Norm Berney has been the head coach of the Corban programs since he started them in 2003.
“It is good to know that he has been there for a long time and he won’t just quit for no reason and I’ll have to go through another coach,” Schmitz said after signing the letters in an administrative office at North Pole.
She was joined there by her parents, David and B.J., and sister Kelly, a North Pole junior, and Joe Trubacz, the Patriots’ head cross country coach and an assistant track and field coach.
The three-sport standout for North Pole was impressed, too, that Berney watched and met with her while he was scouting other Alaska high school athletes at an early-season track and field meet at The Dome in Anchorage.
“It was helpful to know somebody who was at this school I was going to,” Schmitz said. “He was very talkative and friendly, and it seemed like he really wanted me to come and he is very dedicated to the program.”
Schmitz, who also was attracted to Corban’s Christian atmosphere and plans to major in nursing there, was a dedicated cross country runner, Nordic skier and distance athlete (800, 1,600 and 3,200-meter runs) in her four years as a Patriot.
“She’s had a fantastic work ethic ever since her freshman year,” Trubacz said. “She’s one of the types that if you ask her to do something, she does it. Whether she thinks she’s capable of doing it or not, she tries to do it.”
In her senior year, Schmitz placed fifth in the Class 4A girls race of the Region VI Cross Country Championships. A week later, she was hampered by illness and finished 48th at the state meet. In her final season on the track, she posted third-place finishes in the region meet in the 1,600 and 3,200 and took fifth in the 800. Two weeks ago at the 4A state meet at Lathrop, she clocked a pair of top-10 finishes — seventh in the 3,200 in a personal-best time of 11 minutes, 41.78 seconds and eighth in the 1,600 at 5:27.37, which was exactly 7.1 seconds faster than her region finish.
Schmitz benefited from Trubacz’s workouts throughout her Patriots career.
“Our workouts got harder over the years, but I feel like Joe helped me a lot,” she said.
Schmitz was among 120 runners in the girls high school elite division at the Foot Locker Western Regional Cross Country Championships last fall in Walnut, Calif. The experience might have given her a taste of the atmosphere of college cross country races.
“I had never run anywhere besides Alaska before,” Schmitz said. “It was a different experience because it was a lot warmer and I wasn’t used to it, and the course was a lot different than they are here. I think it was good to try something different and I learned what I could have done better if I do it again.”
Contact staff writer Danny Martin at 459-7586.
-Bebo