Paul Klee: Competitive fire burns hot for state champ Kaylee Thompson and TCA track teams
LAKEWOOD — If you wish to find the cutthroat-iest competitors at the state track and field meet, the 3,200-meter finish line is a good place to start.
Focus on the final 200 meters. You’ll find buzz cuts and ponytails you shouldn’t bet a dime against.
It’s where I found Kaylee Thompson. She was balled up on the grass in a heap of cramped, quaking limbs and awesome red hair, exhausted from pushing herself to the edge, if not beyond.
Kaylee’s a senior at The Classical Academy, a soccer and cross country standout who runs track as a side hustle. Moments earlier Friday, she was smack in that merciless stretch of 200 meters when she made an executive decision: “I’m not getting passed today,” she told me.
Not today, she said.
“I just wanted to win.”
Then she won the Class 3A state title in the 3,200 meters.
The final 200 meters has a way of exposing people, and it exposed Kaylee Thompson as a supreme competitor. Add her to the list of athletes you needn’t challenge, like a golfer with a healthy tan and the bar fly with his own cue stick. This was Kaylee’s first state meet. Shoot, this was her first season of high school track. And she’s at Jeffco Stadium telling Colorado’s best runners she’s not getting passed today?
“I’ll put it this way: I would not want her behind me finishing a race,” TCA distance coach Alan Versaw said. “This was a case where she sunk her teeth into it and wouldn’t let go.”
No wonder TCA’s had 11 girls titles and five boys titles in Tim Daggett’s 16 seasons as coach. TCA has a bunch of those on its team. Some are coaches, like Emily Hanenburg, who starred at TCA and CU-Boulder and still raises the bar daily as an assistant. “Serious competitor,” Daggett said.
Some are the athletes themselves, and that’s why we’re talking about Kaylee Thompson.
She ran this race that was so enthralling there were supporters from a school called Jefferson Academy buzzing about it later. The 3,200 is a test of fortitude that both announces its cruelty beforehand and sneaks up on you during, eight laps of endurance that also feels like a sprint.
And I had Kaylee pegged … right up until the final 200 meters.
My guess was Kaylee would fade. She had only the fourth-best qualifying time coming into state, third-best on her own team at TCA and no experience at the state meet. Girl, was I wrong.
Kaylee’s competitive fire burns hot. It could have been Emma Coburn swishing elbows next to Kaylee, and Kaylee wasn’t going to lose. No way, no how. Instead, it was Sierra Bower from Basalt High, and they don’t raise them soft at Basalt High. What we were treated to was a pair of primo athletes simply getting after it.
One breath, Kaylee held a one-step lead. The next, Sierra’s shoulder rubbed past Kaylee’s.
It’s going to be a sprint to the finish line for the state championship! the PA guy shouted.
Kaylee finished in 10:58.0 — a full 23 seconds faster than her personal best. Sierra Bower finished just a breath behind, 10:58.31.
“I dreamed it could happen,” Versaw said. “I didn’t think it would happen.”
BYU’s got Thompson on a track scholarship next semester based on her cross country state title, but track isn’t the same as cross country — until the final 200 meters. Then it’s about will and want, and at that point it doesn’t matter Kaylee Thompson hasn’t really been training for track.
(Afterward, Sierra Bower did the coolest thing. She filled three cups of water and brought them to her competition, including Kaylee, who took her title by .3 seconds. That’s Basalt for you.)
TCA junior Mason Norman took second in the boys’ 3,200 with a time of 9:41.45. It wasn’t the state cross country champ’s best race, he said, yet he trailed only Denver West’s Yasin Sado (9:29.93). Sado listed UCLA, Washington and Portland as the track programs recruiting him.
“I feel like I pushed through it the best I could,” Norman said. “I’m happy with that.”
For all of its track success, TCA rarely knows the score. Daggett consciously avoids telling his team how many points it needs to win another title. It’s a mistake he made with one team before the 16 titles, and now that info’s taboo.
There’s no scoreboard for the final 200 meters, anyway, where Kaylee Thompson left her mark. The Classical Academy does that often this time of year, so I asked Versaw for the secret sauce.
“There are so many aspects of life where we don’t let kids excel anymore. Academically, there are so many obstacles to excelling. Athletically, kids can still excel,” said Versaw, who’s in his 19th season as a track coach at TCA.
“You can have Kaylee and the girl from Basalt going shoulder-to-shoulder for the last 200 meters and there’s 3,000 people here cheering. If that happened in the classroom, there would be some people complaining that you shouldn’t let that go on. I’m an educator, but that’s why I love athletics.”
Kaylee Thompson, second from left, with teammates.
Kaylee Thompson, second from left, with teammates.
Kaylee Thompson, second from left, with teammates.
Kaylee Thompson, second from left, with teammates.