A different track for Whitefish's Gabe Menicke

To hear Whitefish track coach Willie Roche tell it, Gabe Menicke’s emergence from the pandemic was something like watching a caterpillar in chrysalis.

“I mean, if you saw him pre-Covid, you were like, ‘Who’s the twig,’ you know?,” Roche said.

When the 2020 spring season was canceled, Menicke, now a senior, coped by hitting the gym. Add a couple inches (he’s 6-foot-2 now), plus a dash of natural athleticism, and the metamorphosis was complete.

That fall, Menicke won a third straight State A soccer title with the Bulldogs. A few months later he followed that up with the best triple jump distance of his career to that point (44 feet, 3 inches). Another state championship? Natch.

“He put a lot of work in in the weight room and kind of just transformed his body into the total athletic specimen,” Roche said. “And so then he came out last year and he was a totally changed person — really fast times, really big jumps, and then had a ton of success at divisionals, and a ton of success at state. It was fun to watch him be competitive. I’ve watched him play soccer, watched him be competitive in that, but in track and field, I’d never seen it.”

Menicke recently signed with Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash., for track, but it wasn’t until his junior year that he started thinking seriously about sticking with that sport instead of soccer beyond high school. Winning the triple jump at the state meet changed his mind for good. He already had his eye on WWU, and from there the decision was easy.

“At first I was not thinking about track, but my junior year I did decent in triple jumping and it became one of my options,” Menicke said. “So I thought I might as well pursue that. I love it, and it’ll be a nice thing for me to do there.”

This spring Menicke has the best triple jump distance in the state — 45-5.5 — a mark he set April 19 in Bigfork.

“It definitely feels pretty good, but I have higher goals for myself too,” Menicke said. “Right now, I’m not really trying to focus on the other competition, but rather what I can do to achieve the marks that I want and to reach my peak performance for high school.”

The Menicke name is well-known in Whitefish. Gabe’s father, Richard, is the Bulldogs’ cross country coach, and his brother, Sam, played soccer and was a decent triple jumper himself.

Gabe says he started doing the triple jump after watching Sam do it.

“I always saw Sam doing it and just being the little brother looking up to the older one, and he was also a really stellar triple jumper,” he said. “I just looked up to him and tried it out and really enjoyed it.”

Besides the triple jump, Menicke runs the 200-meter dash and is the anchor leg in both relays. He also has a 5-8 high jump this spring and started doing long jump a couple meets ago. He has a personal best 20-3 distance so far.

“It’s kind of crazy,” Menicke said. “I don’t know why I’ve never really done it until this year, but it’s definitely weird. Seems like it’d be easier but triple jump’s really flat. You’re trying to go for distance and long jump’s popping up and it’s weird for me. Definitely getting a bit used to that.”

After training with Whitefish alum and current Carroll College athlete Lee Walburn, who won an NAIA outdoor decathlon championship last spring, Menicke started thinking bigger.

“We’re talking out at the track and Gabe’s out there and afterwards Gabe says, ‘I think I might be interested in college track and field,’” Roche said. “Then he’s like, ‘I think I might even want to be a decathlete. I think I can do what Lee does as well.’ I was like, that’s so cool. It was fun to hear him say that.”

After that, Roche started training Menicke on some decathlon elements like pole vault and working on sprints.

“He was going over nine, 10-foot bungees,” Roche recalls. “He’s never done it (pole vault) in his life. I’m just like, man, you can’t coach that athleticism. It’s just natural and that’s good. He’s a pure and natural athlete.”

Coaches at WWU have left the door open for Menicke to dabble in other events once he’s there. The university is a Division II school that competes in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.

“Lee’s just such an inspiration,” Menicke said. “He is a hoss athlete and such a great guy and I love his worth ethic. Really inspiring once he got me thinking about it (decathlon).”

Last fall Menicke led Class A soccer with 27 goals while captaining Whitefish to its fourth consecutive state title. Menicke was among a group of seniors that was undefeated through the entirety of their high school careers.

“That’s the first sport I started playing,” Menicke said. “I’ve been playing it since before I can even remember. I’ve loved soccer all my life. I’m still trying to definitely play some intramural and keep it in my life. Just not as competitively.”

Next for Menicke and the Whitefish Bulldogs is the Archie Roe Invitational, set for 10 a.m. at Legends Stadium in Kalispell. Fourteen other schools from all classes, including Glacier, Flathead, Columbia Falls and Bigfork, will be in attendance.