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Senior (Citizen) Spotlight: Mike Travelstead

Mike Travelstead has always cared.

The recently retired Vandalia English teacher and girls track coach cared for his “A” students just as much as he did for his average students, and he cared for his state-caliber track stars just as much as he did for the girls who just wanted to set a personal-best time, even if that meant finishing in last place.

“Sometimes it takes that (conscious) effort to do that, because you gravitate toward those who are really talented, and you want to help them develop,” Travelstead said. “But this is high school, and anybody who wants to participate, I think, deserves a shot and deserves encouragement to do their best with whatever their abilities are.”

The 23-year coaching veteran was able to maintain that balance each year in his career, and he was rewarded with back-to-back state champion relay teams in 2008 and 2009, and the satisfaction of knowing he had a positive influence on thousands of students.

Several other individuals made the state meet during Travelstead’s tenure, but even in years when the team was small or less-talented, he didn’t coach any differently.

“He put a lot of time and effort into track, and even when we didn’t have big numbers (in participation), he was still committed to help each individual maximize their ability,” said Vandalia Superintendent Rich Well.

The system worked for Travelstead, who is affectionately called "Coach T" by the majority of his athletes, as a slew of individuals and relay teams had season-best times in the final meet this past spring, even though no one made it to state.

Jane Bell, who is Vandalia’s boys track coach and has worked alongside Travelstead for the past five seasons, also was quick to point out Travelstead’s penchant for equality.

“He really cares about his athletes, and that’s the No. 1 thing for any coach,” Bell said. “He is able to coach the elite athlete, and the athlete who is just working for their own personal best.

“He has that desire to see each person get better.”

Travelstead’s early-life desires nearly led him down a different life path, however, and had he stuck with his original college major, it’s impossible to know how much the history of Vandalia girls track would have been altered.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
~Confucius, philosopher

That Travelstead even became a track coach is somewhat of an oddity in itself.

He enrolled at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale as a business major in the winter of 1963 after having served six months of active duty in the Army Reserves following his high school graduation from Carmi.

At that time, the United States was far from fully involved in the Vietnam conflict, so Travelstead served at Fort Polk, La., and was home by Christmas.

He enrolled at SIUC in order to take after his father, who was in the insurance business, but after a couple of years, “I got a feeling that I ought to preach,” Travelstead said.

He would transfer to McKendree University, where he served as a student pastor, but after a year or so, he changed his mind again, and decided to go back to SIUC to get an English degree, because he likes to read.

“I said, ‘What do you do with an English major? I guess you teach,’” Travelstead said. “If you can’t write, you teach.”

He married his wife, Nancy, who currently teaches psychology and sociology at Altamont High School, in 1965 and graduated from SIUC in 1967.

His first job came at Mills Prairie High School in Carmi County for two years. He then became the librarian at McLeansboro High School for the next three years, which is where his coaching career started.

“I started coaching some football there,” he said. “That’s a combination you don’t hear very often – library and football.”

Travelstead started to get a master’s degree in library science, but he missed the daily “rapport” with students and took a job as an English teacher and assistant football coach at Mascoutah.

He stayed at Mascoutah for a few years before leaving education for 10 years to join his dad in the insurance business, but in 1988, he and his wife both wanted to get back to teaching.

“It just so happened that these two jobs – Vandalia and Altamont – were open at that time,” Travelstead said. “They say teaching jobs are scarce today, but they were scarce then, too. We felt pretty lucky to get these.”

Vandalia Community High School officials told him that they were first and foremost hiring an English teacher, but that they would like for him to coach football and track.

“I said, ‘I’ve never coached track,’” Travelstead said. “They said, ‘That’s OK. We don’t worry about track here. Nobody will bother you.’”

“A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”
~Robert Browning, poet

Track, however, would go from a sport Travelstead knew nothing about to a sport in which he wanted to immerse himself.

“It’s turned into a love for me,” he said. “Track, I think, is the ideal sport, as far as an athletic event. There are so many different areas that kids can find a niche for.”

Several clinics gave him the basic knowledge of coaching track back in 1988, but it was experience that allowed him to thrive.

And for years, Travelstead has used his experience to help hundreds of individuals find their own niche, and many of those former athletes still hold a special place in his heart.

“He’s very dedicated,” said Courtney Gordon, who ran for Travelstead from 2008-2011. “He’s going to miss this, I can tell.”

In Travelstead’s first season, when he coached both the boys and girls, Mark Oertwig qualified for the state meet in the 100-meter dash.

“He listened to his music (the night before) to get relaxed, and we got out on the track the next morning,” Travelstead said. “In the prelims, he false-started. I thought I was going to die.”

Having his first state qualifier disqualified did not discourage Travelstead, however, as he guided many more athletes to the state meet in the following years.

In the mid-1990s, Gretchen Schneider, who primarily focused on softball during the spring season, went to the state track meet four times as a long jumper.

“Had she concentrated on track, I would have had some pretty good relay teams,” Travelstead said, “but kids have to do what they want to do.”

And about 12 years later, Travelstead would finally get that good relay team he had always wanted.

In 2008, then-juniors Paige Dodson, Kris Stunkel, Ashley Durbin and Kayla Houston won the state championship in the 4X400-meter relay by a wide margin.

“Tori (Hagy) said to me at a practice (in 2008), ‘We’re going to go to state this year,’ Travelstead said. “It takes that kind of attitude, and I think that’s one thing that helped them make it.”

