2015-16 Boys’ Athlete of the Year: Van Scoter lives up to expectations
Through his first three years of participation at Flintridge Prep, Jack Van Scoter had already put together a body of work that was on par with any other in the school’s running history.
The cross-country program won three Prep League titles, one CIF Southern Section Division V championship and turned in two top-three finishes at the state championships. Individually, Van Scoter also won a Southern Section Division V title and Prep League crown in 2014.
As for track, Van Scoter had some success and picked up a few Prep League championships.
What remained before the start of Van Scoter’s senior year was whether all this success would lead to a brilliant 2015-16 campaign or a letdown.
“I don’t think there was ever a worry that Jack wouldn’t have a great senior year, but you also have to acknowledge that he had an already successful run in high school,” Flintridge Prep cross-country Coach Ingrid Herskind said. “I think we were all excited to see what he would do.”
In the 2015-16 school year, Van Scoter didn’t disappoint. If it’s possible, the senior outperformed expectations and delivered in both sports.
Van Scoter won six individual races during the cross-country season, including a second straight Prep League individual title, a second consecutive Division V crown and a second-place finish at the CIF State Division V meet.
His team also enjoyed its share of spoils as the Rebels won their 23rd league crown in 24 seasons and captured the CIF-SS Division V crown, the seventh such title in school history.
Flintridge Prep also claimed an elusive state championship, the first for the program since 2004, as the Rebels blasted Marin Academy, 43-168, for the title. Van Scoter ended up finishing second in that race with a time of 15 minutes, 07.28 seconds.
“That’s the one we had wanted to get for years and had come up short,” said Van Scoter, whose team lost, 86-87, to St. Joseph Notre Dame in the 2012 state final. “It was a wonderful feeling.”
In track, Van Scoter enjoyed his finest season, which included the best mark in the state in the 3,200-meter run at the Arcadia Invitational in a time of 8:51.32.
The senior won Prep League titles in the 1,600-meter (4:20.42) and 3,200 (9:18.06) runs, followed by Division IV championships in the 1,600 (4:13.90) and 3,200 (9:01.81).
Finally at the CIF State Championships, Van Scoter finished fifth with a mark of 8:55.60.
In between all this activity, Van Scoter picked up a scholarship to Georgetown University, where he’ll be running in the fall. Before heading to our nation’s capital, the James H. Jenkins Glendale News-Press Boys’ Athlete of the Year sat down with sportswriter Andrew J. Campa to talk about a wonderful year. Here are excerpts from that interview.
Andrew J. Campa: You’ve had success at different levels in different sports. Is there one moment that stands out to you?
Jack Van Scoter: It’s probably or it’s definitely the [CIF] State [Cross-Country] Championships last year in 2015 in the fall. I say that because that was always the mission. From day one that I was on the cross-country team, the seniors were talking about that when I was a freshman about how much they wanted to get there. I remember the most excited I ever saw those seniors was when they found out they were ranked third in state for Division V. Before that, I didn’t really have a real conception of what that meant, but then I realized, ‘Wow, to be third in the state at something’ and then I learned about how much of a tradition it was. My coach, Ingrid Herskind, has always achieved high. In her first, I want to say, like seven years of coaching, she won four state titles: 1998, 99, 2002 and 2004. ... Ever since then, ever since 2004, Prep kept winning league titles, but we went through a dry spell at CIF. It really kind of became getting the monkey off your back, both for her and for each of the successive classes. She ingrained that need to get to the peak again for each and everyone one of us. When we finally got there, it was a whole team. The week before, two of us were hurt and I was sick at CIF [Southern Section] Finals. Things weren’t looking so good and somehow we just pulled it out. The stars aligned and some sort of miracle, I suppose, happened. I still think to this day, ‘How did we do that?’ It seemed like everybody was sick and everybody was tired, but finally all the good karma and all the hard work just finally came back. We had a guy, our No. 5, his name is Rab Moran. When he started his freshman year, he was like a 28-minute 5K runner, which is, well, it’s not great. It was between him and this other guy for who was at the very back of the pack our freshman year and he just improved and improved and improved and that race was his cherry on top. He ran 16:19 at the state course, which is crazy good. In fact, it might have been faster than that. Moments like that, guys who are able to move forward, I know he considers that one of his proudest moments and that made it sweeter for me. My coach, of course, Hersh was ridiculously excited. I’ve never seen her so happy. The day for me was a little marred because I got out-leaned on the line for the win by now the state champion in the two-mile, [St. Joseph Notre Dame] Cooper Teare, who basically out-leaned me again at nationals at Brooks like four weeks ago. Darn it! I’d use more expletives if I wasn’t being interviewed. Considering all that, I can’t possibly begin to understand what that meant to Hersh. I know that for me to finally bring her that, my senior gift, my last dedication to her for all the things she showed me, all the coaching that she put into us, all the time and all the effort - it wasn’t always easy. Finally getting her that, that’s the feeling I go back to whenever I need a jolt of adrenaline. When we came back with that big ole’ trophy - that’s my biggest moment. And again, obviously moments like at Arcadia, at the track this spring, those had a bit more of an emotional individual high, but I hadn’t been dreaming about Arcadia for four or five years. I had been dreaming about state for four or five years. That made it the sweetest.
