TOWER- “We didn’t have track shoes,” said Margie (Grahek) Johnson, “we just had little white tenners.”
But those little white tenners were enough to get this Tower-Soudan ninth grader a trip to the first ever Minnesota State Girls Track Meet in 1972.
That year was an important one for girls’ sports. Congress passed Title IX, a federal civil rights law that was part of the Education Amendments of 1972. The law prohibited sex-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receives funding from the federal government. While it wasn’t specifically aimed at sports, especially at the high school level, the passage was instrumental in expanding the opportunity for girls to compete at both high school and college levels.
And as the first-ever state-sanctioned girls sport at the Tower-Soudan High School, the track program influenced generations of families, both for the new student athletes and their coach Carol Alstrom.
The first year
It was Margie’s first year of track. The school had a new physical education teacher, Carol Alstrom, who had started teaching in Tower the year before. In 1971 she started an informal track program. In 1972, the program became official, and 70 high school students signed up.
“It was nuts,” said Carol. “It was a lot.”
Not only did Carol have to figure out how to coach 70 girls new to the sport, but she also had to contend with not having a track or track equipment.
“We ran mostly in Soudan, on the streets and backroads,” she said. Carol recruited volunteers to help build hurdles and to build a pit for practicing the long jump.
“We dug a long jump pit on the west end of the Tower field,” she said. “I used to go to Embarrass to get sawdust chips every year. I had to borrow someone’s pickup.”
It wasn’t ideal, Carol admitted, but for her team, it was often life changing.
“At that time, I was really, really shy,” said Margie. “I remember all the support from people in town. It was quite a thrill.”
Margie qualified for that first state meet in the long jump, an event she was introduced to by Alstrom.
“I don’t think Margie will ever forget that trip to state,” said Carol.
She also went to state the following year, this time wearing actual track shoes. Her junior year she injured her hip, which ended her long jump career, but Margie continued to compete in running events, though she didn’t again earn a state track berth.
Coaching track
Carol was first introduced to track at Bemidji State University. She was a softball player and played for Bemidji State her freshman and sophomore years, but then the college dropped the sport.
“I needed something to do with my time,” she said. “So, I tried track. I knew nothing about it.”
Alstrom went on to compete in the shot put, discus, javelin, and softball throw. After she graduated, she took her first (and only) teaching job at Tower-Soudan, where she worked to teach the track skills she had learned to the eager group of girls she was coaching.
Athleticism ran in Alstrom’s family. While Carol got to travel to that first state girls track meet with Margie, she also got to watch her own sister compete.
Susan Alstrom, a student at International Falls High School, had also earned a spot at that inaugural 1972 state meet. She won the first gold medal of the event for shot put, and she also took gold in discus. Susan, like her older sister, went on to teach and coach girls’ sports.
In a recent interview with KARE 11 news, Susan spoke about her early experiences.
“You know, it upset the boys. Yeah. Of course, we were stepping in their territory,” said Susan, who ran for the International Falls team.
“It changed my life entirely,” Susan said. “I was thinking about going pre-med. And after that, I’m like, you know, I’ve got to do something where as many girls can get this opportunity as possible. So, I kind of changed my whole major and my whole focus in life.”
Girls sports continue
Carol Alstrom kept the track team going for most of her career at Tower-Soudan. In later years, softball became more popular, and she turned her coaching attention in that direction.
“Sports gave the girls so many opportunities,” she said. “They were so excited to be able to do something.”
Alstrom had plenty of memories to share about her time leading the track program.
Coaching track in northern Minnesota also meant contending with cold spring weather.
“I have pictures of us practicing in two feet of snow,” she said.
Track is unique among high school sports, Alstrom noted, because each team member got to try individual events.
“I worked to find their best event,” she said, “and sometimes what they thought they wanted to do wasn’t what they were good at. Everybody wanted to be a sprinter.”
Alstrom coached many successful teams and won some meets against much larger schools.
“There was only one all-weather track and that was in Grand Rapids,” she said. “There were often 20 schools that would show up for track meets on the weekend.”
Over the years, she coached several Tower-Soudan athletes who qualified for the state meet, including Julie (Abrahamson) Suihkonen, Jeralyn Heikkila, and Linda (Micklich) Schmidt. A few boys trained alongside her girls’ team over the years, and one of them, Carl Dagan, also earned a trip to state.
She remembered coaching Dean Salo, an eighth grader who fell over one of the hurdles and fell face-first onto the cinder-covered track.
“He heard me hollering to get up and finish,” Alstrom said, “and he did. When he started his pilot training and would run into an obstacle, all he could keep thinking about was my yelling at him to get up and finish.”
Carol was an outsized influence for many of her students in Tower-Soudan, both athletes and those just stuck with her for PE class. Carol even introduced long-jumper Margie to her eventual husband, Randy.
“She was my mentor and my everything,” said Margie. “She was such a strong force.”
And while track ran in the Alstrom family, Margie also got to pass the love of the sport to her own daughter Whitney (Johnson) Cobby.
“I don’t remember her ever pushing me much,” Whitney said. “I liked to be active and involved in high school sports.”
Both Whitney and her older sister Courtney played team sports, but Whitney was also drawn to the individual competition of track.
Whitney, like her mother, excelled in the long jump and triple jump, but also competed in other running events. She competed in the section meet in 2005, hitting 33’6.5” inches in the triple jump and a time of 1:57.43 in the 4x200 meter relay, but not quite fast or far enough to earn a trip to state. Whitney went on to run track at University of Wisconsin- Superior but had to stop after an injury.
But there might be more track in the Grahek/Johnson/Cobby family line. Margie has been talking with her granddaughter Harper Cobby, who is only eight, about competing in track when she gets to high school.
“It would be a good sport for her,” said Margie.
And maybe someday Carol will get to meet the third generation of her first track team. Carol has also been a long-time volunteer official at the state meet, so perhaps she will meet the children and grandchildren of those she coached over so many years.