Brassy & Loud

The rumor had been circulating for decades, neither confirmed nor denied.

So dominant was the Glenwood boys track team in the 1980s, and early 1990s coaches routinely printed up that year’s Hawkeye 8 Conference Champions T-shirts prior to the conference meet.

It is rumor no more.

“Oh yeah, it’s true,” said Leonard Griffith, former coach and architect of the Glenwood track program from 1979 to 1990. “Hell, we’d put them on sometimes with four events to go. We were brassy and loud but we backed it up.”

From 1983 to 1992, the Glenwood boys track team won 10 straight conference titles. In that “decade of dominance” the Rams won back-to-back state championships in 1989 and 1990, in dramatic fashion in the final events at Drake Stadium now 30 years ago.
T-shirts hardly covered the Rams’ dominance – and overwhelming confidence – in that era.

“We had a big boom box and we’d play ‘We Are the Champions,’” said Chris Roenfeld, a sprinter on the 1989 and 1990 teams. “That really sticks out to me because we were just so dominant we’d play it halfway through the track meet because we knew we were going to blow everybody out of the water.”

Mark Starner was well aware of the Rams’ dominance in track and field despite never having competed against them. Starner, a 1989 Sidney graduate, watched their dominance from afar.

“I wished we could have competed against them, we didn’t run against many of the big schools back them,” said Starner, who has served as the Glenwood boys track head coach since 1999. “Seeing the names and some of the numbers they were putting up, you were kind of in awe. I never saw them in person but I’ve seen video. It was a dynasty. When you heard ‘Glenwood’ you thought track and wrestling.”

Records are spotty on meet victories throughout the years, but the way Starner understands it, the Rams did not lose a single regular season meet in that 10 year period.

Glenwood didn’t get there by accident.

*   *   *

Leonard Griffith was a shop teacher.

He taught students to plan, use the tools they had and build their project. All skills that served him well as the Rams’ track coach when he took over the program in 1979.

At the time, Glenwood had little sports success to speak of in what was then the Hawkeye 8 Conference. A Glenwood boys team had won the conference just once in any sport  (baseball in 1973) in the entire decade of the 1970s, according to Griffith. The boys track team had never won their signature Ram Relays nor had they finished higher than fourth in the conference meet.

“It was at a pretty low point at the time,” said Griffith. “It was a solid build up to those championship years.”

The school’s lack of a sports culture in those early years was a result of its smaller enrollment and low expectations, Griffith said.

“They hadn’t been winning so there wasn’t much expectation to win,” he said. “So, there wasn’t much work being put in.”
That would change quickly.

Griffith’s first task was flipping the Rams’ philosophy. He applied a team first approach that revolved around a singular idea: outwork everyone.

“By outwork we meant in conditioning but it also meant in technique,” he said. “By the end of the field events and the hurdles we wanted to be so far ahead no one could catch us. That would only come from lots and lots of extra work on the specialties.”

That paid dividends almost immediately when Jim Holmes topped the field in the discus at the 1979 state track meet. The Rams had gone a decade without even a place winner at state prior to Holmes’ gold, Griffith said.

But it was a process building the team success that would define the era. The Rams placed sixth at the conference meet that first year. They followed that up with a fourth place finish in 1980 and back-to-back second place finishes in 1981 and 1982.

The following year, Griffith’s fourth at the helm, the Rams broke through, winning the school’s first conference title and kicking off what’s long been dubbed the Rams’ decade of dominance on the track. Griffith had a hand in nine of those conference titles.

“It was a really big deal at the time and people don’t know it nowadays, but Glenwood was just not really good at boys’ sports in those days,” he said. “So, to be dominant at the top of the conference like that was really an achievement.”

As a coach – whether as the head coach or assistant coach – Griffith was part mad scientist, part master motivator. If he had not chosen education one gets the impression sales would have served Griffith well.

He sold his athletes on his “out-work everyone” philosophy – even if they weren’t fans of the practices and intensive training it required.

Every practice began with an intense push-up session before the actual track and field practice began.

“We did a whole bunch of strenuous stuff right off the bat to get them into the mood to work,” he said.

Pushing his athletes hard while maintaining a balance to their competitive edge was key.

Every former boys track athlete who spoke to The Opinion-Tribune for this story agreed: practices certainly were not fun. Terms like,

“physically and emotional demanding,” “intense and grueling” and “death march” were all thrown about.

