Arlington track story

By DAVE HANNEMAN Staff Writer Del Nichols gave his English class an idea one day. In return, they nearly gave him – and Arlington High School – a Blanchard Valley Conference championship. "I was doing my student teaching out there when one of the boys in my English class said, 'Hey, my dad says you were a heck of a track man,'" Nichols recalled. "I told him that, in 1958, I did win four gold medals in the Mid-Ohio track meet, and set two meet records doing it. He said, 'I wish we had a track team.' So I said, 'Well, why don't you guys start one?' "That's how it started. We went around to see how many guys would come out, talked to as many kids as we could, and that's how we got a team together that first year." Roughly two months later, on the eve of the Blanchard Valley Conference track meet, that rag-tag band of athletes, most wearing mismatched uniforms and tennies, went into the final event of the night on the verge of bringing home the championship trophy. Alas, it was not to be. Arlington had compiled 66 points heading into the mile relay. Van Buren was in first place with 69. Had Arlington won that event – and Van Buren finished no better than third — the Red Devils would have won a share of the BVC title in their first year of competition. Van Buren would finish first in the mile relay, with Ray Amos, Gary Taylor, Doug McCracken and Pete Potteiger winning in a meet record time of 3:56.2. Arlington was third, but still was BVC runner-up in its first season.