AOTW: Out of Nowhere: Rochester’s Beecher is an unlikely equation in the distance races
IN HIS TRACKS: Leaving football to concentrate on distance running, Rochester's Brian Beecher has emerged as one of the top 800 runners in the area. File Photo | Dan Stickradt
BY DAN STICKRADT
SENIOR EDITOR
dan.stickradt@northoaklandsports.com
ROCHESTER HILLS — Brian Beecher was faced with a dilemma last summer and made a decision that few ever even consider to make.
Give up football … for cross-country.
Yet Beecher, now a senior at Rochester, didn’t have a problem with the choice, even with Rochester’s football program on the rise and eventually having its best season in 11 years last fall.
Beecher, who was injured late in the cross-country season and did not compete in the regional or state meets, has turned some heads this spring in track and field. The sprinter-turned-distance runner won both the 800 and 1,600 meters at the recent OAA Red Division championships. At the West Bloomfield regional as the top seed in both races, Beecher won the 800 but scratched out of the 1,600.
So why the unusual change?
“A lot of it had to do with I’m advanced in the math program. I was doing dual enrollment at (Oakland University) and that sometimes interfered with football practice (as a junior). But with cross country, it works out better,” said Beecher. “So I thought about it. It was hard for me. I was two years varsity, played varsity as a sophomore and junior. But I wasn’t having as much fun as I had been (playing football).But I was really digging track. I did (AAU) track over the summer, so I just decided to go out for cross country last fall.”
A math major, Beecher has become quite an unusual equation — a sprinter-football hybrid turned distance ace.
The extra training base has paid dividends for Beecher, who mainly ran the 200 and 400 when he got into high school in 2007-08. He bumped up to the 800 as a sophomore and has seen vast improvements.
Beecher is not like a lot of his comrades in the distance races. He’s not lanky or wirery, but he’s built more like a fullback or linebacker — short and stocky. Yet he has learned how to compete. With a burning fire and a strong kick, he had made a name for himself, going 1:57 in the 800 and 4:27 in the 1,600.
He has also ran the anchor leg in the 1,600 relays, which has gone 3:29 this season.
“If you asked me last year if I would run the mile, then I wouldn’t have believed it,” said Beecher, a three-year letter-winner. “To win the mile at the league meet, then come back and win the 800. It feels great.
“We bumped him up to the 800 a couple of years ago, but I don’t think we knew he could run the mile until this year,” said Keith Szymkiw, an assistant coach at Rochester who works with distance runners. “
Beecher will run just one event, the 800 meters, at the state meet as a first-time qualifier. He hopes to dip down to the mid-1:50s and break the school record of 1:55.1 set by Ryan Kennedy at the Oakland County meet in 1992.
Kennedy also still holds the 1,600 record at the school and eventually was an All-Big Ten runner at Michigan State.
“My goal is to get 1:55,” said Beecher, who ran around 2:04 in the 800 and 54 seconds in the 400 as a junior. He is seeded 21st in the 800 at the state meet.
“If I can stay with the (leaders) at the 150, I am confident because I have a pretty good kick. I can’t let people get to far ahead,” he added.
Beecher will attend the University of Michigan in the fall and hopes to earn a spot on the track team. A fine finish at the upcoming Lower Peninsula Division 1 state finals would help Beecher, who was a virtual unknown outside of the OAA Red Division before the season.
“I will attend some open tryouts and hopefully work my way onto the team,” said Beecher of his future at U-M. He plans on dueling in architectural economics and engineering.
“I love to run,” said Beecher. “I’ve been trying to get my times down. I was worried because of all of the bad weather that my times weren’t good until now),” said Beecher, who was 10th at the county meet in the 800, coming one day after his prom. “I would love (to place at the state meet).”
The goal of making the state meets seemed almost unfathomable a year ago. Now, Brian Beecher has figured out the right equation to get there.
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Category: BWW Athlete of the Week, High School (M-Z), Prep Wraps, Rochester
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