By Christopher Tremblay

Isaiah Grupee began his running career while still living in Needham in order to improve his play on the football field. After joining the track team, he found that the sport would not only help him with his football skills, but it was also something that he realized that he could succeed in. With this newfound knowledge, he began taking his new sport more seriously than he had originally planned on. 

“I was big into football and around sixth grade I decided to join the track team to help me get better with football,” Grupee said. “When I went undefeated that first year and was invited to take part in the tournament, I knew that this was something I needed to continue with. I didn’t do all that well in the tournament, but I was a sixth grader running against eighth graders and that was a big age gap.”

During his sophomore year, his family left Needham and moved to Norwood where his intentions where to continue playing football, hopefully basketball, and run spring track. Unfortunately, during the football season, the then sophomore dislocated his shoulder and was unable to try out for the basketball team and there would be no track as the Covid pandemic was causing havoc amongst the high school seasons. 

“It was rally devastating not being able to take part in track because the year before I was able to take part in the freshman/sophomore meet and I was really looking forward to showing off my skills in my sophomore season,” Grupee said. “Covid put a stop to that giving us no track season and no tournament, so the next time I got to run was in my junior year and in the moment, I was upset that I couldn’t run in that tournament again.”

Norwood boys track coach Matt Curran was also disappointed that the Norwood fans didn’t get to see the transfer student strut his stuff on the track. 

“Unfortunately, his first season would have been the Covid year where the entire season was cancelled so I believe it hurt his development with us and he has such great ability,” the Mustang Coach said. “Isaiah finally got to run for the first time as a junior last year and running a half a second behind Jon Palumbo, it gave us a great 1-2 punch.”

After missing out on spring track his first year at Norwood High School, Grupee decided he was going to only focus on two sports, football, and both winter and spring track. During his first indoor season, he would take part in the 55-meter dash and the 300 for the Mustangs while running against a completely new group of athletes. Although he came into the season confident and in good shape, he was unaware of what he was up against with his new school’s opponents. 

Grupee considers himself to be a fast runner but knew that he needed to do some work on his start if he was going to make a run at any of the Norwood records during either the winter or spring seasons.

“I found that I could be much faster if I worked on my start,” Grupee said. “I needed to focus while perfecting my explosiveness at the start; I need to get myself more power at the beginning. After watching videos of my running, I found that I was too high in my start while all the other runners were much lower to the ground. I had always started off a little behind and then used my speed to run past them.”

In addition to figuring out what he needed to work on, he also noticed that during the indoor season he was faster than Palumbo but come the spring it was the opposite. Palumbo had adjusted his footing and was now faster than Grupee. Needless to say, Grupee got Palumbo to teach him how to improve his running as well during that spring season. 

“Last year Isaiah was a little overshadowed by Jon, who was a really good sprinter in front of him,” Curran said. “This year I am hoping that he steps up his game and improves upon his times. He is a leader of the team with a great personality.”

Thus far this season, his final with Norwood, Grupee had been undefeated in his races until recently when during his stretching and pre-game war-ups he didn’t feel right but decided to still give it his best for the team. Unfortunately, he couldn’t quite muster up enough power to capture the win. 

With the rest of the winter season still ahead of him, the senior is looking to grab a spot in Norwood history in the 55 and 300. Currently Grupee has posted a 37.6 in the 300 behind Solomon King’s 36.84 record setting time and is currently sitting with a time of 6.84 seconds in the 55 with the record being 6.61. During the spring he will also be looking to etch his name in the record books for the 100 and 200. The 200 being his best chance as he is sitting on a time of 22.8 seconds, just short of the record time of 22.4. The 100 record is 10.8 seconds with Grupee’s best time 11.0

“I am really looking forward to the tournament this year that will give me the chance to run in the 55 and 300 and hopefully a shot at the high school record,” Grupee said.

While he would like to put his name in the Norwood record book, Grupee is hoping that he can help the rest of the team with his knowledge and get them into the State Tournament. As one of the Mustang leaders, Grupee is hoping that his natural leadership ability and charismatic attitude helps get the team to where they want to be come the end of the season. 

According to Curran, Grupee not only has the ability to place in the Divisional Meet and become one of the top sprinters in the Tri-Valley League, but is also a big part of the future of the team although this is his final season.

“Isaiah’s times have been good this year and he has the potential to earn himself a spot as one of Norwood’s top 5 sprinters in history,” the Norwood Coach said. “Although he will not be here next year, he is still trying to recruit kids to join the program. His times are a big part of his talking.”