Collins continues to raise bar on track success

HARRISON, Idaho – They haven’t updated the track and field records at Kootenai High School the past two years.

For good reason, too. First, the new high school opened this year so the record board is still hung on the wall of the old, barn-like gym that now serves the junior high. The second reason – and perhaps most plausible – is coach Shannon LaFountaine will likely wait until Darcy Collins, a junior, graduates.

Collins, you see, started breaking school records in her first meet as a freshman. She will likely just keep breaking her marks through the end of her senior year.

She is the youngest of perhaps the most decorated sister trio to come through Kootenai. Being the youngest, the comparisons were bound to happen. But long before Darcy reached high school, folks around Harrison frequently would whisper “wait ‘til the youngest sister comes along.”

It didn’t take long for her to arrive and make a name for herself.

Kootenai has won three straight State 1A championships, and a Collins sister or sisters are connected to each.

First there was Tess. She won state titles in the 200- and 400-meter dashes and ran a leg on the winning 1,600 relay. She came up just short in collecting three individual titles when she placed second in the high jump. She had a significant footprint, though, in the school’s first state title.

That same year, the middle sister, Amy, then a freshman, began what would become a dominating stretch in the long-distance races.

Two years ago, along came Darcy, who has not known what it’s like to do anything but win individual and team championships.

Darcy Collins has captured two gold medals in the 300 hurdles and high jump, one in the 100 hurdles and ran legs on two winning relays. That adds up to seven gold medals. It would probably be eight had it not been for a false start in her first state-qualifying regional event as a freshman in the 100 hurdles.

Based on her pace this season, it’s a good bet she will add eight more gold medals to her collection before she’s finished, and probably two more team championships.

She has never run and jumped better than now.

“It’s phenomenal,” LaFountaine was saying this week. “She makes it look so effortless.”

Such as Saturday at the Lake City Invite, when Collins high jumped 5 feet, 6 inches to break the school record by one-quarter of an inch. That mark was set in 1997 by Annie Goodson, who went on to have a fine collegiate career as a heptathlete.

Collins’ dream is to be a heptathlete. She’s attempted four of the seven events that comprise the heptathlon – the 100 hurdles, 200, high jump and long jump. The other three events are the 800, shot put and javelin. She will likely try the shot next year. The javelin is outlawed in Idaho.

Prior to her school mark in the high jump Saturday, Collins’ had matched her previous best, 5-4, once this year and twice last year. So when she easily cleared 5-2 at the meet, she elected to move the bar to 5-6 and bypass 5-4.

“My legs felt good for the first time this year,” she said. “The school record wasn’t really my goal this year. I didn’t even realize I broke it right away. I was going more for a personal record.”

She took three jumps at 5-8, barely clipping the bar with a calf on one attempt.

Collins credits Sandpoint coach Dave DeMers with some advice. He was officiating the event and asked Collins’ mother, Pat, if he could share a pointer or two with her.

“I told her after she cleared 5-2 not to change a thing – to keep everything the same,” DeMers said. “Sometimes when you attempt a height you’ve never cleared before, the tendency is to think you’ve got to do something different. Like speed up your approach or jump different. I just told her to keep doing what she was doing.”

The result was Collins cleared the bar, as LaFountaine said earlier, effortlessly on her first attempt.

Most of her hurdle races have been against athletes from bigger schools. She credits 5A hurdlers Brenda Finney and Holly Meyer of Lake City for motivating her in the hurdles this season.

Collins has trimmed 1.2 seconds off her personal best in the 300. Including the high jump, she has the top marks in all four of her events in the region (100 hurdles, 15.1; 300 hurdles, 44.9; 200, 26.2).

She already has her name in the state record book for the top state-meet time in the 300 hurdles. She wants to top the state bests in the high jump (5-4), 100 hurdles (16.34) and 200 (26.24).

The biggest hurdle she faces in trying to do so, though, is that she faces her stiffest competition prior to state against athletes from the bigger schools. So far, the 1A athletes at state haven’t presented a challenge.

“That’s what makes it tough at state,” Collins said. “It’s more like I’m running against the stopwatch and not the competition.”

As talented as the Collins’ sisters are, they’re equally humble. Where does Darcy keep her state medals? In a shoebox in her closet – similar to where her sisters’ medals are located.

You won’t find her letterman’s jacket bedecked with the medals. In fact, follow Darcy around the hallways at Kootenai and you’ll find a student who blends in well with her friends.

Follow her into her final class each day, choir, and you’ll watch her try to hit the soprano notes. But you won’t see her volunteer to sing a solo.

“I took the class for fun. It’s not something I’m serious about,” she said. “It was either choir or welding – or something like that.”

Put a few hurdles in front of her or a high jump pit and her personality changes.

“I’m competitive in everything I do,” she said.

“Of the three girls, she’s more aggressive – more of a risk taker,” her father, Jerry, said.

Jerry, a 1968 Kootenai graduate, won a couple of state medals back in his day and went on to compete in track at the University of Idaho. So far, his oldest daughters have chosen rival colleges. Tess is a junior running middle distances at Boise State and Amy is a freshman trying to overcome injuries in the long distances at Montana.

So it would tickle father if his youngest followed in his foot steps at Idaho. But she’ll go where she receives the best offer.

At her current pace, Darcy Collins should have a choice or two come next year.