The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Wright McCarthy ruled cross country
First in a series previewing the 2018 News-Herald High School Sports Hall of Fame. Mary Jean (Wright) McCarthy will be inducted June 15 during a ceremony at halftime of The N-H Senior Bowl at Mayfield High School.
The first girls state cross country meet was held at Ohio State in 1978.
It was a banner event as Title IX continued to help pave the way for the advancement of female sports. From an area perspective, it was a milestone event.
The state meet was divided into two races — bigschool AAA, and A-AA for the smaller schools.
Euclid’s Carrie Shuster was third overall in the AAA race in 14 minutes, 27.9 seconds. In the A-AA race, Chardon won the team state championship, and had three runners (Juanita Vetter, Nancy Pokorny and Nancy Maruscha) place in the top six.
The headliner, though, was Kirtland’s Mary Jean (Wright) McCarthy, who earned the first of two straight state titles in 14:29.0 against runner-up Vetter of Chardon (14:34.3).
The next season, the A-AA was a repeat of sorts, but McCarthy was more dominant. Chardon again won the team title, and Vetter was the runner-up. This time, McCarthy blew away the field, winning by more than 35 seconds with a 14:19.0 that set a state meet record.
That dominance has earned McCarthy a spot in the 2018 News-Herald High School Sports Hall of Fame class. She will be inducted June 15 during a halftime ceremony at The N-H Senior
Bowl.
McCarthy credits most, if not all, of her success in running to her then-coach at Kirtland Dave Antognoli.
“What Coach Antognoli instilled in me as an athlete and as a person was so important to my success,” said McCarthy, 55, who lives on Long Island with her husband Bob and is a longtime Clinical Assistant Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at Adelphi University.
Antognoli, retired and living in Pennsylvania, coached for more than 40 years, in turn gave high praise to McCarthy.
“She’s the finest allaround human being I have known,” he said.
McCarthy was always interested in athletics growing up, and began running in middle school. She also played basketball and field hockey and ran track, but distance running was her speciality.
“The longer the race, the better it was for me,” said McCarthy, who still runs about 25 to 30 miles a week. “I’m a worker, and had zero doubt in whatever Coach told me to do. I had complete trust in my coach. I was fortunate to have a coach who understood the discipline it took to be great.”
In girls track at that time, the longest event allowed was the mile run. In cross country, the event was 2.5 miles, and that was perfect for Wright McCarthy.
The growth of female sports in the 1970s was a boon for McCarthy, even if at the time she was a bit oblivious to it.
“As a kid, I was just running,” she said. “I wasn’t really thinking about Title IX.”
It did open the door for her to have great success as a student-athlete, and it landed her a full scholarship to the University of Virginia, where McCarthy was a member of two national championship teams. As a senior at Virginia, she was the Atlantic Coast Conference Scholar-Athlete of the Year.
McCarthy was also an ace in the class room. She was Kirtland’s valedictorian for the class of 1980.
Some of her best memories as a runner are from the first two state cross country meets in high school. Winning the first-ever state meet in 1978 was a thrill, mostly because of the pride of bringing home a championship to her hometown of Kirtland.
“I was happy for my coach, myself, our school, my family,” she said.
There wasn’t pressure to repeat the next season, but when the postseason began, McCarthy was all business again, and she delivered a time more than 10 seconds faster than the previous season.
“When you win sectional and district, there’s that belief you should keep winning,” she said. “That second time (winning state) was special because it was my last time in high school, and I was prepared. When you’re prepared, and have belief in your coach, you can accomplish a lot.”