Six Of Carlinville's Landons Won County Track Titles

CARLINVILLE - Track is a tradition in some families, particularly for the Landons of Carlinville. Six members of that family have won individual county track titles.

Jacob Landon was the last with a victory in the 800 at the Macoupin County boys’ meet at Gillespie in May 2019. He joined his father, Harold, who won five county titles for the Cavaliers from 1983-84, and his sister, Morgan, the 800 champion in 2012.

Harold Landon is the boys’ track coach at Jersey Community High School, where he also coaches boys’ and girls’ cross country.

Meanwhile, Jacob Landon’s uncle, Mike, collected three county championships of his own in 1986-87, while his cousin, Cory, won seven county crowns, mostly in distance, from 2013-16. Cory’s brother, Jason, was a three-time county champion in 2017-18.

Both Cory and Jason went on to run at Wichita State University, an NCAA Division I program, while Jacob continued his running career at the University of Illinois-

Another of the Landons, Austin, was part of the victorious two-mile relay teams at the county meet for Carlinville in both 2013 and 2014. Five members of the Landon family each earned MVP honors for Carlinville in their careers.

It must make for interesting conversation around the dinner table, to be sure. No other family has as many members with county titles as the Landons in the history of the Macoupin County track meets. The boys’ meet, one of the oldest continuous sporting events in state history, dates to 1904, while the girls’ meet began in 1973.

With a total of twenty individual Macoupin County track titles, the Landons rank only behind the Viano family of Carlinville, which has twenty-one.

In third place is the Card family of Carlinville, which collected eighteen county titles with such standouts as Kelsey Card, a 2016 and 2021 Olympian who swept the shot and discus four straight times at the county meet from 2008-11.

Elsewhere, the Fairman family of Staunton owns fourteen county crowns, including eleven from Sophie Fairman (2010-13), who is considered the greatest female athlete in the history of the school.

Other leading family totals were accumulated by one member alone. Southwestern’s Kelly Thoroman, considered the greatest distance runner in county history, won twelve county titles from 1987-90, a total matched by Kristine Polo, a talented and versatile Gillespie superstar, from 1995-98.

Carlinville’s Tunde Ridley, who earned a track scholarship to the University of Illinois and later competed in two Olympic trials, earned ten county titles in his career, which ended in 1996 as the Cavaliers won a state title in track under longtime coach Dave Jokisch.

Jokisch is the all-time leader in coaching victories at the Macoupin County meet. His Carlinville boys’ teams collected 21 county team titles during his career from 1971-96, more than any other coach in the 118-year history of the meet.

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