Junior hurdler follows her grandpa’s passion for track

Fifty-one years ago, former track coach Karl Englund stood on track at East, coaching East’s first track practice.  There were about 100 boys ranging from distance runners to long-jumpers, but there were no girls who participated in the workouts.  Now, the track team has 230 athletes, including countless girls.

“To run fast you have to work hard. It’s always been that way,” Englund said. “It was a great job. It wasn’t hard, and we had lots of wonderful kids. I didn’t see any reason to quit.”

Englund was East’s track coach from the day the school was built in 1958 and continued to coach until his retirement in 1998.

“We just have a simple, grandpa-grandkid relationship,” Doerr said. “It’s fun though. I remember we would go to the Lake of the Ozarks and we would fish together.  He always would try to teach me, even though I sucked at it.”

Now, his granddaughter junior Caroline Doerr is continuing the family tradition with track at East.

Doerr’s decision to do track started out as a whim.  Most of her friends did track and as a cross country runner she thought it’d be fun.

“It’s fun to work for your own personal record,” Doerr said. “It’s nice to not have to depend on anything else and just go out there and try to improve.”

But to her grandfather, it’s more significant. She’s choosing to try something that he devoted his entire life to, something that his own kids never tried. Doerr’s mother pursued swimming and cheerleading.

“I absolutely love that Caroline’s doing track,” Englund said. “It gives me an excuse to hang around and watch the meets now.”

Dressed in khakis and a retro-East track shirt that dates back from the ‘80s, Englund comes to Doerr’s track meets to provide both support and tips. She runs hurdles like her grandpa, so he always comes to congratulate her armed with suggestions.

Doerr’s relationship with her grandpa is a simple one, but has grown stronger since they have track and cross-country to talk about. He’s always encouraged her even when she doesn’t do well.

“I can’t even count the number of times he’s tried to get me to three-step [a technique for getting over hurdles].  It still never works for me,” Doerr said. “It’s really cool having him as a grandpa and a lot of the older teachers ask about him. But I don’t really feel pressured by it.”

As just a 10-year-old, Englund’s father took him to his first track meet where he first witnessed athletes fling themselves 14 or 15 feet in the air.  This first experience with pole-vaulting jump-started a career that started with high school pole-vaulting and has never ended.  He ran hurdles and also pole-vaulted in college at University of Missouri.  In 1957, he won the Big Seven Championship in pole vaulting.  He got involved in hurdles with MU’s relay team, going on to set the 480 yard hurdle relay national record.

Straight out of college, Englund received the job at East and taught driver’s education.  Later, he went on to teach AP United States History for most of his career.  The track position was passed to current English teacher William Boley.

Englund left more than just a track named in honor of him and eight state champion teams behind.  He coached Tricia Beaham, currently East’s long distance and cross-country coach.

“He was always known as being a tough coach,” Beaham said. “But he was effective. People responded to him well so he was fun to be around.”

Englund has coached generations of kids, seen the switch from yards to meters, watched the track team grow from a few kids to over a hundred athletes and witnessed the naming of the track in his honor.  But what stands out to him was the evolution of the track itself.

At first, all schools had a cinder track with six lanes.  Cinder, made out of crushed and burnt coal, was donated by the Power and Light district.

“Before the meet, all the coaches would walk around the track, dumping cinders on it,” Englund said. “Then someone would fire up the big rolling machine that we have and drive around on it. The kids would have to walk around the track with buckets of white paint to paint the lines.”

It was impossible to practice if it was raining, and unfortunately for the hurdlers, falls were brutal because of the rough cinders. In the 1970’s East’s first asphalt track was constructed, and then in 1999 the red rubber one like the one standing today was built.

“This is where I spent a lot of my time, a lot of energy.” Englund said. “My proudest moment is coaching that team. We had some good times and fantastic athletes on the multiple tracks over the years.”