ONE GREAT CAREER: Long-time Newton track coach Schackmann retires in style
May 23—It's been a long and winding road for Newton head girls track and field coach Jackie Schackmann.
When the veteran head coach took over the program 17 years ago, she didn't inherit the greatest product.
Schackmann said that she had five girls on the team when she first took the job, leaving her with a lot of work to do to build what was nothing into something.
All that hard work and dedication has since paid off. The Lady Eagles recently qualified for the Class 1A state track and field meet at O'Brien Field in Charleston, where they placed in a tie for 36th with seven points.
What the trip truly signified, though, was the last bus trip that Schackmann would take with a team.
Before the season began, Schackmann announced her retirement, and you couldn't ask for a better way to send her off.
Schackmann said that she characterizes each year as a new puzzle to solve, with this one being no different, even though it ended with an extreme amount of success.
"This year, you start with cornerpieces like Rylea [Borgic], Laney [Hemrich], and Alexis [Hetzer]. You start with those because we had a lot of freshmen again this year, and we had a couple of girls that had never done track, so just trying to figure out where all of those pieces and it took us most of the season to figure that out," Schackmann said.
Newton won 12 of the 13 meets it competed in this season, including the Little Illini Conference Meet and a sectional championship.
"Beyond my imagination," said Schackmann on her team's overwhelming dominance. "I figured out the total year score today, and the girls had scored almost 1,800 points to the nearest competitor, which was 1,200. That's unreal."
Rylea Borgic was one of the stalwarts on the team this year and couldn't help but thank Schackmann for all that she has taught her.
"Jackie has taught me a lot. She's taught me to be strong-willed, and she has taught me to have a lot of grit — a lot more than I ever thought I would," Borgic said. "She has created a huge impact on my life by letting me know that it's not OK to give up; you should always keep pushing and never give up just because times get hard, and she's done that throughout her own life and through the other teams that she's coached."
Borgic, a senior at Newton, finished the season with five wins in the 800-meter run, one win in the 1600-meter run, three wins in the 100-meter hurdles, 10 wins in the 300-meter hurdles, one win in the 4x100-meter, 4x200-meter- and 4x800-meter relays, and nine wins in the 4x400-meter relay.
All that success couldn't happen without guidance from Schackmann, though, and additionally, Borgic wasn't the only one who felt that same way.
Former Lady Eagle runner and current Eastern Illinois runner Sarah Carr also had high praise for Schackmann.
"Jackie wasn't my coach in junior high, but she got me started; she helped me in the beginning since sixth grade, and I honestly found out that I loved running through Jackie," Carr said. "I didn't know if I would be that good or if I could have gone to state or anything. She had a lot of belief in me, helped me, and gave me a lot of good tips along the way. Then, in high school, I had her my freshman year as a coach, and it was the same thing pretty much. She gave me a lot of good advice."
Carr was a four-time state qualifier in track and field.
She said all of that couldn't be possible without Shackmann's tutelage.
"In high school, in the 800, I started with a 2:40, and then at the end of my freshman year, I had a 2:26. Stuff like that, and, in practice, she helped me a lot and showed me I could hang with the top girls, and I believed everything she said," Carr said.
Contact EDN Sports Editor Alex Wallner at 618-510-9231 or alex.wallner@effinghamdailynews.com.
