Carmel IN Senior, A 'Missionary Kid,' Dedicates His Running Success To God

By David Woods for DyeStat

VIDEO INTERVIEW

CARMEL, Ind. – Before he was breaking records, winning a national title, racing on a world stage or targeting a sub-4-minute mile, Kole Mathison was a missionary kid wondering what it all meant.

The future Carmel High School runner knew he had endurance. He learned that from a shuttle run at school measuring aerobic capacity. Mathison – pronounced muh-TEE-sun in Danish – obliterated the record.

He won his first race, and he kept winning. Then it occurred to him.

What if I don’t win?

Another race was coming up on the Northview Church cross country course, and everyone said Kole would win. He knelt to pray, teammates urging each other to be quiet.

 He has vivid recall of the whistle blowing and the start pistol firing. He said he went out “guns blazing” and noticed his mother cheering about 400 meters into it.

“I collapsed, started crying, stopped,” he said. “I didn’t finish the race. Didn’t want to.”

He was 10.

Mathison spoke to his parents, Scott and Amy, about it. Together, they watched the movie “Chariots of Fire” about Eric Liddell, who famously refused to run on Sundays, switched events and won the 400 meters at the 1924 Paris Olympics. And Liddell became a missionary in China, where Mathison lived the first two years of his life.

The boy continued going to practice. He would not race.

“At that point, we thought, ‘Well, maybe he’s never going to run again,’ “ his mother said.

The next year, however, was a new beginning. Kole was in middle school, and no one expected a sixth-grader to beat boys two years older.

At the 2016 middle school state meet, he was No. 7 runner on a team finishing second on a tiebreaker. Contributing to such a good team, well, that was satisfying. So was an individual state title as an eighth-grader.

Still, not enough. Mathison loved basketball, too. He could have gone on in that sport. If he devoted himself to running, he had to discover a different motivation, one not as stressful.

Mathison did not quote Liddell. A century ago, the Scottish sprinter said:

I believe that God made me for a purpose. But He also made me fast, and when I run, I feel his pleasure.

Mathison’s faith journey is his own, not Liddell’s. But the Carmel runner changed his mind-set, and it represented a turning point.

“Running is my favorite thing to do. I really enjoy it,” he said. “But it’s really running for God and His glory instead of my own. If I don’t use this gift, I’m not glorifying God’s gift to me.”

Missionary Kid

Mathison’s parents met at Butler University in Indianapolis.

Scott was a runner at Columbus North IN under Rick Weinheimer, an Indiana hall-of-fame coach. Coincidentally, Kole’s coach, 35-year-old Colin Altevogt, was once an assistant coach under Weinheimer. Amy is from Springfield, Ohio, where she was in high school show choir with singer/actor John Legend.

The parents were once on a team from Campus Crusade for Christ (now renamed CRU) in China, where they were on student visas and shared their faith with Chinese students. They lived in the 6,000-year-old city of Xian, home of the Terracotta Army, a collection of sculptures depicting soldiers of the first emperor of China.

The couple have four children: Mollie, 19; Kole, 18; Gabe, 16; Lucas, 13. The parents returned to Indianapolis for Kole’s birth before returning to China. Gabe, a pitcher and outfielder for Carmel’s baseball team, was born in Xian.

Overt evangelism was disallowed, although Scott said, “I don’t ever remember being afraid.” He was in charge of the ministry’s information technology and developed a private VPN network.

Kole, blond and white-skinned, drew a crowd as a child. He was “a curiosity,” his father said. The family once returned to China for a short-term mission trip, but all he remembers is the chocolate popcorn sold by street vendors.

Life as an “M.K.” – missionary kid – meant spending summers at conferences in Fort Collins, Colo. Mathison felt at home in Colorado as much as he did in Indiana, influencing a decision to commit to the Colorado Buffaloes for college.

“I love nature. The mountains out there are beautiful,” he said.

After the pandemic shut down the spring 2020 track season, he and four teammates made a spontaneous decision to drive 18 straight hours that summer to Colorado to train.

On a subsequent visit to the Boulder campus, he went on a long run with future teammates, starting at 7,500-foot elevation with a six-mile climb to 9,000 feet at 6:20 mile pace. Afterward, they attended church together.

