Hansen proves himself in mile run

By Bill Knust

You could hear the whispers at the Class 4 District 8 track meet Saturday, May 10.

The distance community was eager to see if Oak Park High senior Will Hansen’s career was coming to end. They had every reason to think so after Hansen finished eighth at the Suburban Big 7 Conference Meet with a time of 4 minutes, 44.75 seconds.

It was like the sharks could smell the blood in the water. Thirteen other runners were out to make sure Hansen’s season went down in flames.

The funny thing is, Hansen blocked out the whispers and missed the memo of his apparent downfall. He provided the biggest gut check of his track and field career on his way to a dominating first-place finish in a time of 4:26.88, eight seconds better than his previous best this season, and 18 seconds better than the week before.

“I just came off of being sick and a pretty shoddy performance last week,” Hansen admitted. “This was a pretty big confidence boost for me. It was tough to struggle. I was coming back as the conference champion and I wanted to defend that title, but my mind got me, and I was still shaking off the flu bug a little bit.”

The flu was just one of the things that had hampered Hansen until the district meet. After conference, Hansen and Oak Park boys coach Todd Warner cleared the air about some things.

“We’ve done a lot of talking about him finding the joy of running,” Warner said. “I think sometimes a senior year catches up with a kid. I was real pleased with his race, and I couldn’t have mapped it out on paper any better.”

Hansen said he has put a lot of pressure on himself to break school records and set personal records this season, but after the whole thought of that began bogging him down he “threw it out of the window.”

“We talked for about two hours in my office after conference,” Warner said. “We talked about choosing a college and where he was at. We mapped out a complete mind-set for this week. I think it clicked for him. Sometimes, you come into your senior season with the career he has had and you put a lot of pressure on yourself that, ‘I am the man.’ I told him he didn’t have to be and to just go out and run.”

The performance was anything but a solo effort though, and sometimes a big breakthrough comes because of a helping hand. Hansen’s helping hand came in the form of teammate Chase Schaben, who performed almost as a rabbit for the first 800 meters.

“It was very nice and unexpected,” Hansen said. “Usually, we don’t go into any race with a strategy per se. It was great to see one of my training partners up with me.”

While Hansen delighted in his win Saturday, the rest of the Metro had the dread of watching him or reading the results and knowing that Will Hansen is back in form.

Sports writer Bill Knust can be reached at 389-6605 or billknust@npgco.com.