Leading the Pack
Competitive spirit keeps young runner
on her feet
By Leigh Ann Maze
Photographs by Kathy De La Torre
When runner Regina Jacobs crouched at the starting line at the 2000 Track and Field Olympic trials in Sacramento in July, one of her biggest fans was there watching--Los Gatos High School track star Heather Hennessy. Hennessy, along with some of her teammates and LGHS track coach Willie Harmatz, spent three days at the eight-day event watching some of the women she admires most compete to be in the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia.
"It was definitely inspiring to see all of the thousands of people there. Just before the races, everyone goes silent. It gave me goose bumps," says Hennessy.
Hennessy's own track accomplishments this past season have been nothing short of impressive. She is currently the second fastest 800-meter high school female in the nation, behind only Niesha Bernard-Thomas, a foreign exchange student from Grenada. Harmatz calls Hennessy's 2000 track season accomplishments "the best by any athlete in Los Gatos High School's history."
"It's weird," says Hennessy of her success. "It's been a dream of mine since I was a little girl. Sometimes it just doesn't feel real to me. But there is always so much more to be accomplished."
Hennessy's running career has been far from easy. When she first came to LGHS as a sophomore, after her freshman year at Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose, she couldn't finish the track season due to injury. While at Mitty, where she participated in basketball, cross country and track, Hennessy developed stress fractures in her shins. Her injuries became increasingly worse, slowing her down and making her races extremely painful. Finally, she just had to stop running, she says.
But there was always a gold mine of potential in Hennessy if she could just get healthy--and she knew it. When she transferred to LGHS, Harmatz knew it, too.
Her parents, Chris and Debi Hennessy, have known it for years. They first noticed their daughter's gift when she demonstrated she was the fastest student in the third grade at Guadalupe Elementary School in San Jose by beating the girls and boys in the 50-yard dash during Olympic Day.
Later, as a sixth grader, Hennessy wrote on her mirror that she wanted a sports scholarship to Stanford. And ever since her parents saw that blond ponytail come bouncing towards the finish line at a varsity high school cross country meet 100 yards ahead of the other competitors--when she was only a freshman--they knew she had something really special.
"During her junior year we focused on staying healthy, but increased her work load substantially," says Harmatz. "And she just started blossoming from there." Indeed, Hennessy just finished up the track season of her life.
Heather Hennessy stretches before a workout on the LGHS track. Last season, she trained mostly by herself, but this year she is training with new assistant track coach Kerri Gabrielson, 25. Both are coached by Willie Harmatz. Above right: The LGHS track star races to the finish line in a race last spring.
She was named an All-American, which means she is in the top three in the country. On June 17 she ran the third fastest 800-meter race in CCS history, breaking a 23-year-old record. She came in first place in the 800 meters at the Golden West National meet and went on to place second at three other national-level high school championships.
All of the prestigious national titles aside, one of the most satisfying parts of this past season for Hennessy was breaking the LGHS 800-meter record of 2:10.63, set in 1997 by LGHS alum Stephanie Chavez. Hennessy broke the record with a time of 2:10.53 at the Arcadia National High School Invitational meet on April 8, a meet Harmatz says put Hennessy in the spotlight.
"I used to watch [Chavez] run when I was in junior high," Hennessy says. "It was always one of my goals to break her record." That's one goal she can check off as accomplished.
Hennessy also broke the 21-year-old LGHS record in the mile by running a 4:58.12. Next season she hopes to clinch the school record in the 400-meter race, as well.
Some of Hennessy's natural talent may have come from her father, who had a track scholarship to Rice University and whom Hennessy credits as inspiring her to take up running with the stories he used to tell of his track career. Her father says he used to cut out newspaper articles about local track stars, and leave them on her bed, to inspire her.
Heather works out four times a week at Move It Gym, as she does here with her trainer Mark Frederick. They concentrate on strength conditioning.
But it takes more than inspiration, talent and genetics to be a star athlete. It also takes an inner determination.
