It was a toast to Charlie Warthan.
They gathered by the hundreds on Sunday, former Bloomington North cross country and track athletes, from his first team 48 years ago to his last, at the former Oliver Winery property on Woodall Road north of Ellettsville.
Several of them even brought their running shoes to take part in a 5K race to break in the cross country course built by the new owners, the Feagans.
Warthan had no clue what was waiting for him. Home at 1:30 a.m. the night before after the Cougars sent him out with the school’s first state team title, he was up early to head to church at 7:30 with his wife, Marianne. Then it was out to the Feagans to watch his grandson Isaiah Hollars (who won the race) run in a 5K. Or so he thought.
“We drove up and saw all the tents and thought, ‘This is way bigger than a 5K run,’ Warthan said. “At that point, I had no idea everybody was going to show up. It was big. I saw all the cars parked there and then I put 2 and 2 together.
“It was a humbling experience for me to see lots of men come back that I had the privilege to work with over the years.”
Warthan knew the course was under construction and had been out there a few times, but was surprised when it was announced they were going to dedicate the 2½-kilometer loop course in his honor. His son Jason had a special sign made along with the mile and kilometer markers.
It was, he noted, a ‘Wow’ moment.
“Everything at North is named after a coach,” Warthan said. “After coaching for 48 years, I wondered what they might name after me. Maybe put a nice outhouse out there, that was the joke I made.
“I was clueless. I didn’t know that was in the works. The people were pretty tight lipped, but I had a feeling that maybe some extended family might come in and we’d go to Mr. Hibachi for a meal to celebrate my career as a coach.”
Instead, for the next six hours, it was a smorgasbord of the past. From Keith Sharpless, Marty Bassett, and Dave McMillan to some of his latest standouts, Kyle Clark, Caleb Winders and Isaac Bentz.
The new course is a far cry from the on-campus one Warthan mapped out when he got to North. It started just behind where home plate is on the current softball field (built decades later) and wound around the baseball field. A trail cut through the woods in the nature center, originally meant as a teaching tool and a way to observe wildlife, was allowed to be used, adding a half-mile loop.
Three trips around the grass track and two turns through the woods added up to three miles. Three miles soon added up to thousands more and a big stack of post-season trophies.
The new course is not just a place the Cougars can use to break up the training routine, there are plans, Warthan said, to play host to a couple of smaller meets this fall.
Rick Rumple is also stepping away as jumps coach after a long career with North and Owen Valley. He will continue to run the Indiana Track Club, which started its summer session this week.
Four-by-four, by four
How rare is it for a school to win four consecutive titles in the same relay?
Gary Roosevelt won the 4×100 relay four times in a row from 1981-84 and Indianapolis Manual won the Mile Relay five straight times from 1905-09.
That’s it.
Back in 2023, Kyle Clark was the lone senior in a group that included Reed Pierce, Dominic D’Onofrio and Caleb Winders. They won by .6 of a second while breaking the state record.
Next year, in the rain, the Cougars were worried more about just winning than going faster and that’s what the D’Onofrio brothers (Caelan joined in), Pierce and Winders did. Last year, North went back to record breaking again as Caelan and Winders added Jacob Mitchell and Jake Gentry to the mix. No problem, as they had a 7:37.01.
With sophomore Shep Jackson joining seniors Gentry, D’Onofrio and Winders this year, they did it again.
“I know my sophomore year if you told me I was going to do it my junior year and senior year, I’d have said, ‘No way,'” Gentry said. “So I really was lucky enough to build myself to follow this idea of constant training to get up to that spot.”
Making that team means something special and the pressure to perform comes with it.
“Every day, every practice you have to prove yourself to make sure you’re at your best,” Gentry said. “So when you actually run, it’s not just the workouts, it’s not just the meets. It’s also the long runs, it’s your mental attitude on the track, off the track. Just to make sure you can do your best every day.”
“It kind of dictated the rest of our meet,” D’Onofrio said. “Once we get that going, everyone rolls off of that. We know we have the capability to win, so doing that gives us confidence, gives everyone else confidence. So it’s great.”
And Gentry’s message to those who will take up the mantle next year?
“I’d tell them work hard every day,” Gentry said. “Just because a day doesn’t feel like something special doesn’t mean it’s not special. For me, since I was a little kid every single day worked up to this moment.”
Track title notes
North’s title was the first for a team outside of the Indianapolis area since Gary West Side in 2014. Since 1995, the only other non-Indy area champs were Fort Wayne Northrop (1997 and 2004) and Concordia Lutheran (1999). It was the 11th time the Cougars have finished in the top 10.
Prior to Warren Central’s back-to-back titles in 1995-96, Indy-area schools won just four times going back to Manual’s win in 1923.
Bloomington (BHS and North), Washington (1914-15) and Linton (1910) are the only places south of 2011 champ Center Grove to win state.
Winders will be tied for fifth all time with six state titles and he’s the first to ever win four relay titles. He is the first to repeat in the 800 since Center Grove’s Austin Mudd in 2010-11. Winders and Mudd are the only ones to run under 1:50 in the finals.
On the girls side, South matched North’s runner-up finish in 2024 for the best in Bloomington history since the state meet began in 1976.
Fort Wayne Northrop (10 championships, four runner-ups) and Warren Central (six and seven) have ruled the roost as often as not. Carmel’s title was its fourth.
Over the past four seasons, only Carmel (160), Hamilton Southeastern (122) and Warren Central (122) have outscored South (97) at state.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: New cross country course named after outgoing Bloomington North coach
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