OPINION: Top performers also elite humans

What a whirlwind of activity it was late last week before Deb and I stepped away from the daily routine here for a little road trip this week.

I spent a lot of time getting to know our South Central Iowa Male Athlete of the Year, Gabe Funk of Lenox, as well as visiting with his coaches from four sports for the article that appeared in Tuesday’s News Advertiser. (Caleb Nelson of the Adair County Free Press has the upcoming article announcing our South Central Iowa Female Athlete of the Year.)

While putting the finishing touches on that project, there was a trip “home” for me to the state softball tournament in Fort Dodge for Thursday’s Softball Hall of Fame induction of legendary Creston pitcher Madison Frain, now Madison Peterson.

It was a joy to see her in the spotlight she deserves for an amazing career. Frain has the five best seasons of total strikeouts in one season by a Creston pitcher, with 2025 senior Taryn Fredrickson now having the sixth-highest total behind Frain. With 148 career wins, Frain has 36 more wins than the pitcher in second place, Roxanne (Sammons) Lamb.

Even more staggering is that with 1,583 career strikeouts, her margin of 894 over second place is more than the total by Fredrickson in second place at 689. Granted, Creston had two full-time varsity pitchers during some of Fredrickson’s career, in Keely Coen with 54 career wins, but still that is an enormous margin.

We all relived a lot of great memories as Madison was accompanied Thursday night by several family members and former coaches Mike McCabe and Teri Keeler. Her father Darrell, head football coach and athletic director at Riverside, served as an assistant coach for Riverside’s third-place softball team. He related that Madison has worked with their pitchers.

One thing that these two elite athletes have in common is that both Madison and Gabe are such humble and engaging personalities, always unselfish with their time and cognizant of the fact that younger kids looked up to them.

One of my favorite quotes collected for the Gabe Funk feature was from baseball coach Trevor Luther, who I used to cover as a talented Creston player.

“Gabe is just a grade A elite human being to be around,” Luther said. “He’s never in a bad mood. He’s just somebody you want to be around.”

In terms of leadership qualities, football and track coach Michael Nardini said he knew Gabe sometimes got nervous inside before a big race or a big playoff game, but he never showed it. He exuded the confidence and intensity necessary to rally those around him to succeed against the best in the state.

It will be fun to see how Funk can flourish in the UNI track program when he’s concentrating on just one sport.

I had so much fun working on both of their stories. You know, a lot of young people don’t express such appreciation to us media folks for shining the spotlight on them for our readers, but both Gabe and Madison made a point to show their gratitude as we concluded our time together. That means a lot.

Likewise, Creston catcher Ava Adamson was appearing in the all-star games in Waukee Saturday, which I’ve covered multiple times for Creston and area athletes. But, this time our trip came the morning after I finished those two stories I’ve talked about, so I couldn’t pull it off.

I would have enjoyed that final chapter of Ava’s career. I have no doubt that she’s on her way to a successful adult career as she leaves soon for the University of Iowa.

All three of them were outstanding academic performers in high school and good citizens in their communities.

With Cheyenne on maternity leave, it was also fun to cover the second half of Creston’s baseball season. I respect coach Brandon Phipps and his staff for the way they’re running that program. Almost all of them played for retired coach Steve Birchard, and he has to be so proud of them.

The biggest benefit I’ve had from my two passions — writing about high school athletics and coaching basketball — is getting to know great talents who are also blue ribbon people.

Congrats to all of them as they conquer their next challenges in life.

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Contact the writer:

Email: malachy.lp@gmail.com

X: @larrypeterson