By CHUCK BABINSKI, reporter

“Patty Carrell was before my time but is pretty much legendary in terms of Warrior track and field,” current Watseka girls track coach Troy Simpson. “I would say there are few Iroquois County athletes that meet the standard she set from 1977-80. We honestly haven’t had runners like her before or since.”

    Maney was a five-time IHSA state champion but by far her biggest accomplishment came her freshman year in 1977. She easily outdistanced the field  and won the two-mile race at state, setting what was then a national record with a time of 10:41.3.

    “To get a national record, from little Watseka, that was amazing to me,” said Barb Redeker, the Watseka girls track coach at the time. “I’ll never forget it, in the entire stands, everyone was standing up and clapping and cheering her to the finish line, watching that little girl win. It sent chills down my spine.”

    Redeker said that during her freshman year Maney was probably under five-foot tall and weighed about 90 pounds.

    What made the record even more impressive was that this was before Illinois switched to multiple class systems in track. As a freshman Maney was competing against the top runners from the biggest schools in the state.

    “She was the best runner I’ve ever coached,” said then-Watseka boys track and cross country coach Joe Suftin. “She could run forever and recover just like that.”

    Suftin first became aware of Maney when she was in upper grade school and he was conducting a running program for the city of Watseka in which anyone could come out and run and have training schedules created for them.

    “Patty came and you could tell she would be outstanding,” he said.

    “There was a junior program in the summer, that’s how I got started,” Maney said. “I continued to run track in high school.”

    She also ran cross country — boys cross country. During Maney’s freshman year Watseka didn’t have girls cross country so Maney was on the boys team.    “Most of the time she competed with boys just to make her better,” Redeker said.

    She competed in boys meets and did well but wasn’t allowed to participate in the IHSA Sectionals. She was the first girl to run in the Mattoon Cross Country Invitational and in her freshman and sophomore years won a post-season race in Downer’s Grove in which the top girls cross country runners in the state competed.

    “She ran better than she did the year before,” Suftin said.   

    In the spring of 1977 she also trained with the boys track team and worked with Suftin. Just by the times she was running Suftin felt that something special was achievable.

    “At the end of spring she looked pretty good and we made plans to win the state meet and set a record,” he said. “We talked about it at the time, that was the goal.”

    And she certainly achieved that goal.

    “I just had a natural ability for running,” Maney said.

    Maney ran with the boys cross country team during her sophomore year but went back to practice with the girls team for the track season. Circumstances, including some blister problems, kept her from winning any championship that year but nothing could stop her as an upperclassman. As a junior at the IHSA Class A State Track Meet she won the two-mile (11:17.3) and the mile (5:17.5) and as a senior won the 3200-meter run (11:16.7) and the 1600 (5:07.6).

    “She was the best long-distance runner I’ve ever been associated with,” Redeker said.

    While on the track team Maney also competed in other events, including sprints and various relays.

    “She did anything you would ask her to do,” Redeker said.

    Maney was a great runner but she had two other things she probably loved better: basketball — and accounting.

    “I really enjoyed basketball,” Maney said. Redeker started as her basketball coach and Watseka won regionals in 1978-80. “I love basketball. Even today it’s my passion. I’ve been a Lakers fan forever and I’ve coached my boys’ teams.”

    Maney would have liked to play basketball in college but unfortunately for her it didn’t work out.

    “I just happened to be really short,” she said.

    Maney did stick to running after she graduated from Watseka in 1980 and went to Illinois State University, where she ran cross country and indoor and outdoor track her first two years.

    The rest of the time the accounting major focused on her studies.

    Maney knew from a fairly early age accounting is what she wanted to do.

    “When looking back and thinking, I remember in third grade I wanted to be a CPA or an attorney and I wanted to work at Peat Marwick (a global accounting firm that is now KPMG),” she said, adding that her father was an accountant. “I was good with numbers and worksheets. I couldn’t wait to get to high school and take accounting classes.”

    After graduating college Maney interned at Peat Marwick, which had a strong women’s program, but ironically ended up working for one of its chief competitors — Price Waterhouse. She actually working for both firms in the end.

    “It was a great opportunity,” Maney said. “I had some great opportunities. I was quite blessed to be in that profession as a woman.”

    To start her accounting career she moved to Chicago, where she started in the audit program and specialized in financial services and real estate.

    In Chicago Maney met her husband John, a fellow CPA at the same firm. After three years in Chicago they moved to San Diego, which Maney maintains is the greatest city in the world. In 1989 they moved to Orange County.

    After a while Maney stopped working full time and started to develop her own financial service and over the years reduced the hours she worked and was more of a consultant dealing with merger acquisitions and regulatory advisory.

    “My husband and I each worked long hours, it got to the point we couldn’t both do it,” Maney said.

    That also gave her time to spend more time with her two sons, Justin and Jason.

    “Growing up we were a sports family,” she said, adding that her sons competed in basketball, football and pole vault in high school. “I coached them (in basketball) for five years, in middle school and as a volunteer at the YMCA.”

    The last 10 years Maney has done some volunteering and works on special projects.

    “I basically get to pick and choose,” she said.

    That also leaves some time for travel, though that is nothing new for the Maneys, as John works both in California and New York.

    “He loves his job but he travels a lot and works long hours,” Maney said.

    That actually came in handy, however, as Justin, 21, is just graduating from George Washington University in Washington and Jason, 19, is attending Loyola University in Chicago.

    “We are a very tight-knit family, we like to spend time together,” said Maney, saying that she and her husband would stop in and see them on their way to and from New York. “Every five or six weeks we’d see one of them.”

    And its no surprise what the two are going to school for.

    Justin earned his degree in finance and economics in three-and-a-half years and Jason is studying finances and international business.

    “He’s (Justin) worked in the New York financial district and hopes to find a job in New York or Chicago,” Maney said.

    Maney isn’t exactly sure what the future holds for her, either.

    “I’m not really sure,” she said when asked what her plans are. “Maybe take a break, see what unfolds, spend a lot of time traveling and catching up on projects and work on some job, like the bigger policies.”

    Now Maney does have a greater appreciation for her high school days, especially after raising her two sons.

    “It’s funny, you look back so long ago and now I have kids in college,” she said, looking back at her high school days and trying to remember various details. “As a parent you see more clearly, when you’re younger everything is just a blip in life. In high school it was year-round sports and accounting.”

    It’s only fitting that high school was somewhat of a blur to Maney, for that’s just what she was to the runners she competed against.