The fastest distance runner in Missouri

By Max Goodwin

Not even two months into his sophomore year at Rockhurst High School, Jack McGovern is already something like a rockstar of the cross-country course.

As he rounded the turn into the final straightaway last week at the Raymore-Peculiar XC Invitational, a cheer erupted. “There’s Jack! There he is!” The crowd’s eyes darted from McGovern to the clock tracking his time for the 5k race, and back to McGovern.

It was a fine race for McGovern. He had pulled to the front of the pack as soon as the starting gun fired. As he approached the first mile marker, he was at least 25 yards ahead of any competition.

The time read 15:23 as he crossed the finish line. It would be 25 seconds before the next runner, a senior from Gardner-Edgerton, crossed the finish line for second place, with a couple of other seniors right behind him. He didn’t appear to be particularly tired after running a 5k in a time that smashed the rest of the field.

When I requested an interview, McGovern thought it over before deciding he’d better ask his coach first. But he didn’t see his coach. So, I followed him through the crowd in search. He stopped every few feet and was congratulated on the race he just finished by people in the crowd. McGovern still couldn’t find his coach, though.

He figured his coach must have gone back to the team tent, so he began to run the few hundred meters to it. He didn’t find his coach there either, and decided to go ahead with the interview. When he answered the first question, there was no sign that he was winded.

“I mean, I ran pretty well, especially for the conditions on the course being a little bit hotter,” McGovern says. “It’s not a very fun course, but for sure it was a good time with some decent competition.”

This wasn’t the kind of meet that McGovern had been preparing for all summer. The University of Missouri’s home course for the Gans Creek Classic, held the week before, was.

What he did at the Gans Creek Classic has the cross-country community in Missouri buzzing.

McGovern finished in 14:44.70, the fastest any high schooler has ever run the 5k at Gans Creek. It was the fifth fastest time by a sophomore in the U.S. this year, the fourth fastest ever by any high school runner from Missouri, and the fastest time ever run by a Missourian on Missouri soil.

“It was so exciting,” McGovern said. “I knew going through the finish line, even through the first 1K, that I was feeling so good and I was so excited about the day. It’s a testament to a lot of really hard work that we’ve been putting in over the season. It’s almost like I expected something like that to happen because our team has been putting in so much work.”

Last year, a senior from Rockhurst, Henry Acorn, won the Missouri Class 5 State Championship at Gans Creek with his own personal record of 14:52.40. Acorn would then finish sixth at the NXN Midwest Regional and 60th at the national NXN Final. Rockhurst Coach Mike Dierks said Acorn was the most talented runner he had ever coached.

At the NXN Final, Acorn performed as he was expected to. But it was also a breakout moment for McGovern. He ran the second fastest of any freshman while running among the best in the country. He said that running against the fastest distance runners in the nation was almost overwhelming, but he realized he belonged there with the work he had put in.

Now, McGovern is the runner leading the pack for Rockhurst. He knows he’s leading the team with the fastest time, but he still looks to the seniors for leadership. Acorn is now running cross country at the University of Virginia, and McGovern says running with older runners like him helped motivate him.

“They gave me a lot to think about, and a lot of goals put in my head,” McGovern said. “I’m really grateful for that amazing class we had last year.”

He attributes his success to the structure of the Rockhurst cross-country program and the team’s success.

“The Rockhurst guys will run in any weather, and we’ll run hard whether it’s soaking wet in Portland or beautiful skies in Kansas City. We’re always going to run hard.”