Central Catholic High School track coach DeWayne Griffin didn’t know what he was missing until Jennifer Monk came home.
When she left Holy Trinity in Bloomington after the eighth grade, he knew she was a good hurdler, but then he lost track of her.
“I didn’t realize how good she was,” admitted Griffin, who learned last summer he was getting a transfer student from Jesuit High School in Portland, Ore.
That student had placed second in the 100-meter hurdles in the largest of Oregon’s six classes, clocking 14.92 seconds. She also ran third in the 300 hurdles in 44.86 as Jesuit captured the team title.
Monk’s arrival was more than the doctor ordered for the Saints, who placed third in the state last year and returned scorers of 35 of their 37 points.
“Jennifer is the icing on the team,” Griffin said. “Now we are definitely the team to beat.”
And Monk may be the girl to beat. She leads the state’s 1A hurdlers with school-record times of 15.24 and 46.21.
If she wins a state title or two, it won’t be anything new.
Monk started hurdling in fifth grade at Holy Trinity, won a Class 7A state title in the 100 hurdles in 17.17 in sixth grade, set a still-standing 7A state meet record of 15.93 in seventh grade and blazed a still-standing 8A meet record of 15.57 in eighth grade as her team defended its title.
Monk has been on the move since her birth into the “State Farm” family of Joe and Tammy Monk in Missouri. Then came stops in Maine, Illinois and Oregon before Joe’s job brought the family of five back to Bloomington.
Sports have helped the youngest of the Monks fit in wherever she went.
“That helped me meet a lot of people,” said Monk, who met success last winter as a key reserve for Central’s 29-1 basketball team. “It was one of the greatest senior seasons I could have had.”
Monk’s three-sport repertoire in Oregon included volleyball.
“She is so athletic, she can do any sport,” Griffin said.
Monk makes three-stepping the 8.5 meters between hurdles in the 100s look easy.
“When it comes to hurdles, she can hurdle anything,” Griffin said. “No matter how we space the hurdles, she can do it.”
Monk is pretty fast without hurdles, too. Her 61.1 leg helped set a school record of 4:10.3 in the 1,600 relay, which included Rachel Nolan (65.0), Emily Beoletto (62.6) and Kelly Curran (61.3) on Saturday at Palatine.
Next year, Monk will make the jump to Division I track at James Madison, where she will study mathematics.
“College training is going to take her to that next step,” said Griffin, who will be painfully aware of what he is missing when she’s gone. “I’ve been blessed to have the opportunity to coach her.”
