Tribe of Vikings Hall of Fame
Sometimes high expectations can lead to disappointment and heartache but that certainly was not the case with the 1981 Augustana men’s track & field team. The Vikings of legendary head coach Paul Olsen entered the 1981 campaign with tremendous optimism after finishing fourth in the nation and breaking North Central’s five year hold on the College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin championship in the spring of 1980.
In addition, Olsen could point to a distance crew that had finished second in the NCAA Division III cross country national meet in the fall of 1980 so all indications were that the 1981 track & field season would be one to remember.
That is exactly what happened as the Vikings, who sported blue-chip performers in nearly every event, rolled to a record point total in winning the CCIW title for the second year in a row and then placed second in the national meet, which was held at Case Western University in Cleveland, Ohio.
“That team had high expectations heading into the season and they earned the right to think that way,” said Olsen. “There was incredible talent and a work ethic you would expect out of guys that good.”
This was a team that was loaded with talent. Seven members of the 1981 Vikings have been inducted in the Tribe of Vikings Hall of Fame. Steeplechaser Rob Jensen, decathlete Socrates Catavatis, and pole vaulter Mark Schick were the first, inducted in 2005. Sprinter Kofi Osei was inducted in 2006. Distance runner Tony Hurd and jumper Bill Rapier (also an All-American basketball player) were honored in the class of 2010 and distance runner Steve Gramsch made it in the class of 2012.
Besides the seven Hall of Famers, a total of 12 members of the Vikings on the 1981 team would earn NCAA Division III All-American honors at some point in their careers. Pole vaulters Brett Anderson, Doug Atkinson, and Mark Schick, decathlete Socrates Catavatis, distance runners Steve Gramsch, Tony Hurd and Rob Jensen, high jumper Lonnie Hewitt and sprinters Terry McMillan, Kofi Osei and Tom Sparkman and discus thrower Dave Lingner all earned the mantle of All-American before they graduated. Atkinson and Osei were national champions in their respective events, Atkinson in the pole vault in 1982 and Osei in the 100 in 1981.
Olsen could also point to a roster that had 21 athletes who won either an individual or relay in CCIW at some time. Anderson, Schick and John Roche in the pole vault; Mike Barber, McMillan, Kurt Redenbo, Norm Ross, Tim Sparkman and Tom Sparkman in the relays; Osei in the sprints and relays; Catavatis in the decathlon; Barry Clayton and Kevin Knourek in the hurdles; Greg Colberg in the triple jump; Gramsch, Hurd, Jensen and Mark Nordstrom in the distance events; Hewitt in the high jump; Jerry Kirkpatrick in the javelin and Lingner in the discus are all in the record books representing Augustana as CCIW champions.
As the 1981 season unfolded, seven All-Americans from the previous year – Sparkman, McMillan, Osei, Schick, Anderson, Hewitt and Catavatis were anxious for more and Hurd and Jensen had earned All-American honors in cross country. Olsen, who was always optimistic, knew that this bunch could be special.
“We are going to be tough to beat,” he said prior to the start of the 1981 season. “We have a lot of depth and an incredible amount of top-notch talent. We’ve got some horses. There is no doubt that it is going to be a fun year.”
Track & field is certainly a sport made up of individual events but Olsen’s philosophy was always team oriented and in 1981 his Vikings had depth and talent in nearly every event. It is also a sport where the early season meets don’t mean a whole lot and at Augustana success is judged on finishes in the two most important meets of the year – the CCIW and NCAA Division III championships.
The Vikings competed in three home meets and the Eastern Illinois Invitational, the Illini Classic, a dual meet with Bradley and the Drake Relays prior to the CCIW championship on May 1-2 in Decatur, Illinois. Olsen’s team was the defending champion but perennial power North Central, whom the Vikings had unseated the year before from a five year perch on the top of the league, was poised to knock off the defending champions.
There were just four final events on the first day (Friday) and North Central flexed its distance muscle by taking five of the top seven spots in the 10,000, which was the very first final. Hurd battled his way to a second place finish in 30:43.53 and that helped set the tone for the meet. The last event on Friday was the long jump and Catavatis and junior teammate Eric Iserman went one-two in an incredibly close competition where Catavatis’ winning jump of 22’ 2 ¾” was less than two inches better than the fifth place leap of 22’ ½”.
As darkness settled in at Frank Lindsay Field on the campus of Millikin University, Augustana trailed 55-38 and it looked as if Saturday was going to be a day where every point would matter.
The Vikings were clearly ready to go when the competition picked up again on May 2 and it was Hewitt who delivered the first blow with a victory in the high jump by clearing 6’ 8” and defeating hometown favorite Al Sheriff of Millikin in a tense dual. The 400 relay team of McMillan, Ross, Tom Sparkman and Osei ripped off a winning time of :42.09 for the second straight Augustana win. The 3000 steeplechase was up next and Jensen, who had been sixth the night before in the 10,000, ran away from the field in a conference record time of 9:06.27 (without a water jump). Lingner then won his third straight discus title and Gramsch won the 1500 in 3:52.41.
That made it wins in five straight events for the Vikings but the gap with North Central was still 18 points (111-93) and there were some nervous faces in the Augustana camp. Over the next two events, however, the Cardinals scored just one point (an eighth place in the 400) while the Vikings got a second, fourth and fifth in the 110 high hurdles from Clayton, Rollie Sharer and Knourek and a second and third in the 400 out of Tom Sparkman and Kurt Redenbo. Suddenly, the Vikings were in the lead by 12 points (124-112).
Colberg came through with a win in the triple jump at 46’ 6” and Osei won the 100 in :10.65 and Augustana grabbed four places in the 800 and the lead was up to 171-139. Hurd’s win in the 5000 in 14:46.18 cemented the team title and then the Viking pole vaulters, led by Anderson and Schick clearing 15’ 6” grabbed the top three places and five of the last six after all the other events were finished.
When the final totals were compiled, Olsen’s team set a record with 253 points to outdistance North Central’s second place figure of 191. So complete was Augustana’s domination that the combined point total of the teams in places four through nine (Millikin, Carthage, Illinois Wesleyan, Elmhurst, Carroll and North Park) was just 237.
Catavatis was named the co-MVP of the meet and the Vikings won 11 of the 20 events and scored in double digits in 15 of those.
The NCAA Division III national meet was held at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio on May 25-30 that year and Augustana had 22 qualifiers. Catavatis got things started by taking third in the decathlon, which was held on the first two days of the meet. Osei won an extremely close 100 to become national champion and Lingner was second in the discus and Gramsch took second in the 1500. Hurd placed third in the 10,000 and Jensen grabbed fourth in the 3000 steeplechase.
It added up to a runner-up team finish as the Vikings were second only to Glassboro State.
“We had great individual character that melded together for the good of the team,” said Olsen as he reflected back on his 1981 team. “It was the embodiment of what Augustana track & field is all about – where the distance guys sit around the pole vault pit and cheer for the pole vaulters and the entire team runs back and forth during the mile relay. In a sport made up of individual events, this group embraced the team concept in the best way possible.”
