Boys track & field: Oregon coach Jim Spratt earns Hall of Fame nod

After four decades of coaching track & field in northern Illinois, Jim Spratt is adding another honor to his résumé this weekend: hall of famer.

The longtime Oregon boys head coach will be inducted into the Illinois Track & Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame at the organization’s annual clinic and banquet on Saturday in Lombard.

“It’s been kind of fun watching friends of mine, like Pete Brown and Doug Engel and Art Carlson, who have gotten in before, but you never really plan on it happening to you,” Spratt said. “You see it happen, but you never expect it yourself. It’s such a subjective thing that you never know.

“But when I heard, I thought, ‘Wow, that’s cool.’ I guess 39 years of hard work kind of paid off.”

That’s not the only way Spratt’s hard work has paid off, and he’s quick to point to all the athletes – both the state champions and the equally hard-working non-champs – as the reason for the success of the programs he’s coached over the last 39 years.

“When you think about it, in the the last 39 years I never threw a shot or disc, never ran the hurdles, never handed off a baton, never did any of that,” he said. “It’s all the great kids and assistant coaches who have led to one award for you, and it’s kind of humbling.”

After spending the first nine years of his coaching career leading the Galena girls team, Spratt came to Oregon and spent nine years as a junior high track coach before taking over the high school program in 2003, the year after Carlson retired.

In his time leading the Hawks, four individuals and a relay team have won six state titles, 40 have earned top-nine state medals, and Oregon won the 2009 state championship as a team to go with eight sectional titles. In his time as an assistant or head coach, Spratt’s teams have won 15 sectional titles, seven individual or relay state titles, 57 state medals, a team title and a pair of fourth-place team finishes.

Add in three-time medalist Deb Richardson from his Galena days, and Spratt has plenty of memories to look back on as he ponders his induction speech.

“All the state champions, I can still replay those in my mind, and even some of the great efforts not at state,” Spratt said. “I remember when I was in Galena, sprinter Deb Richardson overtook Roxy DeVries in the last 20 meters to win the sectional in the 4x400, or watching Martin McCormick run people down in the 400, or Jordan Thomas and what he did as a sprinter. All of those things are tremendous, and they still stick with me.”

Thomas won the state title in both the 100 and 200 in 2009, and also finished second in the 400 to lead the Hawks to the team title. McCormick won the 400 state title in 2005, and Andy Tremble (2003 3200) and Adam Tate (2005 pole vault) also won championships in individual events. The 2013 4x400 team of Pierce Dhaese, Tommy McCormick, Garrett Newman and Trevor Otten also ran to a title.

But it’s not just the champions that Spratt recalls fondly.

“The talented kids obviously are memorable, but I also think that there have been so many less athletically inclined kids who made it great to coach,” Spratt said. “There have been so many kids over the years who haven’t been state champions, but have made major improvements from the start of the year to the end, or from the start of their careers to the end, those are some of the biggest and best memories for me.”

Spratt is in the process of putting together his 4 1/2-minute video speech for the banquet, and as all the names and faces and memories come flooding back, he says it’s “impossible to thank all the people that led to this moment over the last 39 years.” But he says he’s proudest of the athletes he’s coached and the other coaches he’s worked with over the last four decades, and it’s those people who have not only made this possible, but also made the experience so special.

He’s also proud to be the latest coach in the strong Oregon track tradition that was started long before he arrived.

“In reality, it’s just the continuation of a great program,” Spratt said. “Joe Mortimer was the first guy in Oregon who got the referendum passed for the first all-weather track here, and he’s in the hall of fame. To go from Joe to Art to Doug and then myself, it means a lot. Oregon is a track town, and I’ve been fortunate enough to be here and be in that line of tremendous men coaching this program.”