March 25, 2014
The Shawnee Mission North High’s track team took a hit this season due to graduating some of its top athletes last year.
First year head coach Aaron Davidson said 2013 was one of Shawnee Mission North’s more successful years, with both the girls and boys squads placing within the top 15 at state, including a state champion in the 100 meter dash — Henry Dell — and a No. 1-ranked 4×800-meter relay team.
Despite the losses, the Indians will have state returner and star-athlete Ben Burchstead, who Davidson said is “the guy that ranks the highest in the state to make some noise.” Burchstead, who signed to run track and cross country at Kansas University, will lead the helm in the 1,600-and 3,200-meter races again this season.
“I have a lot of room to work with this season and I am pretty excited to see what can happen,” Burchstead said. “I have developed a pretty good relationship with my coach and we trained all winter together and the workouts have been going good over the past month.”
Burchstead said during the offseason he has learned to trust his coach and he thinks he is setting himself up to run “pretty fast and it will now just come down to doing it”.
“I’m just going to take advantage of each and every single meet because before I know it, it’s going to be getting close to the end,” he said. “I think that myself and my team will have some successes this year, not only in distance, but in different aspects and I think it’s going to be a good year. I’m excited to see what’s going to happen.”
Field athlete and senior Whitney Harvey makes her return in the shot put, discus and javelin. Harvey will be looking to make her fourth state appearance after qualifying every year since she was a freshman.
“She’s a kid you can count on,” Davidson said.
Sophomore and Lady Indian basketball player Jazmin Williams qualified for state last year as a freshman in four events: long jump, 200-meter dash, and both the 4×100 and 4×400-meter relays.
“She looks to pick up right where she left off last year,” Davidson said.
“See, we have a lot of kids to pick up the torch,but with as much as we lost, we are going to be a young team,” he said.
Davidson said right now, the goal is going to be developing kids into “caliber athletes” to know that they can compete at the varsity level, even though they are young.
“I would like to get as many kids to state, and I would still like to get all of our relay teams back as well,” he said. “If you have a really good relay team, it’s a good reflection of our team because they are probably contributing in other areas.
“I feel like building the team around the relays is kind of one of our goals,” he said.
On April 2, the Indians will go to Shawnee Mission East High for their first meet of the season, which also includes a May 9 home meet where the Indians will host more than 30 teams.
Although Davidson has been with the Indians for six years now, serving as the distance and cross country coach, he said his new position as head coach has been somewhat of a difficult transition because “it is hard to not just care about distance.”
“You have to give your attention to all those kids and then are left with the task of figuring out and planning how the other events are going to be successful,” he said. “But I’ve enjoyed working with the other kids and all the interaction. And I think so far, everything seems pretty positive and to be moving in the right direction.”
Angelique McNaughton 