2019 Inductee
I attended a Track Coaches clinic at Williamsburg several years ago and IATC Hall of Fame coach Bob Mudd of North Linn was one of the speakers. A question from one of the attendees was, and I will paraphrase a bit here, “Coach, your girls seem to be on a roll and doing lots of good things. What is your secret? Coach Mudd replied, “We don’t have any secret, but we do have Ellen Ries.”
Wouldn’t all coaches liked to have had an Ellen Ries on their team.
Ellen, the youngest of 4, got interested in athletics at a young age by watching her older siblings participate. As a 7th grader, she was excited to have the opportunity to run track with the 1500 being her go to event.
Ries’s parents kept her focused, her teammates kept it fun yet competitive and Coach Bob Mudd was the driving force to her commitment of being a champion on and off the track.
Ellen Ries had an amazing high school career winning 13 state track titles, a Drake Relays title and 2 cross country titles. Of her 13 state meet wins on the Blue Oval 4 came in the 800 meters and 4 came as the anchor of the Distance Medley.
At the 2005 state meet the North Linn 4×8 team, of which Ellen would be the anchor, was jogging along the rail on the way to the starting line. They were running in Heat 2 and the team that just won Heat 1 had put up an impressive time. Coach Mudd, seated in the front row, stopped them. Mudd looked Ellen straight in the eye and said, “It’s going to take a 2:13 anchor to win this.” As the race ended, someone announced over the PA that Ries’s anchor was 2:08.9.
After her career at North Linn had concluded, Ellen was off to the University of Missouri, where she earned All Big 12 honors, qualified to the NCAA championships in the 1500 and was named a Big 12 Scholar Athlete.
But like any true champion, it was the experiences she shared with teammates that created the special memories. Like the community pep rally after winning the 2005 state track and field team title or earning All Big 12 honors on the Tigers home track the same day as graduation.
Ellen Ries was one of those performers’ fans hoped would have to come from behind in order to win. Not often did she have to make up ground but when she needed too, she could.
Ellen is employed by Hy Vee as a fulltime Sports Nutritionist, working daily with high school and college athletes helping them achieve their goals. She is also a member of the West Des Moines Valley Cross Country coaching staff.
Ellen and husband Patrick currently live in Urbandale with young son Milo and Baby Davis #2 will be arriving soon.