The 2025 SDSSAA Track & Field Championships are less than two weeks away and for as much as the current crop of talent is ultra exciting, the fact remains that the event simply will not be the same this year.

Below is an article that was penned in June of 2021 as the global pandemic thankfully provided the time to sit down with local legends such as Doug Gingrich - to find out more of their fascinating story.

Understand the background, understand the man.

Perhaps I picked this up somewhere along the way from one of those college dormitory motivational posters. I honestly don't remember.

It just seemed all to a-propos as I pondered a lead for the story of Doug Gingrich.

For the unacquainted, Gingrich is the 82 year-old Michiganian who effectively started the ball rolling on an unparalleled run of success that has seen the Lo-Ellen Park Knights track and field dynasty capture 35 of the past 40 SDSSAA aggregate banners that have been contested.

Of course, in the tradition of the well-oiled relay quartet - or troika in their case, the graduate of Central Michigan University would ultimately hand the baton to Joe Bacon and on to Colin Ward, both of whom continued in absolute lockstep with the man who might never had made his way to Canada if not for a chance visit to Bay City by his wife Myrna and a friend in the early sixties.

Still, the tale of the man who influenced literally thousands of student athletes at the south end Sudbury school, most notably in track and field and football, dates back even earlier than that.

"I was born and raised in Cass City," Gingrich recalled recently, relaxing in the backyard gazebo of his long-time home in Lively. "There was a big vacant lot and barn at the front of the lot, and the neighbourhood kids would use that lot. At the back of the lot, we would put up a basketball net. For football, we would use another neighbour's lawn."

There were even recollections of the pole vault and a bevy of broken bamboo poles. In a country that is about as sport-immersed as any in the world, this future coach would find his calling. The fact that the bulk of the benefactors of his incredible teachings would lie north of the border is attributable to a scene directly out of Happy Days.

By the mid-fifties, Gingrich and family had made their way to Bay City, where he attended Bay City Central. So typically American, this high-school of some 2600 students would boast their own stadium, one fitting of a team that would advance all the way to the State championship football final.

In an era of sock hops and soda pop, Gingrich was about to see his world turned upside down, just as he was preparing to leave for Fort Knox (Kentucky), having been enlisted by the United States armed forces.

"My buddy Duke had a car, and he used to pick me up and we would go to White's Drive-In, a hot spot for young people, and make the rounds - just typical teenage boys in those days," he waxed poetic.

"We're driving through Bay City, up near where the Greyhound Bus came in, and we see these two incredibly pretty young ladies."

By the end of the weekend, a relationship was forged, one that has now endured more than six decades, one that grew stronger via mail correspondence only, a series of letters from the young soldier to the dietician in a foreign land - and back again.

"The 20th time that we were ever in each other's company was the day that we walked down the aisle (in 1964)," said Gingrich.

For the first four years of his teaching career, the eventual father of two (Tara and Scott) was employed with Carrollton High-School in Saginaw (MI), already making quite a name for himself. Head football and track and field coach and establishing a reputation of athletic excellence, Gingrich was presented with the Outstanding Young Educator Award - when the decision was made to uproot the family to Sudbury.

Though it wasn't easy, it was also a decision that he has never regretted - even if that took a while to sink in. "I hated to leave because I think we would have won the State (track & field) championship," he said. "I was a dude coming up here."

A dude perhaps, but a dude who was about to experience something of a culture shock.

"I had a difficult time coaching my first year, just because I was so intense," said Gingrich. "I had to undo a few things in my approach." The import coach was certainly not about to be intimidated by the existing juggernauts. His players, however, were another matter entirely as football, in particular, presented a somewhat challenging landscape.

"Sudbury High and (Sheridan) Tech had combined, so they had 2000 students, and then you had Father Black and the (St Charles College) Cards," he recalled. "I had maybe 22 guys, in total, at Lo-Ellen, and they were scared to death to play Secondary or St Charles."

The pathway was not a whole lot less daunting in the realm of track and field.

"When I got here (1971), Terry McKinty and the Lockerby Vikings ruled the roost," he said. "He had a fantastic running program - how was I going to break into that? I decided to take two of the most difficult events, pole vaulting and hurdles, and I would run a program in the school in the winter months."

"What he (McKinty) was doing with his runners, I would do with pole vaulters and hurdlers."

Ironically, given what has happened since then, it was football that accounted for the first SDSSAA banners, with Gingrich and the Knights victorious in both 1976 and 1977. The run of Lo-Ellen track dominance did not start until 1979 - but it has never slowed down.

In a school that has never topped the charts in terms of total population, Gingrich, Bacon and Ward have all managed to build an environment of inclusivity, something the man who still attends the annual city finals at Laurentian University credits in part to the specifics of the sport itself.

"In track and field, everyone can find a place," said Gingrich. "There is something that they all can do. With that, I had the ability to bring in 130 athletes in a season at Lo-Ellen. I was like the Pied Piper."

There is an element of mind over matter, of finding a way that allows teens to accomplish feats they never imagined. "At my first practice with beginners in the pole vault, I would tell them that they would be able to vault eight feet at the first practice," said Gingrich.

What he didn't tell them was that their three-step approach would come off the stage of the gymnasium, with the base of the bar positioned on the gym floor and the bar itself sitting perhaps two feet above the level of the stage.

There was nothing that couldn't be done.

"Joe (Bacon) and I were totally committed to doing the best that we could for the kids - and now Colin (Ward) has taken it from there," said Gingrich.

The trio stand as the primary architects of one of the greatest dynasties in the history of SDSSAA athletics - and for the man who started it all, there is a sense of destiny to that dynasty - especially if you understand the background.