By GENE KEMMETER
of The Gazette
The state of Wisconsin now knows what Stevens Pointers have known for years: Donn Behnke is a hall-of-fame coach.
Behnke, the cross country coach at Stevens Point Area Senior High School for 24 years, was inducted into the Wisconsin Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame Saturday, Jan. 13, in Brookfield.
His record at SPASH drips with success. His teams have won 23 Wisconsin Valley Conference titles. They've captured 22 consecutive sectional titles. They've taken seven state championships, the first in 1980.
He has coached four individual state titlists. Pete Skorseth won the first in 1978, then Keith Hanson in 1981, Doug Milkowski in 1988 and Chris Solinsky in 2000. Clint Eiden finished second by less than a second in 1997, and Gary Anderson was the runner-up in 1983.
Behnke puts the success of the program on the student runners, many of whom run year-round, usually with their coach.
"I've been real fortunate that I've been healthy," he said. "I try to get together and run with the kids whenever I get the opportunity. Our kids have been good about being year-round runners. They train in the off-season. They probably run more than any other program in the state."
Behnke credits the amount of running with helping the team. "We have run well at the end of the season, we're not burning people out," he said. "Most of what we do isn't terribly fast. The intensity isn't there until the end of the season."
Behnke was a cross country runner at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and his senior year was the first year the team advanced to the national finals under coach Don Amiot.
As a coach now, his decision on who will run in a meet is usually based on the runners' times in the previous race.
He said his most difficult coaching decision comes when they enter sectionals and the team has to go with seven runners instead of eight. "That's always difficult," he said. "Someone is going to stand and watch the state meet. I have to make an assessment of what a runner will do. Usually it irons itself out."