“If we made practices really hard then when we’d go to meets we’ll be winning and that will be fun,” Griffith said.

“Griff knew how to balance the demand of pushing us physically but he also knew how to work us psychologically,” said Craig Mitchell, a 1991 graduate and reserve hurdler on the both state championship teams. “He had really good ways of figuring out how to motivate us.”

One of those ways was post-meet laps – as in, the coach would tell his team to go run laps after a meet they just won.

“So, everyone who just got beat by Glenwood is getting on their buses and watching Glenwood do their practice after the meet,” Mitchell said.

When the Rams competed in pre-season indoors meet, they would practice indoors. But when the outdoor meets approached, every practice moved outdoors – rain or shine.

Craig Prindle, a star hurdler on the 1989 team, recalls one practice early in his senior season that was particularly rainy, windy and bitterly cold. Griffith held the entire two-hour workout outside.

“We have a meet Tuesday and it’s predicted to be rainy and cold and windy so while everyone is staying sheltered in and working out inside their gyms, we’re going to go out and get used to the elements,” Prindle recalls Griffith saying.

“He said it would pay dividends and sure enough, every time it would play out there was a track meet with terrible weather, you had the confidence that you had pushed yourself through it before,” Prindle added.
    
*   *   *

Few coaches give up their head coaching title to concentrate more on coaching.

But that’s exactly what Griffith did following the 1985 season. He stepped down as head coach and encouraged first year assistant Jim Whitcomb, one of his former runners, to take the head coach title.

Griffith had grown weary of the paperwork and logistics side of running the program. But he loved the coaching.

Whitcomb’s response: “Are you crazy?”

“I had never even been a paid coach before,” Whitcomb said. “Griff was one of those guys who could sell you on anything. He said, ‘You can keep doing what you’re doing but I’m stepping down as head coach.’ I was like ‘Really? This is how it is?’ It seemed ridiculous but that was how I became head coach.”

Whitcomb, a 1978 Glenwood graduate, took over as head coach in the 1986 season with Griffith as the assistant coach.

“He was good at a lot of the stuff I wasn’t,” Griffith said. “It really freed me up to work with the field events and specialties. It really worked out well for us.”

The role switch energized both coaches.

“I have to give all the credit in the world to Leonard Griffith,” Whitcomb said. “His first cross country meet was my first cross country meet as a freshman. He was a master motivator who loved to win. He always asked questions and knew the right buttons to push.”
While running cross country at Northern Iowa, Whitcomb kept in touch and traded training tips with his former coach. When he graduated he accepted a teaching position in Glenwood with the hopes of someday joining the track coaching staff.

“He knew how to get the most out of people. It was going strong when I got back and it was a pretty fun era,” Whitcomb said.
Dan Jones joined the staff a few years later. He and Whitcomb were co-head coaches – with Griffith as the assistant coach – for both the 1989 and 1990 state title teams.

Whitcomb shared Griffith’s philosophy. Their coaching styles and skillsets dovetailing just as Glenwood was taking off in track.

Practices were grueling, Whitcomb agreed. By design, he added. Meets were to be almost a relief from practices.

He recalls one particular practice in the mid-1980s when a freshman asked, “Why are you punishing us?”

“We had to make them realize this isn’t a punishment, it’s how you get better,” Whitcomb said. “It does seem really grueling and it takes a lot, so not everybody bonded right away, they didn’t all connect those dots right away.”

The incremental improvement in connecting those dots between hard work and success began to percolate on the big stage in 1986 when the Rams finally broke through at state and placed fifth as a team, matching its best state outdoor finish in school history.

By the late 1980s, the Rams were unabashedly cocky, according to Scott Gillespie, a medal-winning high jumper on the 1989 and 1990 teams.

“We’d won It seven years in a row going into my senior year,” he said. “We dominated and everyone had the attitude that we were going to win. Everybody bought in. That’s culture. Even if you have somebody on the team that’s not up to par, and they’re on a relay team or something, it’s going to raise them up too. It’s was psychological.”

“It really did become a culture,” Whitcomb agreed. “We made it clear this was how it was going to be. It became a word of mouth thing: if you come out for track it’s going to be fun but it is hard work. It got easier as the years went along. It became an expectation.”

*   *   *

The Rams expected 1988 to be their year.

A senior laden roster, led by two-time shot put state champion and future NFL player Scott Davis, had all the makings of Glenwood’s first track state championship team.

