School: Council Rock South
Soccer, Track & Field
Favorite athlete: Patrice Evra
Favorite team: Manchester United
Favorite memory competing in sports: Running in the 4x400 at Penn Relays
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that happened while competing in sports: Watching someone try to do a bicycle kick on a ball eight fee in the air from outside the 18 in a close game and then whiff.
Music on iPod: Everything from rock to hip-hop
Future plans: Graduate college and get into the medical research field
Words to live by: ‘An ounce of performance is worth pounds of promise.’
One goal before turning 30: Find an alternative treatment for illness instead of using antibiotics
One thing people don’t know about me: I organize and run an annual decathlon.
By Alex Frazier
Mike Spadaro is the kind of kid any coach dreams of.
He’s the one to pick up the equipment and carry it off the bus.
He’s the one who shows up after an AP exam in his sneakers to run the hurdles because he doesn’t want to miss the first event.
He’s the one you can hand his own workout to and expect that he will complete it better than if you were watching him.
“He’s a super kid,” said Council Rock South track coach Len Spearling. “He just wants what’s best for his team, help out his teammates. What I like about him is he’s a student of the game.”
Spadaro has been a member of the varsity track team at Council Rock South since he was a sophomore.
He grew up playing soccer, which was his primary sport until one of his friends convinced him to go out for track.
“I was doing track to get in shape for soccer until I realized I was half decent at track,” he said.
When he arrived at the track as a sophomore, he gave everything a try.
“I came in as a wandering body the first week,” he said. “Sometimes I was doing sprinting stuff, sometimes I was doing jumps.”
Running is by far the easiest event to pick up, but Spadaro was attracted to the more technical events.
“I break things down a lot and look at it at separate levels,” he said. “If you look at the triple jump, there are three phases to it. It fits my style. It’s the science and engineering in me. I want to learn and progress at the most basic levels. In technical events, you have to learn piece by piece by piece. You can’t just go and run in a straight line.”
“He takes his events seriously,” said Spearling. “He tries to learn about it.”
At first it was the long and triple jumps. Usually the long jump is the simpler of the two, but not for Spadaro.
“My coach actually told me I wasn’t good at long jumping,” he said. “I was that bad at it.”
From the triple jump he tried the high jump and found that appealing.
“Then it went into wanting to try everything,” said Spadaro.
When one of his friends who was a pole vaulter suggested he try that, he became a pole vaulter, not very successfully at first.
“I was just able to get into the air,” he said, “but I was happy about that. It’s the most technical event. There are a lot of things that can go wrong.”
When he came back as a junior, he started doing very well.
Now he’s clearing 12 feet.
Jumping apparently suited Spadaro, so it wasn’t surprising that he also found his way to the hurdle events.
He’s even run some distance events; well, short distance events like the 800.
“He runs four events for us every meet, wherever he is needed and never complains,” said Spearling. “His body takes quite a beating in the various events that he competes in—triple jump, pole vault, high jump, 400, 300 hurdles and relays—yet he never complains.”
After enjoying his track experience as a sophomore, he decided he needed to pursue it more the following winter. So after soccer season, he signed on for indoor track, which he found to be a bit different.
“Training is more rigorous, because you have a meet every weekend, so it’s three or four days of training and a day to cool off,” he said. “In the meet itself, there are a lot more people surrounding you because it’s enclosed. I like it. It feels like you have support around you with everybody watching.”
During indoor season, the coaching staff was stretched thin, so Spearling gave him his own workout and pretty much left him on his own.
“He embraces that,” said Spearling. “The busier he is, the harder he has to work, the more he likes it. On his own, he’ll work harder than other guys if there’s a coach there.”
His work paid off because this year he qualified for indoor states where he set South’s indoor triple jump record.
With a season of experience under his belt, Spadaro focused on the triple jump and qualified for districts as a junior.
“He came into his own last year,” said Spearling.
He’s already qualified again for districts in the triple jump and hopes to add the pole vault, which he admits is a long shot.
Last year Spadaro, along with Rock’s assistant track coach, organized a decathlon event.
What started out as just an inter-team fun event has burgeoned.
“We have 15 teams this summer that are going to compete,” said Spearling. “It looks like it’s going to grow into something.”
Spadaro has been an outside back ever since he started soccer. At Council Rock South, he has been able to get involved in the offense.
“I could be considered an offensive defensive back,” he said. “I was taking almost every free kick. I’d be running up and back for corner kicks, free kicks, all that stuff.”
Although he has scored only three goals in three years (two on penalty kicks), he has been an anchor on defense.
As he said, “I haven’t had a very glorious goal-scoring career, but it’s actually a harder target to hit someone’s head than the goal.”
His soccer career will officially end this summer when he plays his last game for his FC Bucks club team.
He said he would miss it “a little bit.”
Spadaro also coaches soccer. After being an assistant last year he became the head coach for the Crusa United Soccer Club’s U-14 intramural team this year.
“I love doing it,” he said. “I’ve had kids request me as a coach. It’s a neat feeling. You feel like you did a good job. It helps give back.”
His experience coaching has helped make him a better leader as captain of both the soccer and track teams.
“I can now look at something that’s going on and examine it and (figure out) how to resolve it,” he said. “Being able to have that ability is crucial. To be able to do that on the fly on the field is a real benefit sometimes.”
Spadaro has enjoyed his time as captain.
“It’s not something early on in life that I would have considered natural, but it gets me closer to the team and helps me connect everything,” he said.
“He’s always respectful,” said Spearling. “I’ve never had a bad experience with him.”
And Spearling could always count on him.
“He gets dinged up, but he’s never missed a practice or a meet,” he said. “At the very most he’ll be a couple of minutes late because he has to get his ankle taped.”
Off the field, Spadaro is an outstanding student. He scored 1360 on his SATs and was ranked 49th of 512 at the end of his junior year.
He is a member of the National Honor Society as well as the Math and Science honor societies.
Next year he will attend Johns Hopkins, where he was accepted early decision. He turned down acceptances to Penn State, Pitt and Drexel.
“The campus tour did it for me,” said Spadaro. “I wanted to do some D-III sports but I also wanted to get a good education and that was perfect. It was the best of both worlds for me. It was exactly what I was looking for. I couldn’t say no.”
Spadaro plans on running track for the Blue Jays, and majoring in chemistry and bio-molecular engineering with a goal of going into research.
With so much new to break down, he’ll be in heaven.
