Tribe of Vikings Hall of Fame
Mark Zemke was already a CCIW champion, All-American and school record holder as he entered his senior season of track & field for Coach Paul Olsen in 1996. All he did that year was add five school records, three conference titles and two All-America performances—including a nation championship—to his resume. This evening, he adds another honor with his induction to the Tribe of Vikings Hall of Fame.
As an athlete at Waverly-Shell Rock High School in Waverly, Iowa, Zemke earned eight varsity letters in three sports. He was the Go-Hawks’ top cross country runner for three years and earned four letters in track, where his primary event was the 800. He captured fifth and sixth-place finishes at state with Waverly-Shell Rock’s 4x800 and medley relays, respectively. He also earned a letter in basketball. He graduated in 1992 and landed on the Augustana campus that fall.
Zemke finish fifth in the 400 hurdles at the CCIW Championships as a freshman and fourth as a sophomore in 1994.
As a junior, Zemke recorded his first CCIW championship, school record and All-America performance—all as a member of Viking relay units. In the 1995 Early Spring Opener, he helped Olsen’s 4x100 relay set a meet record and log an NCAA provisional qualifying time of :42.48. At the Drake Relays, he ran a 22-second 200 split to help break a 26-year old school record with a clocking of 3:25.62 in the sprint medley relay. He handled the third leg of the Vikings’ CCIW-champion 4x400 relay (3:18.85).
At the 1995 national meet in Northfield, Minnesota, Zemke and his 4x400 mates Nate Hurt, Scott Tumilty and Rob Lee set a new school record of 3:14.35 in the prelims before finishing fourth in the nation with a finals time of 3:17.07. Their effort helped Augustana finish fifth in the team standings.
That set the stage for a spectacular senior season for Zemke. After setting indoor school records in the 400 (:50.82), 200 hurdles (:25.26) and with the 4x200 relay (1:31.25), he won outdoor conference championships in the 400 hurdles (:54.53) and with the Viking 4x100 (:42.26) and 4x400 (3:17.93) relays. On May 17 at the Midwest Championships at Ericson Field, he ran the fastest split (:47.2) as his 4x400 quartet broke its own school mark with a time of 3:13.13.
At the 1996 NCAA Division III Championships in Naperville, Illinois, Zemke qualified for the 400 hurdle finals with the fourth-best prelim time. Still trailing after the last hurdle in the final, Zemke rallied to nip Lincoln College’s Anthony Julian by three one-hundredths of a second for the national title. His school record of :52.55 would stand until 2007. In the final race of Zemke’s career, he, Hurt, Tumilty and Lee repeated their fourth-place 4x400 finish from the year before. Augustana placed fourth in the team standings, equaling the third-best national finish ever for a Viking track & field outfit.
When his career ended, Zemke not only held Augustana’s school record in the 400 hurdles, but in the 400 meters and 200 hurdles indoors. He was also a member of three school-record relays—4x400 and sprint medley outdoors and 4x200 indoors. His best in the 400 hurdles still ranks fourth in school history.
Zemke graduated from Augustana in 1996 with a degree in mathematics and went on to earn his Master of Education from Northern Illinois University. He taught and coached track at Barrington High School in Barrington, Illinois for seven years before relocating to California. For the past 14 years, he’s been a math teacher at Sheldon High School in Elk Grove. He’s also served as a track coach at Sheldon, as well as at Bradshaw Christian High School in Vineyard, California.
Mark and his wife Suzanne have two children—Miles and Marguerite—and live in Elk Grove, California.
“I am very proud of the education I received at Augustana,” said Zemke. “I feel that I was well prepared for a lifetime career in teaching. I made many good friends during my four years, a couple of whom were groomsmen at my wedding.” He added, “I owe a lot of my success to having teammates who pushed me to get better during practice and coaches who saw potential in me that I did not know I had.”