It didn’t happen.

The Rams scored just 13 points – 10 coming from Davis – and finished in a disappointing 11th place.

“We clearly had a better team in 1988 than we did in 1989,” Whitcomb said, adding how let down the team was by the 1988 finish. “There were articles written about us being the favorites. We thought we were going to go in (to state) and win in it all. And it didn’t happen. Whatever could go wrong, went wrong. It was devastating.”

Entering the 1989 season, the Rams were perceived as being down. They had a handful of known commodities, high end athletes capable of scoring high finishes in the conference and state, but a lot of question marks.

“It was definitely a rebuilding year,” Whitcomb said of the 1989 season. “Even though we did well during the season it was a surprise to win it like we did. All those years of going to state and doing worse than we did during the season was always right there hanging on us.”

Prindle, the star hurdler and sprinter on that 1989 team, recalls prior to the track season sitting with a friend and fellow track athlete at Veteran’s Auditorium in Des Moines watching the Rams win the state wrestling title in 1989. He thought to himself: “This could me us.”

“This was our last shot for the seniors and we didn’t want to have that disappointment of graduating with a missed opportunity,” Prindle said.

After dominating the Hawkeye 10 in usual fashion, Glenwood won the district and qualified in 10 events at state. They would medal in six.

The foursome of Nick Carr, Chris Roenfeld, Jason Chambers and Prindle scored the winning points in the final event of state: the 4x400-meter relay. Prindle, who earlier had swept the hurdles by winning gold in the 110-meter highs and the 400-meter lows already, had a hand in 18 of Glenwood’s 37 points.

Prindle pointed to the Rams’ 4x200-meter relay team of Lance Landreth, Jeff Anderson, Chris Kates and Roenfeld that placed second earlier in the day as the table setter for the state title.

“That really took some of the pressure off us,” Prindle said. “You have to give them credit for coming in second. It gave us some added cushion. Griff already had known where we were in the team standings and what our minimum points had to be. We were the third qualifying team so it was really about holding our position and not giving it away.”

Griffith had a unique ability to dial his athletes into those big moments to get the best out of them, whether that be to calm one runner or light a fire under another.

Prior to the 4x400, Prindle recalls Griffith doing just that.

“It was this air of ‘relax guys, here’s the thing: we get third place, we’re going to celebrate as a team and take home that state title.’ He told us to be smart, to run our race and to stay calm,” he said.

Griffith doesn’t recall the specifics of that particular pep talk today. But he’s confident his runners knew the score.

“They knew what they had to do to win the meet,” he said. “And they just went out and did it. They trained hard enough and they had the confidence.”

Prindle crossed the finish line in third place. It was perhaps the most excited he’s ever been for third place in anything.

The six third place points vaulted Glenwood past Storm Lake 37-33 in the final Class 3A team standings to take home the 1989 title.

“It’s hard to put it into words,” Prindle said of those hazy, celebratory moments following the win. “There’s a little bit of relief in there. There’s elation. The one thing about our track team was we always celebrated and held our own from a conference standpoint. We were used to winning meets. To have that particular moment is one of my greatest life experiences.”

The Rams accepted the trophy with heavy hearts, however.

Four days earlier, teammate Sam Rupe was laid to rest following an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Whitcomb said the death of Rupe, a popular discus thrower on the team, put much of that state meet into perspective for the team.

“Some weren’t sure they even wanted to go (to state) and maybe they just wanted to be done,” Whitcomb recalled.

“We were in grieving process for our friend and teammate,” Prindle said. “That obviously weighed heavily on our minds. We carried him through that experience. He was in our thoughts. We did it for him as well as ourselves. It would have been great to have him there to celebrate with us.”
 
*   *   *

As dramatic as the 1989 finish was, Griffith had seen it coming.

“He had an ability to keep track of everyone’s scoring and what we needed to do in every race to get the points we needed,” Whitcomb said.

In 1989, the Rams knew prior to the final race they had to get third place or better to lock up a state title. Griffith wasn’t concerned.
“It really wasn’t that dramatic at all,” he said. “Of course, we had Craig Prindle anchoring, he won the 400-meter low hurdles and the 110 (meter) highs, he was an outstanding athlete, so we knew we were going to be okay in that race and we were. The next year was the crazy year.”

As for 1990, with the Rams entering as the marked team everyone was gunning for, Griffith agreed there was drama.

