlman

I'm Marty Dahlman. After forty years of teaching and coaching track and cross country, I've finally retired!!! I've also spent a lot of time in politics, working campaigns from local school elections to Presidential campaigns.