Missouri Sports Hall of Fame perfect honor for Mexico 1974-79 track and field teams

By Jeremy Jacob, Sports Editor
Posted 9/28/22

Perfection and hard work were qualities of Mexico track and field in the 1970s.

They were instilled by then-head coach Ron Whittaker and were shared by the athletes from 1974-79. Those six teams …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Missouri Sports Hall of Fame perfect honor for Mexico 1974-79 track and field teams

Posted

Perfection and hard work were qualities of Mexico track and field in the 1970s.

They were instilled by then-head coach Ron Whittaker and were shared by the athletes from 1974-79. Those six teams captured top three finishes in Class 3A every year, winning three state titles in 1975-77. The efforts of those coaches and athletes received a perfect reward as those six teams were announced as an inductee in the 2022 class of the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.

Whittaker was at the Holiday Inn Executive Center in Columbia on Sept. 21 to represent the team in a press conference to announce them with the other 20 inductees that will officially go in the hall in a ceremony back at the Executive Center on Nov. 20. The coach, who the high school track was named after in 2016 and has an annual meet with his name attached to it, gave the credit to all the hard-working young men he coached during that time period and praised the sheer talent they all had.

“I just can’t speak kindly enough about those young men,” Whittaker said. “They were very hard workers and dedicated. We wouldn’t have school for a day, and they would come and say, ‘What time do we practice.’ I didn’t say anything about it. I would say their work ethic and interest snowballed. You win one state championship. Then another. Then another.”

Prior to Mexico’s first state championship in 1975, Mexico had two state champions in 1974 in Andy Piper and Randy Ezell, who had the state-record marks in the high jump and shot put, respectively. The list of state champions and record holders snowballed from there as Mexico had Piper repeat as champion in the high jump and James Clark set a state record in 120-yard high hurdles in 1975, Austin Miller was the state champion in the 120 high hurdles in 1976 along with state-record-holders Greg Jackson in the 440-yard dash and Jackson, Ronnie Miller, Adrian Bradshaw and Ronnie Hoffman in the mile relay, and Regan Fuhrer had the top mark in the pole vault in 1977.

Whittaker said the team, especially with the first one in 1975, had a stacked team that wasn’t just limited to one or a few outstanding athletes. To win a state title, he said you need several kids that are able to score points, and Mexico had many who finished in the top three, four or five in events. After Clark’s and Piper’s victories, he had a solid group of runners – Steve Mike Long, Tim Collins, James Clark and Butler Nunnelly – in the mile relay that needed to perform to hold off Manual of Kansas City and Charleston for the state title because only four points separated the three schools.

“We had a lot of kids that scored. That’s the difference,” Whittaker said. “Back then, they only scored five places in the state meet. Now they score eight. The first one in 1975 came down to the last event – it was called the mile relay back in those days, it’s actually the 4x4 now – we had to get second or better to win it (all), and we got second.”

Butler Nunnelly anchored that relay event in 1975, recalling how he individually had a tough assignment against the 440 state champion from Kansas City. Nunnelly also remembers not expecting Clark to win the hurdles event, but he came through, so it was the relay team’s turn to do the same. The quartet broke their own school record to beat Charleston for second place in the event and secure first for Mexico.

At a gathering Sept. 22 at the Mexico High School track that reunited the now Hall of Fame athletes, Nunnelly was holding a picture of his teammate Long, who had passed away a few months prior to the announcement of Mexico’s induction. In the group photo, Long was front and center as his contributions were as vital to that hall-worthy period in Mexico athletics history as anyone alive and present that day.

“It’s a great honor,” Nunnelly said. “(Steve Mike Long) and I were classmates since fourth grade. He was just a character. He could tell you something special. It’s a bittersweet moment because I wish he could be here with us to celebrate this.”

Nunnelly, who was also on the 1974 team before he graduated in 1975, said it was clear from the beginning with Whittaker that expectations were high. As far down as the seventh-grade track teams, Nunnelly said Whittaker communicated with the coaches and stressed that the athletes should be ready when they arrived in high school. What was expected was work, work and more work.

