Chicago Christian senior Luke Jelderks spent a part of Friday watching the movie “Top Gun: Maverick.”
The way the Class 1A state track meet was set up, the preliminaries were Thursday and the finals Saturday, leaving the athletes with a free day Friday.
So, it was a trip to the theater for Jelderks, who qualified for the state finals in four events. He had previously seen the original “Top Gun.”
“It was a good movie,” Jelderks said of the sequel. “It started a little bit slow, but in the end, it tied everything together. It ended in a nice way.”
Just like Jelderks’ high school career.
Jelderks said he was 5-foot-3 in eighth grade and weighed “a buck 10? before his sophomore year at Chicago Christian.
Now, the 6-1, 185-pound senior leaves as a state champion in the high jump and all-state in three other events. He also was the quarterback for the Knights in football and a starter on the basketball team.
He’s had an amazing transformation.
“I was a skinny, little twig,” he said. “Then I started getting a little bigger and a little bigger. I gained muscle, speed and coordination. All of that helped me excel in track.”
And excel he did.
He took up the sport as a junior, finishing fifth at state in the long jump and 13th in the 200-meter dash.
This year, he won the long jump with a 22-feet, 7 1/4-inch effort at Eastern Illinois University’s O’Brien Stadium in Charleston.
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He also took fifth in the 200 in 22.96 seconds, seventh in the 100 in 11.21 and joined Steffon May, Jeremiah Oliver and Jon Tobey for eighth in the 400 relay with a 44.18.
That came 11 days after Chicago Christian earned the first sectional title in program history at Seneca.
“When I graduated eighth grade, I was a little basketball player,” he said. “I liked sports and I was decent in sports. But I never thought I was going to be at this high of a level.”
The Palos Heights resident is heading to Grand Valley State for track. The Lakers hosted the NCAA Division II national meet over the weekend and finished third. They won the national title in 2021.
“I could also walk on for football,” Jelderks said. “It’s still in the cards.”
The Southland had two other individual champions and three relay champs.
In Class 3A, Andrew’s Jonathan Young won with a 181-11 3/4 in the discus. In 2A, St. Rita’s EJ Nwagwu won the 200 with a 21.48.
Sandburg’s 3,200 relay of Sean Marquardt, Declan Tunney, Trent Anderson and Brock Rice ran a 7:44.03 for the program’s fourth 3A state title since 2015.
Homewood-Flossmoor’s 400 relay of Olusoga Adeyiga, Robert Scott III, John Gore and Taji Mathis Akinremi won with a 42.01.
Crete-Monee’s 800 relay of George Safo, Joshua Franklin, Lynel Billups-Williams and Edward Clark won with a 1:27.39, 2/100ths of a second ahead of H-F’s Mathis Akinremi, Jeffon Dudley, Jeremiah Turner and Scott III.
Although he didn’t win this time, Lockport’s Gabe Czako delivered two runner-up finishes in the 110 and 300 hurdles. That gives him state medals in three sports as a senior — soccer, football and track.
Sandburg’s relay team also enjoyed a new tradition of spending part of the state meet watching alums do well.
The Eagles gathered around a computer to watch former standout Dylan Jacobs win the 5,000 at the NCAA East Regional for Notre Dame.
“It wasn’t long ago Dylan and his teammates were watching Sean and Chris Torpy running in the NCAA meet,” Sandburg distance coach John O’Malley said. “Years from now, I hope a new group will be watching these runners.”
Jeff Vorva is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.