By Michael Newman

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It is the struggles within the journey that makes achieving a goal all the worthwhile. York High School’s Matt Plowman can attest to that. The senior stepped into the national spotlight by winning the 1600 Meter Run last Friday at the Kansas Relays. The win by Plowman also qualified him for the adidas High School Dream Mile at the New York Grand Prix meet this June where he will run against some of the top milers in the United States.

It was one of the goals of Plowman for this track season. That goal did not come that easy. You could call it steady perseverance by Plowman that got him to the point where he is right now.

He stepped into the spotlight during last spring’s track season earning all-state honors by finishing fifth in the 800 Meter Run at the IHSA 3A State Finals. Five days later, he earned some national acclaim by running 4:09.13 to finish sixth in the 1 Mile Run at the Festival of Miles in St. Louis. The spotlight faded during the cross country season where he did not have the season he wanted to battling illness throughout the latter part of the year. He still ended up finishing 30^th at the 3A State Meet at Detweiller Park. He was one of the reasons York finished third the following week at the Nike Midwest Regionals in Terre Haute.

The setbacks during the fall made his focus towards his goals a little more resolute during this track season.

“One of my goals for this season was to run in the Dream Mile in New York at the end of the season,” Plowman said. “We thought this would be the easiest way to get the qualifier and get that out of the way. So I entered and ran in the Kansas Relays.”

“This was Matt Plowman’s idea. As a smart young man out there researching and finding out what other people were doing, he discovered that the Kansas Relays was an automatic qualifier for the Dream Mile in New York City,” York Track & Field Head Coach Charlie Kern said.  “We just had to start the process of how to make it happen and all the rules of the IHSA and a coach has to go.  We made sure that we had the approval of the IHSA and made sure that all the “I’s” were dotted and the “t’s” were crossed. It took a little while but it all worked out.”

Normally, you would not see a York athlete compete away from their team during the track season. There have been occasions where members of the York team have been invited to high focus national meets. York decided at that time not to compete in those meets instead keeping the team together in meets within Illinois. It was a little different this season for Plowman.

“We owe it to all our athletes to provide them with the best opportunity,” Kern said. “We have a number of JV meets to give some of our kids that can’t run in the big meets on Friday night a chance to compete. In Matthew’s case, he went above and beyond as he has done everything for his team running 3 ½ miles at our indoor conference meet to try to help us win. I felt it was important for me to give him the opportunity where he could be in a situation to find out how fast he is in certainly a sweet meet.”

Approvals from Ron McGraw of the IHSA and York’s Athletic Director Rob Wagner were needed first. A week before the Kansas Relays, those approvals were granted and Plowman would be on his way to Lawrence, Kansas. There would be one more curve ball that Plowman would have to encounter. He was scheduled to run his race Saturday around noon. Kansas Relays organizers changed the schedule due to severe weather that would be hitting the area on that Saturday. Plowman found out Thursday night, less than 48 hours before his race was supposed to go off, that the meet schedule would be changed. He would now be running on Friday evening near 6:00 PM.

“We decided it was best that we follow the schedule that we had planned and leave Friday morning,“ York assistant Coach Jim Hedman said. Hedman would be going with Plowman on this trip. “He wanted to sleep in his own bed the night before the meet. We just left a little earlier (5 AM).

“We were supposed to leave Friday morning at 8 AM and then we found out that they had changed the schedule,” Plowman added. “We had to leave at 5 AM Friday morning. It was an adjustment for sure. But everyone had to go through it. I was not too nervous about that effecting the race at all.”

Kern gave his runner some simple advice before he headed to Kansas. “Run fast and turn left,” he told him. “You don’t get too many opportunities like this so take advantage of it.”

The two arrived at the meet a little more than three hours before he was scheduled to race. It gave them a chance to get comfortable and familiar with the area. All that was needed to do was get ready for the race. Plowman had a little motivation to give him that extra push besides the carrot of the adidas meet hanging in front of him. Even though his time from last season in St. Louis was the fastest seed time, he was not mentioned in the pre-race forecast. Runners like Ben Barrett (Norman OK), Thomas Pollard (Ames IA), and Stuart McNutt (Overland Park KS) were mentioned. All Plowman had on his resume so far this season was a 1:59 in the 800, 4:23 in the 1600, and 9:28 in the 3200. All happened in the same WSC-Silver race in March. It showed what Plowman had in his racing tank.