They would return to state the next season, with Hagy having replaced Stunkel, and would again win the title, but with Newton’s Leeann Michl just one stride behind Houston at the finish line, which Travelstead called “heart-stopping.”

Those two races top his list of track memories and he still gets nervous watching the DVD replays of them, but when he looks back at his whole career, he is simply thankful that God led him down a path that allowed him to spend so many years in Vandalia.

“You look back and say, ‘What if I had done this instead of this,’” Travelstead said. “‘What if I had not gone into the insurance business for 10 years after teaching for 11 years?’

“Well, I would have been retired about 10 years ago. I would most likely never have been at Vandalia, and there are a lot of students here that have come through my class that I never would have seen.”

“We have to be thankful that we were able to participate in life.”
~Mike Travelstead

At 67 years old, Travelstead is thankful his body has held up as well as it has.

He takes no prescription drugs, walks with a lively step and has a sharp mind that continuously yearns for new information.

“When I look in the mirror, I say, ‘You’re almost 67,’” he said. “‘How can that be?’”

And while retirement, for some, means several years of relaxation, it simply closes the 44-year working chapter of Travelstead's life and marks the start of a new one.

“You can’t look back with regret, I don’t think,” Travelstead said. “I’m not quitting. I’ve got things I want to do that are on my bucket list.”

While nothing extreme like skydiving is included on that list, Travelstead will teach some courses at Kaskaskia College this fall and plans to volunteer some time with the high school track teams in the spring.

In between, he wants to begin reading the first volume of Mark Twain’s autobiography, which is 760 pages long.

When his wife retires after next school year, they both plan to keep busy at their 10-acre farm in Benton, and visit their daughter, Julia, and grandchildren, Scott and Jenna, in North Carolina as often as they can.

Meanwhile, Travelstead will also tackle a couple writing projects.

“(My mom) had a box of old letters that my dad had sent her from the South Pacific during World War II,” Travelstead said. “I said, ‘Mom, this a treasure. What are you going to do with these?’”

She had no immediate plans for them, and Travelstead will use some of his retirement sorting and transcribing as many of them as he can.

He said the few that he has read show a “lonesome and isolated” feeling, and he believes he will be able to gain a new perspective on the war from the letters.

For years, Travelstead has said he would try to write a novel, and later on in his retirement, he believes he will also undertake that project.

In the meantime, at VCHS, there are two voids – one being a girls track coach and the other being a teacher for a second-floor classroom.

“He brought a skill set that is going to be very hard to replace,” Well said. “He had a great, great passion for language arts and literature. He’s one of the people that brought an old-school approach to a new generation of kids.”

Travelstead’s approach in the classroom was one that promoted the idea that students should create their own thoughts and opinions, and when he saw a student realize his or her potential, he couldn't help but feel joy.

“I’ve had students that have told me, ‘You’ve taught me how to think,’” Travelstead said. “That’s probably the most important thing we do in high school.”

And that’s why he’s always treated everyone the same.

 

Travelstead's Track Tales

Retired Vandalia girls track coach Mike Travelstead shared some of the unusual moments that he remembers from his 23-year coaching career during an interview last week. Below are four of the stories he shared.

Learning curve

"We had an exchange student from Germany here one year, and she went out for track. We were at Pana (which has a six-lane track), and she was running the 100-meter dash. They were running away from the starting line because of the wind, and of course, the lanes are curved (at the end of the straight-away). She got toward the end, and she followed the curved lane and bumped into the Pana girl. The Pana girl got really irritated, but the Pana coach understood. My girl was disqualified, but I can see how that could happen. Maybe that was my fault because I didn’t instruct her well enough. Some things you just assume. I didn’t think about her just following the curve."

Energy control

"We got into a habit with the (4X400-meter relay's) first trip (in 2008) to state. Clif Bars (energy bars) became a big deal. ‘Hey T, do you have the Clif Bars?’ Some of them they liked, some of them they didn’t. They would eat one of those about 30 minutes before they performed. I don’t know if it helped them or not, but I’ve continued that. (The current team) always wanted to know where they’re at, but I always keep them in my bag to keep a little control on them."

This is not a drill

"One year (around 2000), we were coming back from the Robinson sectional, and we came into Dieterich and police officers stopped the bus. They said, ‘Get out and come down to the basement of the fire house. We’ve spotted a tornado.’ We stayed down there with what seemed like hundreds of girls and coaches in the basement. There wasn’t much to do, and some of our girls said, ‘Can they keep us here? They can’t keep us here.’ But they stopped us for a reason, so we stayed until they said it was OK."

I'm a what?

"We were in the bus, because of a storm, trying to kill time (four years ago). I wish I knew (what brought it up). The girls were singing some songs, just trying to kill time, and I said, ‘I know one.’ Mine was the old Smother Brothers (comedic version). ‘I’m a little teapot, strong and stout. Here is my handle, here is my … I guess I must be a sugar bowl.’ They got a kick out that."

Long-time Vandalia girls track coach Mike Travelstead checks his stopwatch during his final meet, the Robinson sectional, on May 13. Travelstead retired at the end of the school year after 23 years of service at Vandalia Community High School as a coach and English teacher.

Recently retired girls track coach Mike Travelstead watches his 4X400-meter relay team during his final meet as Vandalia’s coach.

Mike Travelstead (center) poses with the 2009 state champion 4X400-meter relay team. The girls, from left, are: Tori Hagy, Paige Dodson, Ashley Durbin and Kayla Houston.

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