Cross Country, Track
Favorite athlete: Brett Favre
Favorite team: Green Bay Packers
Favorite memory competing in sports: Winning indoor and outdoor team state titles in 2013. That was the most fun I have had running track.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Coming down the home stretch of a cross country meet, I threw up three times. That day I learned not to drink orange juice before a meet.
Music on iPod: Arctic Monkeys, The Wonder Years, Rick Ross
Future plans: Major in History, Minor in Education, and run track at Duke University and then become a high school History teacher.
Words to live by: “You are who you choose to be.”
One goal before turning 30: Travel to five countries.
One thing people don’t know about me: I enjoy painting and drawing.
By GORDON GLANTZ
It was spring, 2010.
Depending on one’s perspective, it could seem like a lifetime ago or yesterday.
For Bensalem’s Kyle Francis, it is a little bit of both.
That’s when the two middle schools in the school district held their annual meet at the high school track.
More of an all-around athlete with a passion for baseball, he was a runner without a plan beyond just coming in first.
His coaches were telling him he could eclipse the five-minute mark in the mile, but he really didn’t comprehend – or care – what that meant.
He just ran.
And he beat the five-minute plateau by several seconds, making him the talk of the township.
“That day, we were at the high school track, which is a cinder track, so I knew it was going to be faster,” said Francis. “I was immature in my running. It didn’t mean a lot to me to break five minutes. I was uneducated with times. I just went out there and ran.
“When I look back now, it’s like, ‘Holy smokes, I did something special.”
High school runners watching the meet took notice.
“They came up to me and said, ‘Man, that was sick,’” recalled Francis, the Univest Male Athlete of the Week. “It felt good to have them show me some love.”
Next was his first encounter with a woman who would loom large in his life, high school coach Mary Ellen Malloy.
“I knew he had a lot of potential,” said Malloy, who began coaching at Bensalem as an assistant in 1987, took over as girls’ coach in the early 1990s and has been guiding both squads since the late 1990s. “We held the Middle School Championships over at the high schools, which is really just the two middle schools competing. He won the mile, with a time of something like 4:55 or 4:53, which is a nice time for an eighth-grader. But, you could see that he was raw.”
She also saw that he could be a force in the 800, as opposed to the mile, which prompted a discussion about his future in the sport.
“He said, ‘I’m a miler. I don’t do the 800,’” recalled Malloy. “We got past that quickly. We see how well that panned out.”
He recently capped off a career on which he got progressively more dominant, winning the 800 meters on the state level with the second fastest time in state history. During the winter season, he won the state indoor 800 with the fastest time in the country.
He could not have written a better ending to a storybook career.
“Absolutely,” said Francis who, as a junior, helped the Owls to the state crown by anchoring the 4x800 relay and was on the gold-medal 4x400 relay team. “That solidified it.
“To get the indoor title and then the outdoor title, it just rounded it out for me. It was everything I could ask for. I had a great high school career. I don’t regret anything.”
Making History
Francis leaves Bensalem, moving on to Duke University to major in history, realizing that he easily could regretted a lot.
And Malloy doesn’t let him forget it.
Along with playfully reminding him that she guided him to the 800 as opposed to the mile, there is something else she “busts” on him about.
“I kid him all the time,” she said. “I say, ‘So, how is your baseball career going?’”
That goes back to when Francis was a freshman. He ran cross-country – the first of four years that he qualified for states – and then just missed the state cut during the winter season.
“During the indoor season, we started talking about the outdoor season, and he said he wasn’t going to run outdoor track,” said Malloy. “He said, ‘I play baseball. I’m real good.’ I said, ‘OK, we’ll see.’ During the indoor season, he was upset because he missed states.”
And that was enough incentive, as Malloy suspected, for Francis to continue with running.
The rest is history, Francis’ favorite subject.
“That really was it,” said Francis, who continued playing baseball at the township level but not for the school. “I had success in track. That made me hungry and determined, and it just progressed from there.
“I always played sports – baseball, basketball; all of them. Track was kind of love at first sight. It’s always good to win as a team -- like we did my junior year, winning the state in indoor and outdoor – but also bettering yourself while helping your team. In track, unlike other sports, it is evident from the numbers. I have the drive to do it. If I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t be doing it.”
Law of the Land
Heeding Malloy on running the 800 and giving up baseball pretty much made him a disciple.
Her word became law.
“He is a coach’s dream,” she said. “He is very knowledgeable. I can tell him once and he will walk away and do it.
That’s the best part about coaching. He follows directions perfectly.”
Joking that Francis would “eat fried beans for breakfast” if she told him to, she points to his two individual gold medals this year as evidence. During the indoor final, she advised him to run at the front of the pack from the jump. During the spring, she prepared him to make some strategic moves.