“It gave me a little fire. I saw some of the previews and that I was not mentioned. I was a little mad about that,” Plowman said with a grin.

The race pace couldn’t worked out any better for the York runner. Pollard took the pace out hard running the first 400 in 61 seconds. Plowman was a couple of seconds back but moved up to snuggle in on Pollard’s shoulder. The pack behind Plowman followed suit. 2:07 at the 800 and 3:12 with 400 to go worked almost perfectly for Plowman. Even though Pollard started to pull away going into the back stretch, Plowman’s confidence was showing as he just waited and waited.

Bryce Richards (Mundelein IL) made a move to try to pass Plowman with around 250 meters to go. Plowman reacted to Richards’ move and upped his pace taking the lead. He glanced back coming down the home stretch to see if there was anyone close to him. There was not.

Usually when Plowman crosses the line in first, there is no celebration. There is focus in his eyes knowing that the race that he just ran will serve him in future races. When he crossed the line in this race, the reaction was the exact opposite. His arms raced in the air as he broke the tape. A smile spread across his face knowing that he had achieved one of his goals. A 59.4 final 400 meters, a 28 second final 200 brought him across the line in 4:11.43. His race win earned him Boys Athlete of the Meet.

“It was a good race. It was a little slower going through the 1200 in 3:12. It was very comfortable,” Plowman said. “I was looking down to see if there were any shadows coming up on me. I was just trying to grit it out. I was just so excited to punch my ticket to New York that I had to celebrate just a little bit.”

“At first, he was looking around seeing if anyone was around him. He just could not believe that he had done it,” Hedman said. “It was a dream. It was something that he had thought about. He had seen himself doing it going there. But to actually have your dream come true in front of you right there. He had his hands up looking around going I really just did this.”

Barrett finished second more than a second behind. Richards finished third giving the Illinois runners a 1-3 finish. It was something that was not predicted beforehand on paper. That is why races are run on the track and not in some computer simulation or paper prediction. Add the 1-4 finish that Jesse Reiser (McHenry IL) and Zach Dale (Hoffman Estates IL) had the week before in the 3200 Meter Run at the Arcadia Invitational in California shows that Illinois distance runners will have some kind of a say in what happens on the national distance scene by the end of the season.

Plowman achieved one of his goals this season in qualifying for the adidas race in New York. He still has more goals to knock down. He was a part of York’s 3A state championship team last year in Charleston. The mention of that shows in his eyes that he wants to get back on that stage at the end of May. Last year, he was just one of the cogs on that team. Now that he is a senior, he is one of the leaders and examples on this squad. If York also has a successful season in cross country this fall, even though he will be attending school at the University of Michigan, his leadership that he has exhibited to the younger York runners could be one of the reasons why.

It had not always been that way for Plowman. The maturation process of being in the York program has put him in that position.

“He is honest about this too. His freshman year and part of his sophomore year I would get e-mails and calls from his teachers all of the time about how he was disrespectful and always kidding around in class,” said Hedman. “We sat down with him one day and said it was great to be an athlete but we also want you to leave here (York) as a good person. We started talking what you want to do and how you want people to look at you. The best thing to happen is for a person that you look up to and comes up to you and notices what you do. He has been receptive to it and run with it.

“He is a great kid,” Kern added. “He is not a saint. He is human. He has made so many positive strides forward in the last year. It has been really cool to watch. That is the evolution of a human being to mature and figure out how to leave a positive legacy. That is what he was doing. He’s not finished yet.”

York’s team participated in the Bud Mohns Invitational last Saturday at Downers Grove South High School. Just before the start of the race, Plowman showed up to cheer on his teammates that were competing at this meet. It meant leaving Kansas at 5AM just so that he could get back on time to watch the meet.  It was something he wanted to do.

Even though at the beginning of the track season, it was tough to picture York defending its state championship, especially with the number of athletes that graduated. The journey so far this season has brought them to a position where they will be in the mix for a team trophy in Charleston this May. One of the reasons why is the journey that Plowman has been on.

Watch the full Matt Plowman interview here.