When he found out his Brunswick track and field team would be competing against Eastern Maine Indoor Track League teams in Orono for the second time in as many years, Danny Dearing was a happy man.
The Dragons’ boys coach had a stellar career running for Stearns High in Millinocket and the University of Maine, so any trip to his old stomping grounds is always a happy one.
“I’m totally excited because I know some of the [EMITL] coaches and also know our athletes need this [meet],” Dearing said.
Dearing’s Dragons will join fellow KVAC heavyweight Edward Little of Auburn and EMITL schools Bangor, Brewer, Hampden Academy, Hermon and Mount Desert Island in a seven-team competition at the University of Maine field house at 4:40 p.m. Friday.
Dearing, who has coached the Brunswick boys for the last 10 seasons and led them to a Class A state indoor championship in 2008, is looking at this meet from a big-picture perspective.
“We’re hoping to come back with a lot of improved times and places,” he said.
One thing is for certain: Brunswick’s standout pole vaulter Mike Slovenski won’t make the trip to Orono, as he’s competing in Saturday’s Dartmouth Relay meet in Hanover, N.H., while teammate Will Geoghegan, arguably the state’s best distance runner, may compete in just one race as he is slated to run the 2-mile at Dartmouth. Liam Cassidy is in the same boat for Brunswick.
“It’ll probably be a relay and done or something where they do it just as a tuneup,” Dearing said.
Dearing graduated from Stearns in 1980 and had some impressive personal-bests of 10 minutes, 2 seconds in the 2 mile, 2:02 in the 800 and in the 4:30 range in the mile.
But things didn’t exactly start well for him, and a 5:50 mile in a Penquis League championship meet in Dexter as a freshman was a wake-up call.
“I remember going home and talking to my father, who kind of coached me along and saying one day I’ll win a medal, and he said if you put in some time in the summer and train in the summer you just may,” Dearing said.
A year later, he was the conference’s top runner in the 2-mile, and he followed that success on to UMaine, had a stellar career there and broke into road racing, competing with the Boston Athletic Association for a while.
Dearing, who resides in Lisbon Falls, now competes as a masters’ runner with the Dirigo Running Club, and he has been on teams that have won national team crowns at the 5K and 5-mile distances.
“Now, I probably do six to eight [road races] a year,” he said.
Dearing is passing his lessons down to a Brunswick squad which is being pegged as one of the favorites in Class A this winter, with two top athletes in Geoghegan, who owns the state’s top times in all three distance events, and Slovenski, the youngest in a family of pole vault standouts.
Dearing hopes his athletes enjoy the unique atmosphere the UMaine facility has to offer.
“I really like the spirit,” Dearing said, referring to the fact that the fans are close to the action as spectators generally sit just on the inside of the track.
Relays rescheduled
The Black Bear Relays, which were snowed out on Jan. 2, will be made up on Jan. 16 in Orono.
Field events get under way at 1:45 p.m. while teams will enter the field house at 1 p.m.
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