Froum's Finishing Kick Earns Trip To State

Sam Froum misunderstood the public address announcer late in the race at Saturday’s Class 3A cross country sectional meet at Lake Park.

And it’s a good thing he did.

Spurred on by what he thought was just an opportunity for a personal record time, the Evanston junior grabbed the last individual qualifying spot for next Saturday’s Illinois High School Association state finals.

Froum passed the 3-mile test with a time of 15 minutes, 31.6 and kept his season alive with an overall 23rd place finish. The first-time state qualifier moved up from last year’s 57th place sectional effort with a late dash to the finish to secure his spot.

Froum thought the announcer was counting down the time on the clock late in the race with about 100 yards to go.

“I heard him saying 14:44 and I thought, I’ll have a huge PR if I start to kick now,” said the ETHS standout. “I thought that was how much time there was on the clock. Later I found out that he was just announcing the winning time (by Josiah Narayanan of Wheaton Warrenville South).

“I didn’t know I was right on the edge of qualifying at the time. I’m glad I kicked when I did, and I still got that PR. That was the best race I’ve ever run.”

Brandon Lawson of Rockford Guilford and Froum were both credited with identical times --- down to thousandths of a second --- to claim the last two spots. The next runner to finish, Owen Tremblay of Maine South, was clocked in 15:32.5, less than a second from crashing the state field.

Froum had to wait awhile to find out whether he had another race to run in Peoria Saturday.

“It was really nerve-wracking because the results (posted online and viewed closely on his cellphone) kept changing,” Froum said. “I really didn’t know what place I got. Finally Jack Kleinschmit and I went for a cool down, and when I came back I heard them announce the team results. Then I heard the announcer count down from 10 (individual qualifiers) and when I heard him say Sam Froum, it was such a good feeling.”

“We knew that with our training, we had 3 guys (Froum, Kleinschmit and Henry O’Malley) who could run at this level, and that we’d come out of the sectional with at least one qualifier,” said Evanston head coach Donald Michelin Jr. “I saw Sam coming down that stretch, and he really gave it all that he had. He made sure he wouldn’t get passed, and he beat some guys who had beaten him over the last 2 weeks (conference and regional meets).

“That final 50 yards is what got him there. He ran a perfect race. He ran from the front, and he must have passed 20 people in that third mile. Sam was super focused --- and when he wants something, he gets it.”

Froum hasn’t always been the lead runner in Evanston’s pack this year, but he rose to the occasion at Lake Park. Kleinschmit, a senior, ran 37th in 15:39.8 and O’Malley, another senior, placed 64th in 16:04.2.

“The entire week (leading up to the race) was the most focused I’ve ever been,” Froum said. “I kept trying to give myself positive affirmations, telling myself yeah, I’ve got this, why not me? I had a strategy in my head to go out fast, and I tried to be competitive and not fall off too much after that.

“When I looked at the times it took to qualify in past years, I knew it was within reach for me. I knew what I had to do. It started last spring when the (returning) juniors and seniors met and came up with a day to day training program. We came up with a plan and we stuck to it. And 6 of us went to a camp in Oregon in the summer for some high altitude training, and that was super helpful.

“Everyone on the team really rooted for and pushed each other this year. Everyone wanted everyone else to succeed.”

“Next year, I think we’ll have the opportunity to get the whole team to State,” Michelin Jr. predicted. “There’s still a lot of potential in the guys we have coming back.

“Jack and Henry were in the 40s (places) after the first mile and we still felt like they’d put themselves in pretty good positions. They just couldn’t quite get to where they needed to be. But Sam was super strong over the last 300 meters. Guys were moving up on him, but he wanted it more than they did.

“Over that last 100 he did things that were foreign to us, things we hadn’t seen before. He put it all out there. He didn’t want to lose.”