Catoctin High School senior Hannah Stone logged onto Facebook one day during her sophomore year — and shrieked.
She couldn’t believe what she saw: a message from Kathy Messner-Stevens.
“I almost peed myself, I was so excited,” Stone said.
Stone knew the maiden name well, as it dotted her school’s track and field record board. And since she began competing in third grade, the two-time All-Gazette first-teamer idolized Messner-Stevens — and had even “Facebook creeped” her just to see what she looked like.
It turns out Messner-Stevens had become a fan of Stone, too. Messner-Stevens read in the newspaper the year before that a Catoctin freshman had high-jumped 5-foot-2 and won a state title. After resisting offers for years to coach at Catoctin, Messner-Stevens was reconsidering because of Stone and explained that in her message.
Stone forwarded the message to her teammates and coaches, and shortly after that, Messner attended a meet.
“I felt like a celebrity,” Messner-Stevens said. “Everybody’s whispering. I’m like, ‘Um, just me.’ Hannah was all excited. Everybody on the team was like, ‘Is that Kathy Messner? Kathy Messner’s here watching you jump. Oh my gosh.’”
Stone’s ability impressed Messner-Stevens, but she didn’t always like Stone’s demeanor in those meets before she became an assistant coach for the 2010 outdoor season. Once, Stone celebrated a state-qualifying jump, even though the qualifying height was several inches below her then-personal best.
“The one thing I really wanted to change about Hannah was her, I guess, spunkiness,” Messner-Stevens said. “I always joke with her, she’s always like butterflies and flowers. I’m like, ‘You need to kick it into drive, girl.’
“Now, she’s just like I was in high school. She goes after it. She wants to win. She has her goal set.”
Stone jumped 5-foot-8.25 inches Saturday, breaking Messner-Stevens’ Frederick County meet record and tying the nation’s best jump by a high school girl this year, according to track database dyestat.com.
“Now, it’s like watching myself in high school,” Messner-Stevens said. “Although she has better form than me in high jump, by far.”
There has been plenty of give and take between the two to reach this point.
Stone still makes her mark with polka-dot duct tape in the form of an ‘H,’ for Hannah, and has rainbow shoelaces. Though she’s a little more serious when she actually competes, she’s never once cursed. It's reached the point that they enjoy how much they affect each other.
“We always say that my blondeness rubs off on her, and her clumsiness rubs off on me,” Messner-Stevens said.
At one meet, Stone and a friend were playing Egyptian Ratscrew, a card game that involves quickly slapping cards. The opponent accidently jabbed a fingernail into Stone’s hand and drew blood, and 30 minutes after that, Stone set a new personal jumping record.
“She said, ‘I’ve got to get wounded every meet,’” Messner-Stevens said. “Before every meet, she shows me something else. She’s either tripped, a bruise, a scrape — she’s [always] got one.”
Her pain-induced jumps have led to scholarship offers from Mount St. Mary’s University and West Virginia Wesleyan College and interest from University of Richmond, Virginia Tech and Maryland.
Stone is quick to credit Catoctin coach Terri Gibbons and Doug Williams, who teaches a strength-training class at the school, with her development.
A mid- and long-distance specialist, Gibbons scrambled to learn about the high jump to teach Stone as a freshman. The big lesson was for Stone to stop closing her eyes, a habit she developed while jumping onto dusty mats when she was younger. Gibbons also gave Stone her lone guest pass to hear Hollis Conway, an Olympic-medalist high jumper, speak at Hood College.
At Messner-Stevens’ urging, Stone enrolled in class this semester with Williams, who also trained Messner-Stevens and coaches Catoctin’s football team. With his help, Stone said she can handle more events in each meet than ever before.
But it’s clear Stone’s relationship with Messner-Stevens is special.
“It’s like she’s my little sis,” Messner-Stevens said.
Stone and Messner-Stevens went to New Orleans this summer for the AAU Junior Olympic Games. They wore wacky outfits, drove to Mississippi and visited the Gulf of Mexico.
“I felt like a high schooler for a week,” said Messner-Stevens, a 1998 Catoctin graduate who competed at Penn State University.
Messner-Stevens still holds the Maryland state-meet record with a high jump of 5-foot-9. She speaks, in matter-of-fact terms, of Stone breaking it.
Because Catoctin competed in 1A when Messner-Stevens set the record, she’d remain the 1A record holder, and Stone would claim the 2A and state records. They see it as a perfect outcome.
“I’m ready for her to take over,” Messner-Stevens said. “I honestly feel that, if she breaks the record, a part of me goes with it, being her coach and helping her get there. I think it’s great working with her. She’s a phenomenal athlete, person.”
dfeldman@gazette.net
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