ShawneeDispatch.com

Blink and you might have missed him.

Just ask the opposition.

Mark Fancher, the 2009 Shawnee Dispatch Shawnee Mission Northwest Male Senior Athlete of the Year, blurred by his competition as a varsity football and track and field athlete for the Cougars, amazing all with his speed down the straightaway and his moves in traffic.

According to his coaches and family, however, it was the work he did before he performed on the athletic field that earned him his accolades.

For the past two seasons, Fancher has earned most of his notoriety as a member of the Cougar football team — playing a big part in leading the Cougars to the playoffs in both the 2007 and 2008 seasons. Fancher’s accomplishments earned him All-Sunflower League nods at both wide receiver and kick returner and few will forget his breakaway speed on slant patterns and end-arounds.

Yet Fancher also was an integral part of the Cougar track program for the past four years. One of Northwest’s speediest athletes, Fancher qualified and placed at state as both an individual sprinter and as part of several relay squads.

Cougar track and field coach Mike Cooper noted that it was Fancher’s everyday efforts that stood out.

“He’s very conscientious,” Cooper said. “He earned four letters in track, so that means he’s been a member of our varsity since he was a freshman. He’s a football player who likes track a lot and he’s worked extremely hard at both.

“He also works extremely hard in the classroom. He’s good to have in class because of his work ethic. He has a commitment to being good in whatever he’s doing.”

Northwest football coach Aaron Barnett knows that there are few things that are guaranteed when you work with the American teenager. Juggling athletic requirements, classroom responsibilities, family duties and moods that can swing widely makes working with adolescent athletes a source of constant surprises. Yet one thing on which Barnett always counted was Fancher.

“I never had to worry about Mark’s work at practice,” Barnett said. “He came to work every day 100 percent committed to doing his best. I never had to get on Mark for not working. I knew he’d be working his absolute hardest.”

Barnett also enjoyed Fancher’s particular set of skills — both natural and learned — on the football field.

“Well, the obvious thing is the speed,” Barnett stated. “That’s something you can’t teach or coach. But Mark also had great field vision; when he looked upfield he could see things developing 20-30 yards down. He is a very football-smart kid.”

“He’s also a great kid in school and, from his teachers’ accounts, an equally hard worker in the classroom.”

Fancher’s abilities on the football field earned him an NCAA Division I football scholarship to the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo. While Fancher gets to extend his athletic career as an adult, his family hearkened back to the beginnings of the speedster’s athletic days.

“Mark played soccer until he was in the sixth grade,” said Barb Fancher, Mark’s mother. “In sixth grade he started playing football.”

“He was always really fast and always coordinated. When he was little, he always had a ball in his hand. He was pretty much a natural.”

Around his sophomore year of high school, Fancher began toying with the idea of extending his playing days beyond high school. Though supportive, Fancher’s parents wanted him to be practical about it, too.

“I said, ‘Well, you know, keep up your grades in case it doesn’t work out’,” Barb Fancher recalled. “But when he gets a goal, he will achieve it. He will work extra hard to get there. He has a great work ethic. I’m really proud of him.”

And with a blaze of speed, he was off.

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