“For the 800 indoor, I told him to run from the front, and that’s how he played it,” said Malloy. “When it came to the outdoor season, I said, ‘We can’t run the same way.’ He was prepared, and he made his moves exactly as we planned.
“He believes in coaching, and realizes that we’re all in for him.”
That theory is confirmed by Francis.
“I put all my faith in her,” he said. “She knows what I’m thinking. She sees my competition and bases my strategy on that.”
Friction to Friendship
After his head-turning day to remember in 2010, Francis was a known entity as a freshman.
A year ahead of him was another star in the making, Brad Rivera, now a distance runner for Penn State who also won the indoor gold medal in the 800 as a senior and placed second last spring in the half-mile.
Literally, and figuratively, Rivera heard Francis’ footsteps.
“They were two good runners, and there was a lot of friction between them,” recalled Malloy. “But they got to be very good friends. I think Kyle was good for Brad, and Brad was good for Kyle.
“I know before districts and states this year, Brad took the time out to text Kyle. As a coach, I can say a lot of things. Coming from someone like Brad, I’m sure it meant a lot to Kyle.”
“It does,” confirmed Francis. “It’s easy for him to be a big brother and mentor when he is still at Bensalem. For him to already be at Penn State and still reach out to me, it shows he cares.”
Francis says the two former training partners become so close that the initial awkwardness before being “taken under Brad’s wing” seems like distant history.
“I came in as a freshman,” he said. “I was a decent runner, who was sort of battling for his spot. In meets, we would battle it out.
“But we got past all that. By my sophomore year, when he was a junior, we just sort of gelled. We really worked well together.”
Rivera’s biggest gift to Francis was perhaps felt the most by young Bensalem runners on this year’s team, as Francis used Rivera’s template to assume a visible role, particularly with a more inexperienced group of distance runners.
“This year, I was in a leadership role, being the only senior amongst the distance runners,” he said. “I always answered their questions about how to run races. I was always open for that.
“I look back at what Brad did for me. I only hope I can do half of that for others.”
His leadership skills were not lost on Malloy.
“He can be very vocal,” she said. “He’s not one to get in anybody’s face. Everybody sees what he is doing, and they do it, too. He takes it all in stride. It is what it is.”
Good Vibrations
When Malloy speaks of Francis, she makes it clear that he is the product of a “wonderful family” that has supported him 100 percent from the day of his first practice.
Francis lists his parents, Kelly and Robert, at the top of his inspiration list.
“They helped me to be the student and person that I am,” he said, adding that his older sister, Casey Ann Beck, is like a second parent who he can “tell everything to.”
He thanked Malloy for “making me the athlete that I am” and his long-term girlfriend, Stephanie Brooks for her love and support.
He also said a major influence on him has been Bensalem High School history teacher, Mrs. Mary Ellen Phillips.
Francis was her student and spent this past year as her student assistant.
That he wants to major in history at Duke, and then become a high school history teacher, is due to her influence.
“I just watch the way she relates to the kids,” he said. “Everyone stays interested and pays attention in her class.”
Francis, who is active in the Varsity Club and the Student Government Association, says he “likes to help young people” and backs it up with working as a counselor at Bensalem Rec in the summer.
Sky is the Limit
For a myriad of reasons – including climate, academics and the track program’s standing as being on the rise – Duke has been Francis’ top choice.
He scored 1800 on the SAT, said Malloy, who added that Duke asked for him to take the ACT – sort of the SAT with a Southern twang – and wanted him to eclipse a score of 27. He got a 30.
Meanwhile, Duke’s coach, Norm Oglivie, monitored his progress and kept in contact.
Georgetown made a late push, but it was not enough to sway him from going to the Ivy League of the South.
In an interesting twice, Oglivie was originally projecting Francis as a miler but now wants to try him in the 800 first.
For the time being, he won’t run cross country in the fall.
That is fine with Francis, who will use the time to get acclimated to his new surroundings and rigorous academic curriculum while also taking advantage of state-of-the-art training.
Malloy believes he has more than enough gas in the tank, and tread on his tires, to reach new heights.
“Absolutely,” she said. “What he has done, he has done on low mileage. Ultimately, that mileage will increase and he is going to get better.”
“I have fresh legs,” said Francis. “I have only been running four years. Four more is not that much. I should just skyrocket.”
That doesn’t mean Malloy, affectionately called “Mom,” by the athletes she coaches, doesn’t worry that Francis won’t get lost in the shuffle.
“I hope (Oglivie) realizes what a special kid he is getting,” said Malloy. “Kyle is an intelligent, well-spoken and super individual. I hope he takes as good care of Kyle as I tried to, because the sky is the limit.”
