PB Hall of Fame: John Myers

John Myers speaks during the 29th annual Poplar Bluff Sports Hall of Fame induction banquet Thursday at the 5th & 6th Grade Center. (DAR/Brian Rosener)

During his induction speech Thursday night, John Myers thanked his parents for always being there and talked about going to races in their motor home.

"They taught me that you have to want it, and if you want it bad enough, you're going to put in that extra effort," Myers said later.

Myers was a four-year letterman in track for the Mules when he graduated in 1987. He won a state cross country title and the 3200-meter state title as a senior and was also a member of two national championship teams running at the University of Arkansas.

During his introduction of Myers, Bill Caputo told the story of how Myers, already a two-time, all-state runner, had dominated the area cross country meets as a senior but finished 13th at the sectional race. Myers' coach Barry Cody instructed him to run just hard enough to qualify. A week later at the state meet, nobody thought Myers was a contender but after he won the race with a late kick, Cody had a t-shirt that read 'state champion' already made.

Running at Arkansas, Myers was a member of the NCAA champion cross country team in 1988 and the indoor national championship team in 1989. He also represented the United States in an international cross country meet.

Myers thanked his teammates, many of whom were among the 65 in attendance.

"I don't remember I got this medal or that medal, I can't," Myers said. "I got to give credit to these guys. Guys that were there, they were the ones encouraging me. We were apart of a team."

Here's a story from June 30, 2005 by Jeff McNiell:

Dan Holland will never forget the first time he saw John Myers run. It was a road run on the first day of track practice and the kid no one knew made a lasting first impression.

"People don't run real hard on those runs, especially at the start of the season," Holland recalled. "John beat everybody by like 4 or 5 minutes and we were really mad at him. We thought, 'Who is this guy? What a jerk.'"

Holland and his teammates devised a tough love approach to put Myers, who they believed had shown them up, in place.

"We said, 'Tomorrow we're going to teach him a lesson. We're going to go out and run him into the ground,'" Holland said. "We started at a really fast pace and the faster we ran, the faster John ran. Nobody got within 100 yards of him. That's when we started realizing how good John was."

The band kid who floored his teammates with his speed never slowed down.

Behind the self-motivation he developed as the member of a military family and combined with his natural talent, Myers became one of the top long distance runners in Poplar Bluff history. He intimidated opponents with his late bursts of speed toward the finish line and developed a knack for running just fast enough to beat the second-best competitor.

Myers' legacy was cemented his senior year. He tracked down Hazelwood West's Shane Briscuso with a classic kick to capture the 1986 Missouri cross country championships. Several months later, he followed a second-place finish in the 1600-meters with another title in the 3200 at the track and field championships.

"John was a natural runner," Holland said. "He trained very hard, but he was just one of those people that showed up with all of the ability in the world and needed to focus it."

After a successful career at the University of Arkansas and representing the United States at the world cross country championships in New Zealand, Myers followed a predictable path laid by his father and older brother to the military. He served five years in the Army and in 1996 joined the Air Force.

Today, Myers is serving his country -- as well as enjoying the spoils of European life with his family -- at a NATO programming center in Belgium. He's eight months into a three-year commitment as an oracle data base administrator and developer.

"There are so many Americans that save 10 years worth of salary and vacation time just to go to Europe for a two-week vacation," Myers said. "Well with us, the Air Force gave me a three-year vacation with pay. I can't complain with that."

No one knew who Myers was when he joined the track team as a freshman. That changed when he went head-to-head with Mike Batrano, one of the fastest runners on the team, and won.

"I really didn't think I was fast, I thought I was more average," Myers said. "I noticed I was starting to get a little better and I managed to beat Mike Batrano in a race. Needless to say, some of the guys were a little surprised. They're like, 'Oh, that's the guy that was in marching band.'"

It was that moment Myers realized he had a future in track. That summer and every following one, he dedicated himself to becoming a better runner. He ran every day -- totaling nearly 1,600 miles between school years -- and did "a helluva lot of sit-ups and a boatload of push-ups."

The dedication paid off. He joined the cross country team for the first time as a sophomore, qualified for the state meet and finished 15th to earn all-state honors. He joined Arthur Waddel as the only Mule to earn the honor.

The next year, Myers again advanced to the state meet and finished third. Two years in a new sport and two all-state finishes.

"I knew I had to be committed to this thing to see how good I could get," Myers said. "Being raised in a military family, my father always instilled that in myself and three brothers. I thought, 'I guess this is what my dad was talking about with commitment.'"

Myers quickly developed a familiar winning formula. He'd stay in the middle of the pack most of the way, then in the final quarter of the race sprint past his competitors. It was a strategy that worked time and time again.