The word 'competitive' surfaces often in discussions about Hennessy with her parents, her friends, her teammates, her coach and even Hennessy herself. In fact, she seems to thrive on it. Perhaps that's why, when in junior high school, she deliberated whether to pursue track or basketball and chose track, which is more of an every-woman-for-herself sport. Perhaps that's also why she manages to uphold a 3.80 GPA.
"I love performing in front of people, competing and working toward a goal. It keeps me going all year," Hennessy says.
Hennessy's mother said she was born with a competitive attitude that makes her strive to be the best at whatever she does. At age 5, Hennessy's mother says her daughter spent an entire day teaching herself how to ride a bicycle without any help. By the end of the day she was riding her bike up and down the street.
Hennessy's competitive drive and determination was seriously challenged last season however, when she was disqualified from a crucial race. At the CCS track finals at San Jose City College in May--the race that determines which runners go to the state meet--Hennessy won the 800-meter race. But she was disqualified after two timers at the finish line determined that she had impeded Sacred Heart Cathedral's Shannon Rowbury on the final turn. The disqualification meant Hennessy could not go to the state meet. She was devastated.
"It was an incredibly numbing experience. She didn't get out of bed for the next few days," says Hennessy's father. "She said, 'Dad, I think I'm done for the season.' "
"I worked all season for the state meet. To have one person take it away was pretty hard," Hennessy says.
In the end, her competitive spirit won over, and she came back even stronger. The following week, she beat the state and national 800-meter champion Liz Morse of Corona Del Mar with a first place time of 2:08.84 at the Golden West National meet. It was classic Hennessy, all the way.
New LGHS assistant track coach Kerri Gabrielson (background), trains alongside Heather on the LGHS track. Both are coached by Willie Harmatz.
From there, Hennessy went on take second in the Footlocker National High School Championships in North Carolina, where she ran her personal best in the 800 meters with a time of 2:07.73. She then went on to place second at the Junior Nationals in Dallas, Texas, qualifying her to race for the U.S. team in the Junior World Championships in Chile in September.
But she declined to race in Chile, deciding instead to allow her body some time to rest and heal before the LGHS cross-county season begins in the Fall. She has time. The Junior World Championships is for women under 20, and 17-year-old Hennessy figures she still has two years left. Perhaps in two summers when she is 19 she will go, she says.
The young are not known for their patience, but Hennessy has learned the hard way how important it is to keep herself healthy and give her body time to rest.
Besides, Hennessy will be busy this fall going on recruiting trips to schools, such as Stanford, UCLA, USC, the University of Oregon and possibly even a few schools on the East Coast. She is not sure which school she will attend; several have already offered scholarships, but she knows she wants to go to a PAC-10 school. It seems that her dream of receiving a sports scholarship will be realized--yet another goal Hennessy can check off as accomplished.
LGHS track coach Willie Harmatz talks with Heather about her work-out schedule for the day.
Hennessy is already busy training again for the cross- country season, which starts in the fall. She lifts weights three days a week and runs for four. Gradually, she will increase the workload as the season approaches.
After the cross-country season, Hennessy plans to run indoor track this winter. When her senior year track season at LGHS begins in the spring, the competitive Hennessy hopes to run her best, improve her times and stay healthy. But she also hopes to maintain her top standing in the 800 and take first in the state.
She is not the only one pushing herself to continue to improve next season. There is definitely pressure on Hennessy from all sides to excel even further.
Joined by brothers Chris, 14 (left) and Shane, 13, Heather enjoys eating out at Willow Street Wood-Fired Pizza. All three Hennessy siblings are involved in sports, although Heather is the only one in track.
"This past year, no one knew me," she says. "So it was exciting because I could be more than people expected. Now everyone has expectations for next year. I'm just going to run and do my best." But the glint in her eyes shows that she is looking forward to the competition of it all.
After her final track season at LGHS, Hennessy hopes for swift feet will take her to the Pan-Am World Championships in July, and then off to college on a track scholarship.
And perhaps, someday, it will be Hennessy crouched at the starting line in an Olympic trials race, bringing 20,000 people to silence, and raising goose bumps on their arms as they wait for the crack of the gun to send her into motion.
Los Gatos, California Since 1881