AJC: So, I’ve asked this before the last few years and I’ll ask you this again one last time. Are you a cross-country runner who runs track or a track runner who runs cross-country?
JVS: Oh Jesus. I’m trying to reach deep into the philosophical recesses of my brain. You know, when I think about running as a lifestyle, it all just becomes one mesh and I’m afraid I might be dodging your question. The running lifestyle is really just enjoying whatever you’re doing, whether you’re on the track or running whatever one would consider difficult, like running a 10K or running a long day. We take so much satisfaction about doing the hard things and then we take that and apply that to other parts of our life. From endurance to getting through my damn homework every night (laughs) to dealing with issues in the family or talking things out with people. The running lifestyle is constantly embracing the pain and laughing at it. That’s really paid off for me in the rest of my life. I suppose I can’t really differentiate between the two. I like the distances of track probably better. I thought the two mile was really the perfect zone, but I trained almost the same way. My easy days were a little bit quicker this spring and they may have been a little bit shorter and I may have done a little more weight work, but not a whole lot more. So, I altered my training a little bit, but really I trained just about the same way overall. The only difference came down to whether I was running a two-mile on the track or a three-mile on the dirt. I guess to fully answer your question, we’ll see. I’ve got another eight seasons to figure it out at Georgetown. By the end of that, probably I’ll have an answer for you.
AJC: There are a lot ways people motivate themselves. Some have a chip on their shoulders, others believe in bettering themselves. What was your motivation out there?
JVS: Good question. Growing up, I never really thought of myself as a really strong kid. Sometimes I complained about things a little too much. I probably should have outgrown crying earlier than I did. I wasn’t super into football and basketball and soccer growing up - I am now. I kind of stuck with reading and hanging out with my friends and my dog and things like that. I was a little more isolated and it kind of made me think whether or not I was a tough kid. I wasn’t strong. I just, overall, was not a super athletic person. Cross-country and track, I never had the opportunity to work on what I considered a hobby. When I came into high school it was running. I loved it, I wanted to continue doing it, but I didn’t know what it would become. Cross-country and track gave me a chance to see that I had some athleticism in me. I can still see all the cool kids in elementary school playing out on the fields, throwing the football and I couldn’t catch for crap. I was completely uncoordinated. It would hit me in the mouth and I probably lost a tooth or something trying to catch a basketball thrown at me by a super muscular, super tall 9-year-old or something. I was one of the last people to get picked. There was the team captains, line of kids and when the captains picked one by one, I was usually one of the last kids to get picked for basketball and that just ate at me. I just hated it more than anything else, but I couldn’t say anything about it, I couldn’t change it because I sucked. I had bad hand-eye coordination in sports. I’m better now. I can play a pick-up basketball game and hit a few threes. I grew way too quick and my legs were way too long and I didn’t know what to do with them. I can still remember that feeling and that’s one of the things that’s always motivated me. State championships was a motivation throughout. Being one of the top runners in state and getting the star treatment like the [Arcadia High] Phillip Rochas of the world get, I really wanted that. I wanted to prove to my parents that I was doing something with my life and doing something with my education. I wanted to make my girlfriend proud and I wanted to inspire my teammates. I wanted to give back to Hersh, who had done so much for me. Really, the thing that was there was this very deep need to not be the last kid picked on the sports team or whatever we were playing. I needed to be better and that just winded up with me wanting to be near the best. I never saw it happening, but looking back on it, I don’t think I could have run as hard if I didn’t hate so much being last. I just hated it. That should keep me going through college.