Mathison’s faith is manifested in Wyldlife, a middle-school ministry. He meets with eighth-grade boys on Wednesday mornings at Mercy Road Church and was a counselor at a Missouri summer camp in the Ozark Mountains. He remembered looking up to high school boys.

“I mean, middle school is crazy,” he said. “I don’t think a lot of people like the middle-school years, but it’s a big part of your life in terms of growing and maturing.”

One of his Carmel teammates, Charlie Leedke, said Mathison is inspiring to young runners. Another teammate, Tony Provenzano, said Mathison showed him around the school upon transferring from Hopkins, Minn. Provenzao said “you can feel his energy and his passion” for his faith.

“I think it comes from a place that’s very genuine,” Altevogt said. “If you’re religious or not, everyone can understand how sincere he is.

“Running a fast race is great. There’s a lot more to it than that for him.”

Mathison has volunteered for Champions Together, which pairs special needs children with non-disabled student-athletes, and helped raise money for Riley Children’s Hospital.

Mathison started a Make-A-Wish fundraiser on behalf of Knox Van Ruler, a 4-year-old girl from Bloomington, Ind., with Down Syndrome and diagnosed with leukemia. Donations have reached $8,515 toward a goal of $10,000.

If the goal is met, Mathison promises to cut off his long blond locks – “ALL of it,” he posted on Instagram – and donate his hair to charity.  

'Just Compete'

Mathison has had such a momentous senior year – perhaps the best by an Indiana distance runner since Hammond’s Rudy Chapa, nearly a half-century ago – it’s easy to dismiss setbacks. He has endured some. He has bounced back.

He has adopted a motto from TV soccer coach Ted Lasso: Live like a goldfish  . . . i.e. have a short memory.

There is a reason Mathison’s father calls him Big Race Kole.

“I go into bigger races focused on what I can do to run the best that I can, not worrying about what anybody else thinks,” Mathison said. “But going out there and doing what I do best. Just compete.”

Getting to first required him to back up a little. What would happen in December and June depended on September and April.

So his coach organized training aimed at the Champs Sports Cross Country Finals, which was Mathison’s primary goal in cross country, as well as track’s state meet and postseason. Moreover, Mathison wanted to qualify for the World U20 Cross Country Championships, race indoors and become Indiana’s first sub-4-minute prep miler.

He carries a 4.13 grade-point average. And he works Sundays at a running store owned by two-time Olympian Bob Kennedy, a former American record-holder.

“This past year has been the busiest of my life,” Mathison conceded.

As far back as Oct. 1, it was apparent this would be his year.

In the Nike XC Town Twilight at Terre Haute, he won in 14:51.7, coming within three seconds of the course record set in 2011 by U.S. marathon champion Futsum Zienasellassie. Average 5K for Carmel’s five scorers was 15:20 -- fastest in history of the course, site of Indiana’s state meet since 2004.

On Oct. 29, he covered the course in 15:02.8, winning state and representing redemption from the previous year, when he fell and made his way back to fourth. He and Provenzano went 1-2 to lead Carmel over Zionsville 103-106 for a state championship.

Customarily, that’s it for the season. However, Mathison had six more cross country races.

As meaningful as any came Nov. 13, back at Terre Haute, in the Nike Midwest Regional. Not only didn’t he win . . .

“I got blitzed,” he said.

Mathison was fifth in 14:47, or 25 seconds behind winner Hunter Jones of Benzie Central MI.

“After that race, outside looking in, ‘Well, Kole’s got no shot at competing for a national title. But in my head, well, I learned a lot from that race,” Mathison said.

Three weeks later, he was fourth in Nike Cross Nationals at Portland, Ore., 11 seconds behind winner Aaron Sahlman of Newbury Park CA and two seconds ahead of Jones.

A week after that, on Dec. 10, after another flight across the country, Mathison attacked San Diego’s Balboa Park course as if he had designed it for himself.

“Going into races like that,” he said, “I know I’m fully capable of competing with every athlete who’s toeing the line.”

Through a half-mile at Balboa Park's Morley Field, Jones led. Mathison led at every subsequent checkpoint.

He built almost all of his 11-second margin from 2.5 miles to the 5K finish, clocking 14:56.6, fastest since 2015. The Midwest’s 1-2-4-5-6 finish resulted in a record score of 18 points.

“Midwest kids are tough,” Mathison said.

