Thursday, North Decatur’s Tanner Derflinger raced to a first-place finish in the face of a driving rain at the boys’ sectional track meet at East Central.

“Tanner is determined,” Coach Denny Crowe said, “He’s so quick on his starts and uses his determination to hold off the other runners.”

And determination is what Derflinger always needs when he laces up the running shoes. There is a very high probability that he will be the only runner in the field with a titanium rod holding his right leg together.

He was injured when an opponent was blocked into him on the opening kick-off in the fourth game of the 2006 North football season. The Knightstown player fell into Derflinger breaking both the fibula and the tibia, the long bones that connect the ankle and knee.

When Tanner’s mother talked to the doctor, things seemed dire.

“When Tanner broke his leg I was terrified when I saw the X-rays,” reported his mother, Sara Hancock. “The break looked to be very severe, and I wondered if he would ever walk on it again”

The bones were crushed so badly that the orthopedic surgeons inserted the rod to stabilize the leg and give it structure around which it could heal.

“They definitely ruled out track and football this year,” Derflinger said.

He needed determination to make himself walk after the injury, particularly after four months in which he could not put weight on the leg. After a slightly belated Christmas gift in the form of being able to support himself on that leg, Derflinger began to walk and then jog. He worked hard at his rehabilitation using the Chargers’ exercise room.

“I was working out to get my strength back and drinking lots of milk to help it heal,” Derflinger said.

So determined was Derflinger to get into shape for the 2007 track season that he began running by the first of March, less than six months after his injury. When the call went out in March that year for athletes interested in running track, Derflinger responded.

He quickly proved what medical professionals said wouldn’t happen in 2008 did happen in 2007. The response wasn’t that of the fourth sprinter needed to fill out the 4X100-meter relay team, either. It was the response of one who runs the lead leg on the relay. He was also the squad’s leading sprinter in the 100-meter dash as well.

Derflinger gave a simple reason.

“I’m quicker out of the blocks then the other guys, so I run the lead lap,” he said.

When track season was over, Derflinger turned his attention to football.