His competitive running days are done, but not too long ago Willard’s Jason Pyrah was a household name in the distance running community; highlighted by a pair of Olympic appearances (1996 and 2000).
Today, Pyrah is the Sports Medicine Coordinator at CoxHealth and regularly gives back to younger runners by serving as a MSHSAA race official. The last couple years Pyrah has an added interest in prep running as his oldest daughter Sydney, a sophomore at Willard, establishes herself as one of the top distance runners in Southwest Missouri.
As you can imagine, having an Olympian for a dad brings with it a certain level of expectations.
“The history of dad, I don’t want that to be something that she feels like she has pressure on her,” said Jason. “I never really feel like I’ve done that to her and I hope that she doesn’t feel that way.”
That “pressure” literally starts with her name, inspired by Jason’s 10th place finish in the 1500 meter run in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
“My parents both loved the name of Sydney, Australia so they decided they wanted a girl named Sydney.”
Sydney was born a year later and she took up the family business at a young age.
“I remember looking up to my parents and looking up to my dad and telling my friends that my dad was in the Olympics,” said Sydney.  “I wanted to run like them.”
It turns out Jason and Sydney aren’t the only runners in the family. In fact, Jason’s wife and Sydney’s mom Angie owns more track records at Willard than her hall of fame husband.
“I got a couple records at Willard, maybe one or two more than my hubby,” said Angie with a grin, who ran sprints at Missouri Southern in the early 2000’s. “We’re a little competitive in our family. We know how many records are up on the board and Sydney will probably trump both of us.”
Secretly (or maybe not so secretly) Jason is hoping his daughter will take a couple of mom’s records, so he moves to the top of the family list, but ultimately he just wants the best for Sydney.
“As a parent you want your kid to achieve goals and you want them to set their sights on things like that,” said Jason. “That’s always what I did in high school. You always have this mindset of why not, instead of having people tell you that you can’t do that, you say why not?”
Sydney may not be on the level of her dad, whose 400 meter record of 4:03.54 still stands as the Missouri high school record 30 years later, but she continues to improve, finishing 98th at last year’s Class 4 cross-country meet, winning this year’s COC Large race and on Saturday qualifying for the Class 4 sectionals.
“I can hope for the best, just push myself to the best that I can and if the opportunity comes I’ll take it,” said Sydney.
“You never know who the next Courtney Frerichs is or the next Jason Pyrah may be because you see kids like Ryan Riddle (Webb City) out here running fast and kids like Sydney that you never know to what degree they might accomplish great things.”