He had resolved to make the U20 team, and he was similarly aggressive in the Jan. 21 trials at Richmond, Va. He led at 3K (8:59) and was within a second of the lead at 5K (15:02.6). He finished seventh over the 8K in 24:11.7, one spot from the six heading to worlds. He conceded he lacked the fitness he had in San Diego.

He had assumed he wouldn’t be going to Bathurst, Australia, anyway. His updated passport hadn’t arrived, stuck somewhere in the mail.

Somehow, everything aligned: Passport showed up on doorstep, another runner’s passport issue dropped him and promoted Mathison, lost luggage didn’t derail him, and he was No. 4 scorer for a bronze-winning U.S. team medaling for the first time since 1982. (Leo Young was 16th in the Feb. 18 race, Mathison 25th.)

“So many miracles,” Amy Mathison said.

Mathison’s medal was arguably the most significant achievement by an Indiana runner – at least internationally – since Chapa set a U20 world record of 28:32.7 for 10,000 meters at Des Moines, Iowa, in 1976. The time remains a national high school record.

Pursuit of Sub-Four

Eighteen high school runners have broken four minutes for the mile since Jim Ryun first did so in 1964. Six have run it in the past two years.

None of the 18 is from Indiana. Center Grove’s Austin Mudd came closest, clocking 4:01.83 in New York City in 2011.

Mathison has been aiming at it ever since clocking 1,600 meters in 4:04.82 at last year’s state meet. That is equivalent to a 4:06.2 mile, still far from sub-4:00. He didn’t race thereafter last June, and he has not been in position to run sub-4:00.

Finally, he might be poised to break through, irrespective of a couple of mile outcomes.

In the March 12 mile during New Balance Nationals Indoor at Boston, he went through three-quarters in 3:02.30, then second place. He finished sixth in 4:06.48, still an Indiana indoor record.

“The wheels fell off the last two laps. If I’m in it and in shape for that, that last lap might be a 58 and I go sub-4:00,” Mathison reasoned. (Two days before, he was third in the two-mile in 8:47.11, bettering Zienasellassie’s Indiana outdoor record and worth 12th on the all-time indoor list.)

In an April 14 mile at Indianapolis, Martinsville junior Martin Barco pulled away to win in 4:08.94, leaving Mathison a well-beaten second in 4:11.36. Turns out Mathison had taken a needed break from running beforehand.

Mathison again attracted skeptics. Teammates told him of a social media outcry: “People were saying you were ‘washed.’ “

Except for a couple of things:

1, Mathison ran an 800 in 1:50.80 on May 11, or about as fast as Olympian Cole Hocker of Indianapolis did as a high schooler in 2019.  2, In a recent workout, Mathison ran 1,200 in 3:01, 800 in 1:57 and 400 in 54 seconds, with a 15-minute rest interval.

Sub-4:00 beckons.

“I think he could do it if he got into the right field,” Altevogt said.

Mathison recently got into such a field with an invitation to the Brooks PR mile, set for June 14 at Renton, Wash. He could also run a mile in the New Balance Nationals Outdoor meet June 18 at Philadelphia.

Suiting up for Carmel

Heading into Thursday’s regional and June 2 state meet, Carmel is counting on points, not records.

Mathison could become the second to win a 1,600(mile)/3,200(two-mile) double back-to-back at state, but that’s not all confronting him. Before such an attempt, he is to anchor the 4x800 relay. It could add up to Carmel’s fifth team title in eight state meets and a cross country/track sweep.

“I love the team aspect we have at Carmel,” Mathison said. “I always want to put the team first.”

He discovered long ago to run for individual glory was anxiety-inducing. He remembers the night he lie awake, thinking about how to demonstrate that.

Since then, this has been his ritual at finish lines: crossing arms in an “X,” representing “nobody else but God,” he said, and pointing to the sky. His other running ritual is to wear a sleeve on his right arm, something he has done since a particularly good race as a freshman.

Despite his 6-foot-4 frame, he has a choppy stride, a peculiarity his coach has declined to “mess with.” Mathison meets regularly with Scott Hudson, an athletic trainer and ultramarathoner who formerly treated athletes for USA Track & Field. Flexibility exercises, biking and swimming are all part of the training regimen.

That’s not Mathison’s secret, though.

“He just fights,” Hudson said.

Especially after identifying a meaning for the fight.

Contact David Woods at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidWoods007.