Sports - High Schools

POSTED: Wednesday, Nov. 04, 2009

PREP BOYS' CROSS COUNTRY: Squalicum's Gibson continues to run his race

As senior Danny Gibson prepares to represent Squalicum for the final time in a high school cross country race on Saturday, Nov. 7, at the Class 2A State Championships in Pasco, his coach, Peter Oviatt, took the opportunity to look back through his notes on Gibson's career.

"Last week when I was going over Danny's history, I started thinking back to when he was a sophomore, and I was an assistant with the team," Oviatt said in a phone interview. "I remember (then coach) Tim Irvin and I had a huge dilemma, because we had eight or nine runners, and we had to decide which ones to race at the district meet. Danny had battled a stress fracture throughout the season, and was just rounding into shape, so we decided to go with the guys we had running throughout the season.

"In hindsight, it was probably one of the biggest coaching blunders I've ever made. He was a bubble guy on a varsity team that was not that strong, but you know, he never questioned the decision."

Instead, Gibson bought into the program that Oviatt installed when he took over as head coach the next season, and Gibson's career and the fate of the Storm boys' program has taken off since.

For the second straight year, Squalicum finished third at the 2A Northwest District Meet to Sehome and Burlington-Edison on Saturday, Oct. 31, earning a spot in the state meet. The Storm also finished third to its NWC rivals at the state meet last year.

Gibson placed a team-high fifth at the district meet last weekend at South Whidbey with a time of 16 minutes, 41.28 seconds on the 5,000-meter course - more than 17 seconds faster than his 13th-place run a year earlier and only three seconds off what he ran at state last year.

"It's been special to be a part of this team's turnaround," Gibson said in a phone interview. "The team has gone from the bottom of the conference and district to competing with the stalwarts of the state in cross country - Sehome and Burl-Ed. We've had some really strong runners the last two years, but I have to give a ton of the credit to Coach Oviatt. He came out west, and things started to look up for us. He got the top runners to see that cross country is not just a sport, it's a lifestyle."

Perhaps nobody bought into that philosophy more than Gibson.

"Danny is a guy who made a decision that he is going to put in the work to get better," Oviatt said. "I know he's putting in the mileage, because you can see the improvement. He has become a force, and a lot of people now are picking him to be all-state."

Not bad for a runner who admits he came out for the team as a freshman and didn't take the sport all that seriously. Instead, he expected to focus more heavily on playing basketball and lacrosse.

Now four years later, he says he only plays basketball recreationally and hasn't picked up a lacrosse stick in a couple of years.

"My life is all about opening doors and doing as many things as possible," said Gibson, who is taking a number of AP courses in school and volunteers with the Books for Prisoners program he helped set up in Bellingham as an Eagle Scout project. "Cross country has certainly given me that opportunity."

Part of the reason it has, according to Oviatt, is that Gibson is one of the smartest runners on the course.

Gibson is part athlete and part poker player, running a race more like a chess match.

"You can give him a race strategy, and he will follow it perfect," Oviatt said. "I'm not sure I've worked with a runner who has the combination of smarts and patience that Danny does. He never shows his true colors until the end of the race."

Rather than jumping out and trying to stay with the lead pack, Oviatt says Gibson runs his pace throughout the race. Usually that means he gets to work his way back up through the field, picking off runners that have gassed their energy reserves way too early.

"Danny's a guy that will run the same pace the entire race, no matter what the rest of the field is doing," Oviatt said. "He's not a guy that gets anxious and starts thinking, 'Oh no, I'm getting killed." Physiologically, that's the best way to run a race. If you run too fast early, you're going to be running slower later. If you run the same pace throughout, then you've got that little extra to make your move late, and that's exactly how Danny does it. It's not easy to do - you need to be extremely patient and trust what you are doing."

Because of that smart, reserved approach, Gibson says he has not yet run a race to full physical exertion this year.

But that's something he would like to change this weekend in the most important meet of the season.

"My goal at state is to go to as close to 100 percent as I can," Gibson said. "We'll see where that lands me, in terms of placing. But for me, I'm going to be happy if I can walk away and say I gave it everything I had. I don't want to end up in the Pasco emergency room or anything, but my goal is go all out and work that hard."

Gibson enters Saturday's race with the seventh fastest 2A time (16:02.16 at the Oct. 22 NWC Championships) in the 5,000 meters this season, according to athletic.net, meaning a top-10 finish is definitely within grasp.

A strong finish like that by Gibson, would also help the Storm take aim at another top-three finish in the team standings. Fellow senior Kole DeGolier and younger brother Patrick Gibson also rank in the top 30 individually.

"It's a new team this year," Danny Gibson said. "We have Kole and myself back, but half of the team that we are taking to state is new and isn't familiar with the course, yet. I think we'll do well and we'll have some guys come up with their best races of the season. It's exciting for those new guys - it's exciting for me. I'm stoked for Saturday. That's the goal for us is to run like we're excited and let that carry over into the competitive part of our race."

No matter what Gibson is able to accomplish this weekend, it won't be a surprise to Oviatt this time.

"I've coached a lot of athletes that came up from being average runners at first to become all-state athletes," Oviatt said. "Danny is the quintessential runner like that. You know he's going to be good. He has the physical ability and the work ethic and the talent to get there."

Reach David Rasbach at david.rasbach@bellinghamherald.com or 715-2271.