In 1990’s final race, again the 4x400-meter relay, the Rams had to win gold to lock up a second straight state title. Heading into the final race, Glenwood was in glut of five teams all within striking distance of the top spot. Anything less than gold and they’d place anywhere from second to fifth.

Roenfeld recalls Griffith routinely telling runners or relay teams exactly where each one would have to place for the team to win.

“He had it down,” Roenfeld said. “Every point at a state meet is big. He knew every point we needed. That was key for us. We did exactly what we needed to do to win.”

The 4x400 team that year consisted of Brant Johnson, Doug Jones, Scott Coflin and Roenfeld anchoring. The team had just the sixth fastest time among state qualifiers that year. But Roenfeld took the baton on the final lap with a sizable lead.

“Adel had a superstar anchoring,” Griffith said. “We ran ahead pretty good and got out of the congestion in the handoffs and Roenfeld got off clean. The Adel kid came all the way back. It was a hold your breath and hang on finish.”

Roenfeld can’t recall the Adel runner’s name but he remembers him bearing down.

“I think he ran something like a 48-second split and he nearly caught me,” Roenfeld said. “It was super close. The whole team kept me close enough and gave me the baton where I needed to be and I did whatever I had to do to win.”

The gold medal was the first of a sterling track career for Roenfeld. Perhaps none came in a bigger moment or with bigger stakes. He said he still gets goosebumps talking about that final race in front of a packed Drake Stadium crowd, a gold medal and a state championship on the line.

He was confident in the team and himself but that didn’t mean the nerves weren’t bubbling just under the surface for this sophomore running the biggest race of his life.

“It was a little hard to hear coach say, ‘If you win this race, you win the state meet.’ But there’s so many other things that could have gone wrong, with a botched handoff or a twisted ankle or getting caught up in the mix on the handoffs. Everything just worked out and we ended up winning.”

Glenwood medaled in six events that year – but won gold in just one: the 4x400. And every single point mattered. They nipped Alta-Aureila by a single point, 31-30. Just four points separated first and sixth place.

*   *   *

The 1989 and 1990 teams held a reunion last fall during homecoming.

The former teammates and coaches got together to reminisce and catch up, they shared war stories and watched some old video clips of their younger days on the track. Some of those athletes as well as Whitcomb and Griffith addressed the group. The state championship season dominated conversations but it was the fondness they all shared for Coach Griffith, and his vision, that brought them all to the reunion.

“Coach Griffith is never going to change,” Prindle said. “He never takes credit for it. We thank him for everything he did but he doesn’t accept it. He was the leader of this group. It was great to catch up with all those guys. When we’re around friends my wife gets tired of all the stories because she’s heard all of them so much. You can tell how much winning those two title back to back had on our lives.”

Griffith, who stepped down from coaching in 1990 but stayed on one more year as an unpaid consultant in 1991, went on to work in school administration. He never coached again. He’s retired now and living in Omaha.

He was touched by the warmth and the stories he heard about the life lessons they learned and what they got out of his coaching and his philosophy.

“First thing I told them at the reunion was they weren’t good, they were the best,” he said. “Back then everybody thought Harlan was such a power in football and they were. We had that same aura in track and field. No one thought they could beat us and that took some fight out of the other teams. There was a real aura that Glenwood was going to be better conditioned, better prepared, they’d never quit and they were going to win. And we did.”

Prindle still finds meaning in Coach Griffith’s words, over three decades later.
In particular, the words that came at a meet early in his Ram career when Prindle took a tumble on a hurdle and went down hard. He can still hear Griffith trademark voice.

“Get up and finish.”

“That has stuck with me my entire life,” Prindle said. “It’s as crystal clear today as it was then.”
Prindle did get up. He not only finished the race, he won it.

That advice from his coach came into play again when Prindle was laid off from his job in St. Louis due to the downturn in the economy as a result of the COVID-10 pandemic.

“It’s another one of those times where there’s an obstacle or hurdle in my life and I hear, ‘Get up.’ Have the confidence to get up and do what you know you can do and follow through. Coach always talked about always finishing the race. If you’re capable, you still finish. You just never know.”

Prindle got up and began a new job in fitness equipment sales Monday.

“That’s what’s rewarding about all this,” Griffith said. “To hear the kids, talk about the life lessons they learned from the Ram track philosophy of setting a goals and working towards it and being dedicated, that’s carried with them. So many of them are very successful and I’m proud of them.”