WHERE ARE THEY NOW? TRAVIS GEOPFERT
PANORAMA HIGH SCHOOL: ALL-STATE TRACK, 1994-7
April 29, 2009
Former Panorama High School-prep Travis Geopfert is the quintessential Golden Boy.
The 1997 graduate was a three-sport athlete in high school, and was All-State caliber in each. Geopfert was All-State as running back for a two-time state qualifier in football. He was honorable-mention All-Atate his junior and senior year as center on the basketball team (and at six-foot-one and undersized center at that). Geopfert also reached legendary status as a track stud, becoming an All-Atate performer each of his four years at Panorama.
“My whole career I had great people around me the whole time,” Geopfert said. “My grandpa would take me to the Drake Relays as a kid, and my dad taking me out all the time is what really turned me into a track fan early in my life.”
Although Geopfert’s prep career was tremendous, it really is only the tip of the iceberg.
After re-writing the record books at Panorama, Geopfert decided to make Cedar Falls his home for a collegiate athletic career. Initially he went to Northern Iowa to play football and run track. When that didn’t pan out he decided track would be his focus, in retrospect it was probably a wise choice.
“At the time it wasn’t as easy to do both and it just came to a point where I had to choose one or the other, and I chose track.”
That decision allowed Geopfert to focus solely on track and enabled him to become a Missouri Valley champion, as well as an All-Conference performer and eventually an All-American in 2000.
And we’re still on the tip of the aforementioned iceberg.
After graduating with a General Studies degree in 2002, Geopfert went south to Central Missouri State to work on a master’s degree and to be an assistant track coach to Olympian Kip Janvrin, whose father coached him at Northern Iowa. He was in Missouri for one year before he was offered an assistant coach position at his alma-mater. He gladly accepted. It was at this point that his post collegiate career would really take off.
It was in 2004 when Geopfert seemingly was in his athletic prime. Not only did he compete in Sacramento as an Olympic Trials qualifier, but he also won his first Drake Relays championship.
“Kip Janverin, who was probably my main mentor at the time, and whose dad was my high school track coach, had won the Drake Relays decathlon nine years in a row, and it was in ‘04 that I beat him there and won my first Drake Relays title,” Geopfert said.
Between his own athletic achievements and his coaching successes, Geopfert has owned the decathlon event at the Drake Relays the past five years. He won the title in 2004, but was unfortunately hurt before the event in 2005. In 2006 he again won the event, and in 2007 he was runner-up to his own trainee Raven Cepeda.
“It was a passing of the torch a little bit. I was putting an emphasis on my coaching career at the time,” Geopfert said. “There’s a big difference between being a coach and an athlete. When you’re an athlete you need to be selfish and just focus on yourself. When you’re a coach you need to be selfless. And I was at that point in my career when I wanted to focus on my athletes and not myself.”
In 2008 Geopfert’s trainees finished one, two and three in the Drake Relays decathlon event. All of which finished ahead of their coach who admitted his age was beginning to become a factor. This past Drake Relays was the first one without Geopfert participating since 1994.
Nowadays Geopfert is strictly a coach. He’s recently become the head track and cross country coach at Northern Iowa after a five year stint as assistant coach.
“We have a national caliber program here,” Gepfert said. “We’re literally a top 20 program in the country you know; it’s a pretty good position here. Coaching is my career, that’s what I’m going to do. It’s just one of those things where I’m just focused on the process right now, of making our program as good as it can be.”
Just on the horizon looms another great accomplishment for this Golden Boy from Panorama High School. He has been asked to coach the U.S vs. Germany decathlon which will take place in Germany in August. It’s an event he participated in for four years from 2002-2006.
Currently 12 years removed from high school, it seems that Geopfert has hung his competitive spikes up for good. But according to him nothing is ever out of the question.
“We’ll see if I get ambitious again,” Geopfert said. “Right now I’m just so swamped with this head coaching position. But there is always a chance.”
TJ Rushing, High School Playbook
P.S.
Geopfert first competed in the Drake Relays as a freshman at Panorama in 1994… "I was scared to death, it was the year it snowed and I was a little freshman. I remember I took my sweats off too early and I was freezing my butt off.”
Geopfert has been married now for six years to a fellow Northern Iowa graduate…
His grandpa took him to his first Drake Relays in 1985; he has been to every one since, either as a participant or a coach, or both.
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List of achievements
2006 member of U.S. vs. Germany decathlon duel team (10^th )
2006 USATF Outdoor National Qualifier (6^th )
2006 Drake Relays Decathlon Champion
2005 member of U.S. vs. Germany decathlon duel team (7th)
2005 USATF Outdoor National Qualifier (8th )
2004 Drake Relays Decathlon Champion
2004 USATF Olympic Trials Qualifier (11th)
2004 USATF Indoor National Qualifier (10th)
2003 member of U.S. vs. Germany decathlon duel team (3rd
2003 Mid-Summer Games Decathlon Champion
2003 USATF Outdoor National Qualifier (decathlon 12^th
2003 runner-up finish in Drake Relays decathlon to Olympian Kip Janvrin
2001 USATF Indoor National Qualifier (heptathlon 11^th )
2000 Division I All-American Distance Medley Relay (400m leg)
2000 Indoor Distance Medley Relay MVC Conference Champion
1999 Indoor and Outdoor MVC all-conference 4x400
1999 Member of 4x100 MVC champion relay
1998 MVC conference decathlon champion
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