FREDERICKTOWN – Fredericktown senior Titus Krabill already has a pretty good idea what he wants to do with his future.
He already owns his own business.
Surrounded by friends and family, Krabill finalized a decision he's almost halfway through executing. He's going to pursue his academic future at Malone University.
Oh, yes ... he'll run cross country and track there as well.
"I'll graduate from high school with my associate degree in business," the owner of Krabill's Kubes said. "So I'm going to go to Malone for two years to get my degree in business management. My goal is to someday own some type of business. I'm not sure what type of business or what field I want to get into. But, yeah, I think that'd be cool."
Choosing a college in normal circumstances is difficult in and of itself. But navigating through that process during a pandemic added extra challenges.
He could run where his mother ran at Cedarville University. He could stay close to home and run at Mount Vernon Nazarene University. But ultimately, the decision to go to Malone had as much to do with a family atmosphere as anything else.
"It was definitely hard," Krabill said. "I really liked the Naz because they were close, and I liked the atmosphere there as well. But I ended up with Malone because I liked being further away — just for a little bit."
There's coach emeritus Jack Hazen, who has spent 54 years running the Malone running program (cross country, that is). And there's David Gramlich, who is the cross country distance coach — a Malone alum himself.
"I really liked the atmosphere at Malone," Krabill said. "It's a good, Christian atmosphere, which I enjoyed. That's what I wanted in a college and that's what they have. I also liked their coaching staff. They have an older gentleman, which is sort of like the grandpa. Then, there's a middle-aged guy that's sort of like the dad of the team. Then, there's a college-age kid (and) he also helps coach too. I liked having different age (groups) helping coach. I thought that was cool."
It's been a long road to get to this point for Krabill, who finished 56th out of 183 runners with a time of 16 minutes, 52.5 seconds at the Division III state meet last fall, which was won by teammate Thomas Caputo (15:31.5).
"Freshman year, I had an avulsion fracture in my hip and that set me back a year," Krabill said. "It wasn't until senior year until I really got back into it."
"It really took him almost a year to recover from that," Fredericktown cross country coach Bob Geiger said. "His junior year, he started to figure some things out; but this year, it was just a whole different level.
"Two years ago, I don't think he wanted to run in college because he didn't think he was fast enough. Now he is, so I'm proud of him."
After the injury, running in college didn't seem like a possibility.
"It definitely discouraged me at first," he said. "If you would have asked me a year (ago) if I was even going to college, I would have said no. But it's really changed in the past year to going to college, and then deciding if I'm going to go to college, why not run in college — especially if they're going to give me money too."
