MileSplit IL Senior Spotlight: Brett Gardner

Conventional wisdom has said that patience is a virtue. For a guy named Brett Gardner, he knows little about it. He has waited quite a while for his moment in the spotlight. Let's take a quick trip back to the fall of 2019 for the Lincoln-Way East standout. Gardner had blitzed through the cross country season which included a massive personal best 14:14 (three-miles) at the Richard Spring Invite in Peoria. Just a "single" season loss to Josh Methner of Hersey had high hopes of another successful run in the forthcoming state championship.

Then it all came crashing down.

After easily qualifying for state at the Normal Sectional, Gardner had to bow out due to a stress reaction in his right leg. The goals of possibly earning high state championship honors and even making a national time were dashed. The proceeding long winter months of recovery provided Gardner with insight and patience in that he would come out as a better overall student-athlete. Before he was to head out to North Carolina State University this fall he had some ambitious goals. "Well, I had some pretty aggressive goals," he said. Consider the fact that he dropped 9:09.78 and 4:19.36 thrillers in just a handful of indoor meets, it is plausible that we could have seen a time in the 8:40s.

Before the season was cut short, Gardner had plans of running at NBNI and later the prestigious Arcadia Invitational to get his point across. Now it appears we will have to wait to see the smiley Gardner go for a sub 4:00 mile or complete his ultimate goals. Best wishes at the next level Brett Gardner!!