Initially, Nunnelly remembers being frustrated with some of Whittaker’s instructions as Nunnelly was a hurdler and relay runner, and Whittaker was asking him to run distances he wasn’t accustomed to.

“It was great because we had a coach like Ron Whittaker,” Nunnelly said. “He’d tell you, ‘If you listen to me, I’ll have you running at a certain time by the end of the year.’ If you did everything he’d tell you, you’d meet your goal.

“He was the coach that knew what he was talking about. I never could run the 100, I always did hurdles and relays. He told me, ‘You can run the 100-yard dash if you want to. I can have you running 10-flat if you listen to me.’ I finally got down to 10-flat in the 100, and I couldn’t believe that.”

Nunnelly would also practice the 800 distance because as his coach told him, “If you can run an 800, you can definitely run a 400 a lot faster.” It was easy to put in the hours of the work once Whittaker’s methods were understood.

Another member of that 1975 team, and the 1974 and 1976 teams, that could be found at the track hours after school was current Mexico High School jumpers and hurdlers coach Austin Miller. Miller is the first athlete that came to Whittaker’s mind when he was explaining the dedication of his kids at the press conference.

There was one time Miller wouldn’t leave the track even though Mexico had a meet the next day in Jefferson City. Whittaker urged him to go home, but Miller wanted to do “just one more” run or “just one more” jump.

“We had to run him off,” Whittaker said. “If not for me, he’d just run, run, run.”

Miller said the perfection that was expected from the coaches back in those times prepared him to compete amongst the best of the best at state. He even had many state-caliber athletes to best in practice, who all had the same mentality of reaching peak performance, and another figure he is grateful for his triple jump coach, the late Darriel Douglas.

“That was a highly technical event,” Miller said. “Oh boy, we’d spend a lot of time together. Rest his soul, he’s no longer with us. Coach Douglas, he had me down to perfection on that triple jump and all the different phases. That’s probably where I had the advantage over a lot of the people. The perfection that these coaches had you do – just expected every movement that you did had to be to perfection. We’d do it until we get it right there. We could go on if we want, but the mentality here is winning.”

For the sprints, Miller said Whittaker broke down every part of the running motion into steps like high-knee, high-knee extends and bounding.

“He was ahead of his time,” Miller said. “‘Now that we got all the different components, now let’s put it all together and turn it into a good running form.’ He didn’t want a bunch of lazy people out there on the track. If you were going to come out with a Mexico uniform, you would want to come out here to perform.”

Miller did just that in 1975 before he recalls leaving the track to work at his job. His events were scheduled earlier and he had other responsibilities he couldn’t ignore, so he didn’t see Nunnelly’s and his other teammates’ clinching run.

“I didn’t know we had won state that day, because I’d come up there and perform in my events in 1975, but I was working for Kentucky Fried Chicken at the time,” Miller said. “So I had to go and take off and cater a dinner. When I got home that night, my mom said ‘Y’all won state.’”

After what might have been an unbelievable achievement back then, Miller now has the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame induction to process. He admits it hasn’t fully sunk in but understands why he will be a part of this rare honor.

Miller said this year will be his final year of coaching, barring any athlete who reaches out and wants to work with him after he leaves the track, because of his other job at State Farm Insurance. Even after all these years, Miller is having a hard time being “run off” the track because he wants the future athletes to be successful and is aware of the “agonizing” work – like scheduling athletes for the proper events – the coaches have to put in to Mexico track and field.

On Nov. 20, Whittaker said Mexico’s induction will be like a “track and field reunion” as has been the case at multiple gatherings throughout the years, such as his track dedication in 2016. Miller is ready for that moment of perfection with his friends.

“I never thought I’d ever be in any kind of hall of fame, but then, it wasn’t until it was put together and something was said about this team in the six years had finished in the top three,” Miller said. “Out of those top threes, you were a champion three of those times. We knew we were pretty good at what we were doing then, but to go to this level, though, at the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, that’s quite an honor.”


X