April 1 marked the start of Champaign Central’s outdoor track season after the indoor season saw multiple Maroons take home medals in the Top Times state meet. Major changes have come to Central’s boys program in recent years, following a jump to 3A competition ahead of the 2024 season and the retirement of longtime boys head coach Argie Johnson. On the girls’ side, their 4×200 squad has been one of the top teams in the state, with senior Julia Bilsbury helping lead the Maroons to a 4×200 medal at top times and a school record in the indoor triple jump. As the team sets off fully into the outdoor season over the next two months, here are some of the main pieces to look out for over the season.
1. New Boys Head Coach Dean Kamps
Following the retirement of longtime head coach Argie Johnson last spring, the Maroons needed a new face to look to, with social studies teacher Dean Kamps taking up the role ahead of this season. After serving as an assistant on Uni High’s girls’ track team, Kamps made the switch to Central’s boys program last spring, taking up the role as a field events coach for the Maroons. Now, serving as the head coach for one of Central’s largest boys’ track teams in years, Kamps acknowledged that it’s been quite the big jump.
“The biggest change is just making sure all of the entries for meets are put in on time, and as an assistant coach you don’t really have to do that,” remarked Kamps, going on to recall that “I was a pole vault coach last year, so I had to put in four entries, and now I have 16 different events that I have to account for.”
New coaching often brings new training methods to the team, and that’s no different for Kamps, who recalled, “During indoor season, a lot of what we worked on was acceleration, which basically means distances from zero to 40 meters, really working on that initial burst of speed.” Later asked how that differs from Johnson’s philosophy, Kamps answered, “I found that Coach Johnson’s philosophy focused more on conditioning and getting in shape in the early season, but not necessarily focusing on those acceleration pieces. Which is fine, he’s potentially a hall of fame coach, he’s done it for a long time, but I think those are just some of the scientific methods where he and I are a little bit different.”
The relationship between the boys’ and girls’ track teams has also evolved with Kamps in charge. “I would say we are much more cohesive than in years past,” remarked Guthrie Hood, the head coach of the girls’ team. “I have seen more comradery between the two programs already, like individuals cheering each other on at meets, being far less distracting at practices or situations where they’re sharing the same spaces.”
As Kamps put the coaching change, “there’s some benefits, but then we also lose some things. We had an excellent high jump coach (Johnson), and we don’t have that anymore.”
2. Jax Hardy & Caleb Mathias
The stars of the main events to look out for on the boys’ side, Jax Hardy and Caleb Mathias, have come to dominate the hurdling and distance events at Central. After taking down Nick Bonn’s short-lived 3200m record last spring as a sophomore, Mathias looks to better his 9:27 record this season.
“Caleb was right there, but it’s like, do we put a sticker up there that says Caleb Mathias and the time? Because he’s probably going to break the record again, he’s only a junior,” said Kamps, referring to Mathias’ place on the school record board at McKinley Field.
For Hardy, who also took down a school record as a sophomore in the 110m hurdles, he looks to better his own 14.82 time and potentially drop 2.23 seconds to take the 300m hurdle record.
“Jax Hardy is on the footsteps of breaking some hurdle records, he’s already broken the 60m record for indoor,” remarked Kamps, with Mathias talking about his teammate’s state qualification last spring, going on to bring up, “He’s even a 51 (second) 400 runner, so just watch him and anything that he competes in.”
For both runners being Juniors, it’s clear there’ll be potential to see them drop their records even lower over this season and into the next.
3. Audrey Allender, Julia Bilsbury, & The Girls 4x200m Relay
The three main events to look out for on the Girls’ side are Allender holding the school record in pole vaulting, Bilsbury taking the indoor triple jump record this spring, and the 4x200m relay making the indoor top times meet.
“She’s a returning school record holder,” remarked Hood when referring to Allender. “Julia Bilsbury just set our triple jump indoor record, so those would be two of our strongest in the field events.”
When asked about the girls’ relays, Hood answered, “Our sprint relays have been consistently strong. Missing Izzy Roundtree this year has kind of put a damper in that a little bit, but some of those newcomers have filled some of those spots, and our 4×200 qualified for top times.” The girls 4×200 placed third in 3A at the top times indoor meet, finishing only two seconds behind first place Centennial, and has yet to compete outdoors as of April 11th, so the sky’s the limit in the month and a half left before the sectional and state meets.
4. 3A reclassification
With rising enrollment numbers sending the Maroons girls and boys track teams up to the 3A class last spring, new challenges have been brought on all across the board. With 3A competition comes faster requirements in order to compete at the state meet, so scheduling has become a task for Hood and Kamps to fine-tune in order to assure that the Maroons are consistently running against the best competition throughout the regular season.
“It doesn’t really do good to go up against St. Thomas Moore or Uni High, those are just 1A schools,” answered Kamps on how scheduling leaves Central with no choice but to compete further away from home, with Hood remarking that for the girls side, “the biggest kind of struggle we have is some of our kids are right up competing with these 3A kids, and some others are just focused more on personal growth and improving their times. So finding that balance where we’re really getting that high level competition on some ends, but not getting kids with unpleasant experiences because they’re not as competitive at the same time.” For the boys, three of this year’s meets will be up in the Chicagoland area, while the girls are able to stay downstate and compete with the strongest 2A and 3A teams, such as Normal U-High.
5. Packed Rosters
Although Central’s overall student population has steadily increased over the past few years, the track team, particularly the boys’ side, has made a massive jump in numbers this season.
“We had 40 or so kids on the team last year, and we have 86 on the roster right now, so we’ve doubled our size,” answered Kamps in an interview. As for the challenges with such a large boys team, he remarked, “The biggest thing you have managing that is just having assistant coaches, hoping that they’re consistent in being there, and also to have the senior leaders on the team that are stepping up and showing those freshmen how to do things.”
When asked what he believes made the boys’ team explode in size this season, Kamps answered, “I think that some of the other sports in this school are talking about the benefits of joining track. Track and field is one of the sports where they teach you how to run fast, jump high, throw far, and I think they’ve seen that is something that can translate to all other sports.” Hood also chimed in to that question, remarking that “Kamps is also a teacher in the building. Coach Johnson was an aide in the FLS program, so the number of kids he was interacting with on a daily basis was a lot less, so I think Coach Kamps has a much better opportunity to recruit kids when he sees them in the hallway or in class.”
As for the girls team’s numbers, which has a roster hovering just under 50 athletes, Hood answered, “I would say we have about 40 kids that are really consistent and showing up on a daily basis and putting in the work.” Bringing up conflicts with other spring sports, which may limit roster sizes for the girls’ track team, he said, “Finding a really large group of kids that are super consistent has been tricky. On the girls’ side, our soccer program is really strong, so we tend to lose a lot of athletes to that and to club volleyball, which has made it tricky to have a really strong group of athletes.”
Despite the losses the girls side suffers to club sports, soccer, and softball, they still managed to put up strong numbers this spring, alongside returning school record holders on the team. With a month and a half in the outdoor season until the girls state meet from May 22-24 and the boys state meet from May 29-31, there’s still plenty of time for the Maroons to jump out and show off this season.
