CHARLESTON ---- Pressure produces diamonds.
And no one embraced the pressure at the Illinois High School Association Class 3A state track and field championships here Saturday better than Evanston junior Jaden Jean-Paul.
With the state team title on the line, Jean-Paul rose to the occasion and captured the state high jump crown to deliver Evanston’s first boys track championship since 1979 in a dramatic finish to the two-day test for the Wildkits on the blue oval track of Eastern Illinois University.
Jean-Paul outlasted a field of 20 finalists in the high jump and ruled the event on the basis of fewer misses at 2.01 meters, or approximately 6 feet, 8 inches. His 10 points rallied the Wildkits from a 49-46 deficit after Belleville West won the last race on the track, the 1600-meter relay, to take the lead in the chase for the team title.
Evanston finished with 56 points to 49 for Belleville West and 42 for Chatham Glenwood. The Wildkits scored first place finishes in both the 400-meter and 800-meter relays --- only the second time in school history they’ve accomplished that feat at the same state finals --- and recorded points in eight different events in a total team effort.
The “Fantastic Four” unit of senior Emmanuel Roche, junior Manny Blake, sophomore Anthony Honore and junior Justin Johnson set the table for Jean-Paul with the relay wins, and established state records in the 800 race on both Friday (preliminaries) and Saturday.
All that remained was for Jean-Paul to bring the title home.
“I just had to keep my focus and have confidence in myself,” Jean-Paul said. “I like being put in that position, with that kind of pressure. It just feels great! I can’t even put it into words.
“I always knew I was a contender to win it, but going out and doing it, that’s something different. I have such great teammates --- they’re the best support group in the whole state --- and I don’t worry about what the other jumpers are doing in those high pressure situations. I just tried to focus on myself.”
Jean-Paul is the seventh high jumper in school history to win that event at State and the first since Matt Cless in 2022. Nat Page won the event twice, in 1974 and 1975.
Emotions spilled out among the athletes, parents and coaches following the long wait to end the 47-year-old title drought for the Kits. And the high jump competition didn’t conclude until a full hour after the rest of the meet was over and the stands had emptied.
It was worth the wait for long-time ETHS head coach Don Michelin, who missed last year’s state finals for the first time in his coaching career when he suffered two broken legs in a training accident prior to the state meet last spring.
“It was the saddest day of my life, because I couldn’t be a part of this down here,” Michelin said after winning the state championship for the first time. “But today? It’s one of the greatest days of my life. There are three things that are important to me --- my God/creator, my wife, and Evanston boys track. And it’s not always in that order. There’s nothing better than this.
“It wasn’t easy winning this state championship. It’s tough. It was just our time with our great athletes.”
On that list of individual state high jump champs for ETHS, Jean-Paul might be the most consistent. He didn’t miss at 1.88 meters --- or at 1.93 --- or at 1.98 --- or at 2.01 --- when the competition resumed Saturday against a crowded field, and the state title is almost always determined by which competitor has the fewest misses on the final day of the season.
“The high jump is the most mentally taxing event for me, and last year I was really inconsistent,” added Jean-Paul. “I just didn’t apply myself enough. This year I went all in because I wanted to get to my goal (state championship).”
Jean-Paul also contributed an unexpected fourth place finish in the triple jump (14.13 meters, just off his personal best), scoring valuable points in Evanston’s title quest. It was the culmination of a combined coaching effort by the assistant coaches Kevin Caines and Amanda Caines.
“AC (daughter Amanda) took on his training and I did the technique,” said Kevin Caines. “Jaden was just super consistent with his form, at the heights he attempted, all of it.
“We talked a lot about making that first jump today (at each height) and that’s what won it for him. We knew there’d be a long wait with so many jumpers. Last year when he was a sophomore, he was raw. He came to us out of basketball and had an up and down year, but he was learning and we really saw some potential there.
“When he didn’t qualify (for State) at the sectional he was just devastated. After that, he was on a mission and he really became a student of the event.”
“Jaden really figured it out this year,” Michelin agreed. “I think he turned out to be our most valuable guy. He told me this morning he was going to win it. He didn’t start out this year great, but look how he finished. His maturity, and his growth, have put him in a position to do some great things in life.”
Evanston took top honors in the 400 relay to set the tone Saturday, winning in 41.11 seconds over runner-up Belleville West (41.20). Roache, Blake, Honore and Johnson ran the second fastest 400 time in state history in the prelims Friday at 40.94, just missing the state record of 40.86 set by Crete-Monee in 2019.
And the Wildkits lowered their own state record to 1:25.63 in the 800 relay after registering a 1:25.97 in the prelims Friday to beat out the mark of 1:25.98 set by Cahokia in 2007.
The Kits also counted a 3rd place individual finish from Blake in the open 100 (10.64), a 4th from Blake in the 200 (21.79), a 7th from Johnson in the 200 (22.03), an 8th from senior Jordan Harvey in the 110 hurdles (14.44), a 9th from Johnson in the 100 (11.0), and a 9th from Harvey in the 300 hurdles (48.7).
“It feels amazing to win a state championship,” said Harvey, who will run at Illinois Wesleyan next year. “This is the best end to my high school career I could have had. It’s been so much fun, and I’ll miss this team so much.
“When did I think this was possible? This morning when I woke up, I realized what we could do. I had a belief in all of us. It’s an honor to bring Coach Mich his first state championship. I’m glad we could make him proud.”
Evanston’s record runs in the 800 relay on back-to-back days hasn’t been done often among the state’s elite programs. Even the current record holders in relays tended to set a record in the prelims --- then run not so fast on Saturday --- or, occasionally, vice versa.
Evanston wasn’t messing around with the competition.
“We did run to qualify, to a certain extent,” said Johnson after Friday’s heat win. “But we’re not here to play around. We’re here to blow everyone out. Coach Mich just said to go out and get it done, and we knew what to do.
“No one can handle us when we keep our pedal to the mettle.”
Evanston’s relay success can be traced to its unheralded leadoff runner, senior Emmanuel Roche, along with sprint stars Blake and Johnson plus the rise of sophomore Anthony Honore. Honore was a member of last year’s 1600 state championship relay quartet and has been an impactful runner for the Kits ever since he stepped onto the track.
And the best is yet to come.
“I’m super happy we got that (relay) record,” Honore said. “We have run faster than this (school record 1:24.94 at the Thornton Invitational), but running here feels a lot different. It’s a different kind of happy because of everyone that was here to see me do it.
“I just wanted to get here again this year and show what I could do. It’s been an awesome experience for me. At Evanston, our main competition is ourselves.”
“Every time he handed off the baton this weekend, we had a good lead, even in the 4 x 400 (which bowed out in the prelims),” Michelin noted. “Anthony is built like a brick house, and he loves the competition, he loves the drama, and he loves the atmosphere here. He is so tremendous with his explosiveness out there.”
The long and winding road to a state championship was difficult for Evanston to navigate as a program, even though the Kits have enjoyed individual and relay success at State since Michelin took over the program.
But Evanston’s best previous finish in Michelin’s tenure was a runner-up finish in 2015.
“It wasn’t easy. We just found a way to win,” said the veteran coach. “They knew the power they had inside of them and they made it happen.
“And hopefully it won’t take us 47 years to get the next one.”
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