Brighton runner who ‘wasn’t that great’ is county’s top boys track and field athlete – Livingston Daily

Brighton’s Jack Spamer is the Livingston County boys’ track and field Athlete of the Year after winning two regional titles. Bill Khan, Livingston Daily

BRIGHTON — Jack Spamer became a distance runner because, well, what else was he going to do with his spare time?

“Cross country I was just doing for fun,” he said. “I didn’t have any other sports to play, so I was just like, ‘I’ll do cross country.’”

Spamer had a solid freshman season in the fall of 2016 at Brighton, running 17:50 for five kilometers, but that time ranked him only 11th on a team led by other young runners who were in the process of transforming the Bulldogs into a state contender.

Satisfied with his first season of high school cross country, even though he wasn’t able to crack the varsity lineup, Spamer once again was looking for something to fill the void in his after-school schedule.

“Then winter came, and I didn’t have anything better to do, so I just trained with the team,” he said.

That’s when the magic happened.

Spamer — who said he “wasn’t that great or anything” in middle school — emerged from that winter as one of the best distance runners on the track and field team, running 1,600 meters in 4:35.00 and the 3,200 in 9:46.32.

“Knowing I was one of the best on the team really changed my mindset and made me more serious about the sport,” Spamer said.

He’s never looked back, becoming not only one of the top runners on the current Brighton squad, but one of the best to ever wear the orange and black.

The results of that training have made Spamer the Livingston County boys track and field Athlete of the Year after a spring in which he set two school records and missed another by a fraction of a second.

“He’s trained hard to become what he is today,” Brighton coach Otha Hill said.

The highlight of his season came at regionals when he pulled off an extremely difficult double by winning the 1,600 and 3,200 while also helping the 3,200 relay reach the state meet.

“I was going to do all three — the 4×8, 16 and 32,” Spamer said. “I knew there was good competition. I wasn’t sure exactly how it would play out going into it. I won the 16, so I was like, ‘Let’s try to win the 32, as well.’ That was amazing, one of my favorite experiences in track, so far.”

His 1,600 time of 4:18.45 at regionals broke the school record of 4:18.7 set by Nick Costello on May 18, 2012.

Twice during the season, Spamer came within less than a second of the school 3,200 record of 9:12.44 set by Chip Osborne on May 6, 2016. Spamer ran 9:12.56 at the Golden Triangle meet on May 3 and 9:12.74 at regionals, leaving him with unfinished business for his senior year.

“I’ll definitely get that pretty early next season,” Spamer said. “That should be fun to get. If I can get low 9s or even lower than that, that would be great.”

Spamer added his name to the school record board in one other event after running a 1:56.5 split for 800 meters on the 3,200 relay team at the state meet. The team of Spamer, Scott Spaanstra, Nolan McGahan and Matt Jontz placed fifth in 7:51.92, breaking the school mark of 7:53.16 set in the 2012 state meet by the fifth-place team of Costello, Zach Mayfield, Tyler Partridge and Timmy Jurick.

“Since I was a freshman, we had some decent relays, but it wasn’t anything special,” Spamer said. “This year, it definitely all came together, we were able to work together, put in some really fast times, get a school record and finish fifth at states, which was great. In previous years, we didn’t expect any of that. It reminded me of cross country, because we had to rely on each other to get a great time.”

Spamer missed all-state by one place in the 1,600, taking ninth in 4:19.53. He was 11th in the 3,200 in 9:25.86.

Spamer and some of his teammates went to the New Balance Nationals Outdoors in Greensboro, N.C., two weeks after the state meet.

Now, with the memory of his success on the track still fresh, Spamer has transitioned into building his mileage base for cross country season. Spamer was 18th in the state meet last fall, earning all-state. The senior core of Spamer, Spaanstra and Zach Stewart hopes to improve on a 10th-place finish.

“I’m definitely hoping my track success translates onto the trails and I’m able to get my time down even more, hopefully low 15s,” Spamer said. “As a team, we’re always pretty much expecting high stuff now. Now that we’ve got Zach, me and Scott and other kids who are going to move up filling the seniors’ shoes, we’re not expecting anything less than last year, that’s for sure. I think we can definitely pull off a top 10, as long as everybody trains and works really hard.”

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Contact Bill Khan at wkhan@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @BillKhan.