AJC: You started off really well. As a sophomore, you were second behind Alan Yoho in cross-country. Your progression took a little bit longer in track and field. Why do you think that was?
JVS: We always had great coaching in cross-country. Hersh always had us dialed in. She always evolved a little bit, especially my sophomore year, we evolved a lot. In track, my freshman year, I believe it was freshman year, Hersh decided to pursue swimming in the spring, which has worked out pretty well for her. I don’t think they’ve won CIF yet, but they’ve won a bunch of league titles. So, the school was left trying to piece together a whole coaching corps. For the distance squad, that was hard. We had a coach named Nick Ponticello. He was also a math teacher here and he’s now one of the head chairs of the math department - great guy. He’s super smart and he was good, but then he got promoted up the math department and we were looking again into my junior year and we never really had the stability on the team. I think all of my teammates could reflect on that. When Hersh was in charge, we all knew what we were doing was right. We knew it would probably hurt a lot, too, but we knew it was going to be right and that it would make us faster. I didn’t have that same confidence in track until this year when the athletic director Garrett Ohara - and I think Hersh helped a little bit - when he brought in [distance coach] Scott Jung from Caltech. After that first race in Redondo and I won the two-mile and had a good personal best in the mile, I bought in. It was almost like a relationship. I knew it was like a real relationship and I wouldn’t get my heart broken in three weeks because I had a bad race. I knew this was long-term. I believe Scott was going to stay there. If you ask me, he’s a very smart and methodical guy. I knew that from day one. He could contribute long-term to the athletic team, any athletic team and I would want him coaching me anywhere. I would recommend him to anyone. So, he was the big difference-maker. Hersh also influenced us in track as much as she could, but you know she was in swimming, so there’s only so much she can do. It was just really great to feel that same confidence when I hopped out on the track. I really needed that to succeed. More than just the training or that I bought in, that my teammates bought in. That can be more powerful than anything else. He was the real difference-maker. I’ve never thought of myself as a guy who runs on talent, but on hard work. He finally gave us a platform to work hard. It ended up going pretty well for us.
AJC: A lot is asked of cross-country runners. What are the toughest things or what is the toughest thing that is asked of you? Is it time, or getting up early or being on a regimented diet? What is it?
JVS: Definitely getting up early, that’s for me. My teammate Nikhil [Poole], he could probably get up at four and go running and he’d probably be fine. He might need a nap later in the day, but he’d be fine. For me, getting up at 5:20 in the morning for three months a year for four years ended up being a year of my life when you put it all together. It was definitely good because of the heat. At 8 a.m. when we finished practice, I would say, ‘I’m glad I’m done with it,’ but then the next morning I would go back and it would be, ‘ugh.’ I would just say, remember, you don’t want to be slow, you don’t want to be picked last on the playground. I still now shy away from getting up early. That’s probably the hardest thing for me. Both Nikhil and I loved the hardness of the workouts and we embraced how difficult they were. Shyam Patel, the entire senior class did. I didn’t always see it. It wasn’t always clear. The running was not the hard part. It was the small things. I’m pretty sure it’s Muhammad Ali who said, and I’m paraphrasing, who said, it’s not the mountain ahead that gets you, it’s the pebble in your shoe. It’s the little tiny things that make you irritated and that distract you from the goal. That’s pretty much been the story for me. The little, tiny things that I had to get over in order to do what I love. I think each of the guys on the team had their own little struggle. I know Hersh was sick for a while my junior year and she had some things to overcome, but all of us got over our little pebbles and conquered the mountain.
AJC: What’s your favorite course in cross-country and your most difficult course?
JVS: My favorite and most difficult course are probably the same: Mt. [San Antonio College].
AJC: What is it about that place? Everybody loves it there?
