Sports Stew: Patrick ruled the Charleroi track

By WAYNE STEWART
For MVI Sports
If Charleroi’s Jack Patrick had his high school days summed up like a first grader’s reading book, it would state, “Run, Jack, run.”
Patrick was one of the program’s best performers ever.
His running ways began at then end of his eighth grade year.
“My first day of track practice, I just kept lapping everybody. I didn’t even know I was as good as I was,” he said. “I’d walk or run up the hills everywhere I went. My home was really small and my dad worked nights, so it was best to be out of the house during the day so he could sleep. I was out playing sports all year long, but I didn’t know my innate ability until junior high. We had about eight meets and I didn’t lose anything in the half mile.”
Back then, junior high kids were limited to one race.
“Bob ‘Moose’ Hodgson was the senior high coach and he put together a wonderful team. I ran the 440 and the 880, and he wanted somebody to run the mile, so I said I’d step up and do that,” Patrick recalled. “I also anchored the mile relay.”

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