Dylan Quisenberry, 'A Cocky Little Punk'
"Mr. Hall!"
I thought
I heard someone yell from behind me as I stood near the Lafayette High School's
outdoor track shortly after arriving on campus. I turned to see a tall blonde
woman who was wearing a baseball cap about 20 yards from me. She was directly in
line with the afternoon sun and obviously too attractive to be looking for me.
I turned away and resumed my walk toward the track.
"Mr. Hall," she belted again --this time in a huskier voice.
I turned again. I did not know her but she sure acted like she knew me. I squinted to look closer and saw that the "woman" was not a woman at all but the senior leader of the Lancers boys cross country team, Dylan Quisenberry.
Quisenberry might have the most famous shoulder-length blonde mane in Missouri high school cross country. He burst onto the national track scene when he recorded the 12th-fastest 5K time in the nation as a freshman. We have known of and about Quis for some time but what we do not know would fill volumes. Getting to know Dylan, as his teammates all refer to him, was one of the highlights of my trip.
"I
got a buzz cut for wrestling my freshman year," said Quisenberry. "And I
haven't gotten a haircut since."
Quisenberry's hairstyle isn't the only thing that has changed for the Mizzou-bound senior since his freshman year at LHS.
"I thought he was a cocky little punk," is how a smiling O'Connor describes his first introduction to Quisenberry.
"I loved him to death, but man…"
O'Connor shifts in his seat as he considers the freshman Quisenberry as we both gnaw on our lunch choices at the St. Louis Bread Company following the afternoon's practice.
"Dylan is running with the freshman group the first day of practice but he decides all on his own that he's too good for the freshman," remembers O'Connor.
"So he goes over and tries to stay with the varsity guys on a tempo run!"
I stopped OC to get clarification that this truly was the very first day of cross country practice for Quisenberry's freshman year.
"Oh, yeah," O'Connor nods mid-bite with that knowing squint that tells you -- this kid has no clue!
"So he's trying to chase down Derek (Legenzoff) and Jordan (West) -- our two All-State senior runners! Eventually, he dies a couple of miles or so in. But I'm thinking to myself, 'Man, that kid's crazy! But he's really good!' He hung in there with those seniors for two miles! I thought he was going to die after a half mile but he hung in there for almost three miles!"
The seniors were not nearly as enamored with their freshman tag-along.
"The seniors are thinking this freshman is a cocky punk and they want nothing to do with him. I try to tell them that he's a 14-year-old full of testosterone and that they just need to understand that."
"I
was kind of a jerk until about my freshman year," confesses Quisenberry.
The key word I believe in Quisenberry's statement here is "about."
"When little Quisenberry first got to high school, it was hit or miss whether he'd get to practice on time," said O'Connor.
"The team would be warming up and I would be searching the halls looking for Quisenberry. And I'd find him. He'd just be roaming the school halls, walking around! Not doing anything bad. Just walking around. Just kind of being his own dude."
"Was he intentionally cutting practice?" I asked.
"I don't even think he knew he was missing practice!" blurted O'Connor.
"I don't think he paid attention to when practice was! He was just out there! So freshman Dylan was interesting. He's grown up quite a bit."
Alec Haines remembers meeting Quisenberry his first day at his new school in fourth grade. Quisenberry rudely pushed him to the ground from behind while they were playing soccer at recess.
"I was trying to get the ball as it headed out of bounds," recalls Haines. "Dylan comes up from behind me and just pushes me hard to the ground -- about 20 feet out of bounds!"
A principal happened to witness Quisenberry deliver the cheap shot and suspended the raucous fourth grader on the spot.
"We pretty much hated each other until about seventh or eighth grade," recalls Haines.
"The first time I saw Dylan was the first practice my freshman year at Babler Park," recalls the tall, angular and immensely athletic Austin Hindman, the defending 3200-meter state champion.
"I am a year younger than these guys so I had never met any of them and I didn't know what to expect. I had only met OC once. I was standing there alone, waiting for practice to start and I was just looking around. It was pretty much what I expected -- a bunch of guys hanging out."
"And
then here comes Dylan Quisenberry," smiled Hindman.
"He's wearing basketball shorts, a tank top, a flat-billed snapback backwards and high-top skate shoes. He comes running up and everyone is like, 'Here comes Dylan!' He rips his hat off and throws it. He takes his shirt off. He pulls his shorts down and he has on running shorts with his basketball shorts around his knees. "I thought, 'Oh. My. Gosh! Of course there is this ONE kid. Every team has that ONE kid and that kid on our team was Dylan."
Courtney O'Connor is Sean's wife of almost five years. She is a former college volleyball player who has also coached. She is such a big part of her husband's team that the boys respectfully refer to her as "Coachess." She and Dylan Quisenberry have formed a special bond.
"Dylan is our surrogate child," Courtney matter-of-factly stated. "When Dylan was a freshman he was just really annoying. It took him a while to find his stride for sure."
An interesting choice of words for how Quisenberry eventually got dialed in and found his stride amongst his teammates and high school life in general.
"It took lots of talks," said O'Connor. "Lots of work. The sports side was never a problem for Dylan. He's super competitive by nature. The school side was not his strong suit to begin with."
What turned Quisenberry around?
"His teammates started to get better and that made him take things more seriously," said O'Connor. "He also started to see running as a way to pay for his college education. But just like any high school boy, you can tell them all you want but at some point they have to figure it out on their own the hard way. And you have to let them do that."
"He wrestled his freshman year and the wrestling coaches knew him coming in and they thought he was pretty good," recalls O'Connor. "They thought he had a chance to wrestle varsity his freshman year. But then he runs the twelfth fastest 5K time in the nation for a freshman and they said, 'Well, he's not that good of a wrestler.'"
"Quis is Quis," said O'Connor as he finishes up his bread bowl by tearing it apart with his hands and devouring the chunks. "He's a great kid. Super competitive -- and more in-your-face because of his wrestling background. He has the bravado and confidence, but he is also one of the nicest kids you will ever meet. And one of the most genuine kids you'll ever meet."