JVS: (Laughs) Everybody who’s had a good race there loves it. Just about everyone else hates it a lot. I enjoyed the way you could compartmentalize it into the three hills that are really daunting, each of them in their own right. Each has their own flavor. The first one, switchbacks, which you do after a mile, it’s not that long of a hill or that steep of a hill, but it’s just enough of each that if you’re an idiot on the first mile and you go into that, you destroy your entire race. Poop Out [Hill] is definitely the shortest, but it’s definitely the steepest. I enjoy that hill the most because it’s pretty easy to drop people there. When you’re in a track race and you drop a guy and it’s all flat, he can come back if he gets a last headwind. Usually on the hills, that doesn’t happen. It’s more of a mental thing, I think. Climbing up hills is mentally draining. Finally with Reservoir [Hill] with 1,200 [meters] to go, I believe it is. That’s the longest, but it’s the least steep. That’s more of a mentally taxing grind. I love how you can really think of the race in three distinct sets, like three different levels of a video game or something. Each has its own taste, its own flair, whatever a wine-taster would say. I never really had a bad race there because my coach Hersh really prepared us really well for it. She always bought into the strategy of running. She always had us plan out our race strategy the night before. I don’t think that’s a super unique thing, but it’s still important nonetheless. There it makes tons of sense. How you take one hill could destroy your race or make it awesome. My senior year, I was finally able to get one of the faster times on the course. It’s cool that I could be in the record books there. That was also the first race where I really felt like I improved myself. So, you have to compartmentalize. If you don’t you’re hosed.
AJC: You’ve been one of the top runners at this school for the last three years. That’s probably not going to be the situation at Georgetown. So, how do you go back to being a freshman again?
JVS: See, I’m really looking forward to that. I want to get dropped. I want to be better. I think a lot of athletes say we can reach higher peaks when we train with more difficult opposition or teammates. Running is a team sport, I always say that. Running as a pack adds a pack mentality. It goes all the way back to our ancestors who had to hunt together in order to survive. Having one guy or one or two guys who are running 120 miles a week, that forces everybody else to be better whether they openly submit to it or not. It pulls you and it’s infectious. They can do this incredible thing. I know a lot of the guys and I’m getting to know a lot of the guys in my freshman class because of my visits to Georgetown. All of them are class acts. The incoming guys, we’ll be dropping each other. I think we’re all secretly hoping that the gauntlet will be dropped and 400 meters later the seniors have a huge lead. It feeds the need to be more than you are.
AJC: You were born and grew up in the Midwest, spent your high school years in the west and now you’re headed east. Does that excite you, to get a different experience?
JVS: It’s super exciting. I always thought I would go back east for school. Maybe because my parents raised me like that. They went to school back east - I don’t know. I always thought of myself as just here in California temporarily, although it’s really become a home to me. There’s nothing more that I really like than running around [the Jet Propulsion Laboratories] and Hahamonga trails. That really is my home, but I’m super excited for the challenge. I wasn’t a big fan of Texas because it was hot, flat and crowded. That’s what it is. Taxes are low and it’s a great place to raise a family. It’s a very safe place. I’m not sure if I would have ever become the runner I am if I had never moved out here, because the weather out there is oppressive. People work out in the shopping malls because that’s the only place that has really good air conditioning during the summer. Whereas out here, it’s gorgeous 24-7. I can really appreciate that, because I lived 13 years of my life getting baked. On to D.C., I hear it’s a very cultured and European-esque city because it’s an international city with all the foreign diplomats and dignitaries. I already sampled some of the Italian food there - loved it! I think it was Bill Clinton’s favorite Italian restaurant. They had a Bill Clinton special. It was delicious. I love the people there and I’m excited for the new challenge. I won’t forget what all the people here did for me. I’ll stay in contact with Hersh, with the upperclassmen who guided me and with the underclassmen who I had the privilege of leading to a state title.2015-16 Boys’ Athletes of the Year
1 Jack Van Scoter, Flintridge Prep cross-country/track
2 Trenton Julian, Glendale swimming
3 Dante Fregoso, Flintridge Prep basketball/volleyball
4 Sean Davitt, St. Francis football
5 Jasher Foster, St. Francis football/track
6 Logan Goddard, Crescenta Valley water polo
7 Andrew Tsangeos, Flintridge Prep football/basketball/baseball
8 Andreas Langen, Flintridge Prep swimming
9 Geraldy Martinez, Hoover football/wrestling
10 Hamilton Evans, Flintridge Prep soccer/baseball
