Northwestern runners reflect on McMartin's influence

By: 
Jake Ryder

ORANGE CITY – No matter what difficulties Tim Rose has faced in his running career, he has steadfastly believed in hard work resulting in success.
 
Rose, an Iowa Falls native who ran at South Hardin, now in his senior season with the Northwestern College men's cross country and track and field teams in Orange City, was one of many influenced by the late Clint McMartin, a Grundy Center coach, teacher and husband to Tim's first cousin, Caryn (Rose) McMartin.
 
Tim Rose's final cross country season with Northwestern was also his first with Dylan Hendricks, a freshman from Grundy Center with a shared connection to Clint McMartin and his passion for running.
 
Clint passed away at age 36 on Aug. 27, 2010, just as Rose was beginning to follow advice passed on from McMartin on pursuing cross country and track.
 
"He was always the guy at family reunions that all the kids would hang out with," Rose said. "He just wanted to be part of what we were doing and always showed interest in us kids. … At a very young age, he helped instill in me the value of hard work. If you'd ask him about cross country, that's how he explained it—it's just running, just how hard are you willing to work is what you get it out of it."
 
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Hendricks was 189th at the NAIA national meet and had a personal-best time of 26:11 in 16th place at the Great Plains Athletic Conference cross country championships, which Northwestern claimed for the second-straight season.
 
"We just naturally had a friendship," Rose said of Hendricks. "The whole team is really close and it was just super cool to get to stay in the same hotel room with him and talk a lot about our experiences."
 
Hendricks had Clint as a fourth-grade teacher.
 
"Clint McMartin was one of the first people who got me into running," Hendricks said. "I don't know if I'd be running if it wasn't for him. … He saw things in people that you might not have noticed yourself and he saw potential with me."
 
Read more about how McMartin influenced these area runners, and what's next for them in Orange City, in the Dec. 14 Grundy Register. Subscribe by calling (319) 824-6958 or clicking here. 

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