"John's big thing was his kick," Holland said. "He would be in the middle of the pack on the last lap of a 2-mile, then all the sudden by the last 1/4 of the lap he was 10 yards in front of everybody else. He just had this huge kick that he would turn on. It completely intimidated some of his opponents because he would come flying around them so fast right at the end of a run."

One of the few times that strategy failed was the 1600 his senior year at state. Myers waited too long for his late surge and finished less than one second behind North Kansas City's Mike Piepergerdes. Myers quickly redeemed himself, though, in the 3200. Instead of waiting for a late kick, Myers led wire-to-wire for an easy victory.

Holland said Myers wasn't a pace setter. He'd run at the speed of the field, then take off just soon enough to win.

"If he ran against a guy that wasn't very good, he'd turn in a terrible time but still win. If he ran against somebody that was really good, he'd turn in a great time and win," Holland said.

"Every time he had to run against somebody that was good, he would set a personal best. The higher the level of competition he encountered, he always rose to the competition. If he would lock horns with one of West Plains' guys, he'd go out and shatter his personal best because he actually had somebody pushing him to run faster."

Considering his third-place finish the previous year, Myers was a heavy favorite to win the '86 cross country championship. But late in the race, it looked like a lost cause.

The course was in "disastrous shape" according to coach Barry Cody after the race. The Jefferson City course had absorbed several inches of rain and the boys Class 4A race was the last of the day, leaving the ground wet, muddy and torn to pieces. Cody said the conditions were the "great equalizer" to Myers' speed.

It certainly appeared that way with 1/2 mile to go. Myers trailed Briscuso, who he had defeated by 10 seconds the previous weekend in the sectional, by nearly 100 meters with the uphill home stretch coming and the finish line in the distance. Myers' chances of winning were so slim that his girlfriend began crying on the sidelines.

"I just remember thinking, 'OK, you gave it your best shot,'" Myers said. "I can remember at the bottom of the hill, I see my dad, Mike Batrano, Steve Halter, Dale Garrett on the sidelines and all they were doing was screaming at me. They kept saying, 'You're not going home unless you win this.'

"I forgot the pain and somehow, some way, I kicked it and started sprinting as fast as I could. The guy started getting closer and closer. I realized, 'My God, I can do this.'"

It wasn't long that in typical Myers fashion, he passed Briscuso. There were only 50 yards left between him and the Mules' first-ever individual cross country championship. In his peripheral vision, Myers saw his teammates running alongside him, screaming and pushing people out of their way.

Shortly after finishing in 16:34, Myers was mobbed my his teammates. He said they were the driving force behind his championship run.

"That whole race and that whole season really wasn't about me," he said. "A lot of it was about them because they were my fans and the guys that wouldn't let me give up. They were the ones when I felt that I had nothing left in the tank, they helped me through it all."

Myers' victory was just four years after Waddle finished second. Along with Ross MacDonald in 2002, they are the only three Mules to earn all-state honors in cross country.

Myers continued running at the University of Arkansas -- where he was part of the '87 NCAA indoor champions -- and he competed against the world's top long distance runners in New Zealand two years later.

But nagging injuries from thousands of miles of wear and tear began taking its toll. Myers dealt with a stress fracture in one leg and had to ice his knees after every run. It wasn't long before he decided the possible long-term complications weren't worth the risk.

"I began wondering if I'd need knee surgery and if I'd be able to function as a father one day," Myers said. "I'd really like to run around and play with them instead of drain water from my knee. I really didn't want it to come to that. It was at that point there was a fork in the road."

That fork led to the military. Myers joined the Army in '91 with the hopes of serving in Desert Storm. He enlisted and went to basic training, but by the time he was done, the war was over.

Following a short return to Poplar Bluff, Myers applied for and was accepted into the Air Force's officer training school in '96. He served at two different air force bases inside the U.S. before volunteering for a one-year remote to Korea or the Middle East. Instead, he got a three-year assignment to Belguim.

Myers' family are the only Americans in a Flemish region of the country. He lives off the economy and has quickly adapted to the European lifestyle.

"They just enjoy life and they don't get caught up in the rat race," Myers said. "Money is really not an issue for people over here. It's nice to get that kind of perspective."

Myers said he resumed running in May in preparation for a physical fitness test. He finished the 1 1/2 run in 9 minutes and has continued running 3-5 miles per day.

Myers said he'd potentially like to return home and coach one day. He already has three potential runners -- daughters Emily and Kassie, and a son, John.

"Who knows? Maybe it will run in their blood," Myers said. "If that's what they want to do, I'll be able to run with them."

Since, Myers has returned to Poplar Bluff, working at the VA, and is a major in the Air Force Reserve.