If hard work is contagious, Joe Maloney is Patient Zero.
For four years, Maloney, now a senior on the Durango High School track and field team, has carried the work ethic virus as it’s wriggled from cell to cell with each pump of his runner’s heart.
The burgeoning viral count boosted Maloney to a sixth-place cross country finish at state last year, an eighth-place podium at the 2012 state track meet and a spot on the Weber State University running roster.
Then this season, the prion mutated; it went airborne. With Maloney – who’s competing in the 800-meter run, 1,600, 4×400 relay and 4×800 at state this weekend – already running a fever of 107, that work ethic bug exploded into a full-blown pandemic in the Demon population.
Last weekend, Maloney broke the 26-year-old 800-meter record as 21 DHS athletes locked down spots in the CHSAA Class 4A State Championships starting Thursday in Denver.
One other side affect of the illness: After burning through Rex Johnson’s 1987 record with a 1-minute, 54.8-second two-lap race, Maloney said forget about the aches and the shakes, he was just feeling good.
“It’s awesome,” he said. “It’s the best feeling, that feeling of ‘I’ve finally got my goal,’ or one of them really.
“It’s a big culmination of all the hard work I’ve put in. It’s the best thing to turn around and see that clock and realize you got that.”
The race was an explosion for Maloney, longtime DHS track coach Steve Thyfault said. But the fall of the long-standing record isn’t what’s been most impressive about Maloney this year – it’s his ability to infect others with his work ethic.
“He just has grown, and actually there’s what I admired most about him this year – he became our team leader,” Thyfault said.
“He’s a workout role model.”
What the coaches ask, Maloney has done. And it’s rubbed off on everyone.
Thyfault, a coach of 37 years, can’t remember the last time DHS took more than 20 kids to the state meet, but “it’s been a long time.”
The qualifiers range from middle distance runners such as Maloney to throwers, jumpers and sprinters of all kinds, plus a bevy of relay teams.
All types of events are represented in the Demons’ population, and all of them have caught the bug, monitored by good doctors.
“Talented kids who are working hard and good coaches,” DHS head coach David McMillan said with a nod to the legion position and assistant coaches. “Good coaching, then kids just flat out working hard.”
Maloney said track too often is pigeonholed as an individual sport. It’s not, he said; it’s a team sport in ways few credit it.
“Individually, if you’re working as hard as you can, you’re making your teammates better,” said girls leader Dominique Ward, a DHS senior who will compete in the open 800 and on the 4×400 and 4×800 teams this weekend.
The Demons have ensconced themselves in that team spirit, and athletes such as Maloney and Ward have welcomed their roles as leaders, pulling the younger athletes along in workouts and keeping them calm under meet pressure, which will be a key for success at state.
McMillan admits it’s cliché, but this season’s team is all for one, one for all.
“They’ve really embraced that idea of ‘I am; we are,’” he said. “It takes all these different parts to make a strong team.”
That strength is why McMillan and the Demons aren’t settling for just qualifying in Denver; they want podium finishes.
Led by Maloney, who’s got his eye on breaking the DHS 1,600 record and taking first in at least one event, Durango is looking for top finishes from all of its athletes.
Now that everyone’s caught Maloney’s virus, that goal’s just within reach.
“I told the kids (Monday), if you add up all the times and distances, we’re about 15 seconds out of first,” McMillan said Tuesday, the Demons’ final practice this season at home before leaving for the state meet and the Front Range on Wednesday morning. “We’re about 100 meters from winning everything.”