The comparisons between Carson Krack and a certain predecessor in the Whitefish High School track and field program are easy to see.

The Bulldog coaches certainly saw them. So as Krack started to rise up the event lists during the 2023 season, Matt Beckwith hung the moniker “WalMart Walburn,” on the junior. 

All he did last spring was score 16 of the Bulldogs’ 22 points at the State A meet. Lee Walburn, the 2019 Whitefish graduate turned Washington State decathlete, scored 21.5 of his squad’s 34 points at state his senior season. It fit.

Then came 2024, and Krack — now a 6-foot-4, 180-pound senior — started winning a 200 meters race here, and a 110-meter hurdles there, and piling up victories in two out of the three jumps while breaking 40 seconds in the 300 hurdles.

“This year, once he started out-performing some of Lee’s marks, I told him, ‘You have graduated from that name,’ ” Bulldog boys coach Willie Roche said. “ ‘You are Carson Krack. You are the dude.’ ”

Krack also is, obviously, aware of the comparisons to Walburn. 

“I’ve met him once or twice,” he said this week. “I don’t know him super well. But he’s a person I hope to be like.”

So far, so great. Krack set a goal to qualify for state in 10 events this season, and then he made it happen. His weakest event is the 100 meters, but his time of 11.40 seconds — which ranks 12th in Class A — still meets the qualifying criteria.

In the 200 and 400 he ranks fifth in A; in everything else, from the relays to the hurdles to all three jumps, he’s in the top three.

This from an athlete who didn’t come out for track until his sophomore year, and didn’t run a hurdles race until last spring.

“My first was the 300 hurdles,” he said. “I was pretty slow (48.68). It takes it out of you pretty quickly, but it’s a fun race.

“My brother (Bowdrie) and I both did the hurdles last year, and that was fun.”

By the end he was breaking the tape in 40.97, good for second at the State A meet. 

Krack spent the winter working out with the Stumptown Track Club as well as playing basketball for the Bulldogs, and it became clear to him track and field was a goal for college. 

“I was thinking some about football,” he said. “But realistically my marks were going to be better in track. And I like track more. Though I will miss football.”

He sent letters out to several colleges, including Washington State, Montana and Montana State. Carroll College, where Walburn began his collegiate career, wasted no time. 

“I filled out a questionnaire for them in early January,” Krack said in his no-nonsense way. “They got back to me pretty quick. I made a visit, they gave me a scholarship offer and I took it.”

Veteran Saints coach Harry Clark landed another Bulldog multi-eventer, one that — like Walburn, who currently sits No. 12 in the NCAA decathlon rankings — did not compete in any throws or vault in high school.

“Harry’s going to teach me, though,” Krack said of the pole vault. “I’m excited.”

“The comparisons to Lee are crazy,” Roche, now in his fourth year as head boys coach and ninth at his alma mater, said. He remembers thinking Walburn was an 800 runner when he first showed up at the track; then by junior year he was powered up, a leaper and dunker. 

Same with Krack. 

“But one of the differences between Lee and Carson is that Carson has qualified in 10 events,” Roche said. “Lee was a stud, don’t get me wrong. But I’ve never seen a kid qualify in 10 events.”

His long jump of 22 feet, 7 inches at the Kalispell Time Trials broke the school record held by Joel Rosenberg since 1998. Rosenberg was at Legends Stadium to witness it.

It’s been a steady climb, and continues Thursday with Whitefish’s Last Chance Meet, and Saturday with the Polson ABC. Then comes divisionals, and on May 23-25 the State A in Laurel. The Bulldogs, led by Krack, seem primed.

“It’s similar to the 2021 year where it’s like, we knew what we were capable of and we didn’t really do it until the state meet,” Roche said (Whitefish was third that year). “I think we have more weapons now, but the competition has gotten so much better. Everybody has ramped up..”

That includes Krack, making his own name and endorsing others.

“Simon Douglas has come on really nicely in the distances,” he noted of his junior teammate. “I think we’re going to do well. We were really hoping to place this year, and I think we have a good chance at it.”

    Whitefish's Carson Krack competes in the boys high jump at the Archie Roe Invitational at Legends Stadium on Saturday, May 4. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider