Hometown hero and SVSU star runner CarLee Stimpfel is now a pro runner for the Hansons-Brooks Professional Sports Team.
Pro racing is a different beast, according to Stimpfel. “Most of the top guys were in my wheelhouse junior and senior year… but now, [the] guys that were one and two in the nation for the past 10 years are the guys I’m racing now… Being in races with the fastest guys in American history — it’s pretty insane.”
Stimpfel was first introduced to running in his small hometown of Cass City, Michigan. When his older brother began running for the school, they could only gather five runners, the bare minimum to race. It was only after his team’s success that the program grew.
“Me, my brother, and my teammates were performing well, which encouraged others to join the sport,” Stimpfel mentioned. “We went from not really having a team to having a bunch of people who were interested.”
It wasn’t just Stimpfel’s team that was small: track and cross-country programs were sparse in the thumb, and competition was slim.
Alex Grifka was Stimpfel’s former SVSU teammate and high school rival.
“If it wasn’t for CarLee, I really wouldn’t have had anyone to race against, being from such a rural area,” Grifka stated. “He was definitely a hard worker … not your average kid. He always had bigger ambitions.”
Despite these challenges, Stimpfel was recruited by SVSU and began attending in 2018.
“Being from a town where there wasn’t a lot of people going off to college for sports … everybody was pretty excited,” Stimpfel said.
Stimpfel noted that he saw rapid improvement after coming to SVSU under the guidance of former coach Jason Hartmann and current coach Eric Phillips.
“It was awesome … you’re running times that you barely could have touched at a race in training … I went from someone who could run well in high school to someone who was competing against guys who would have whooped me five months earlier.”
Stimpfel’s time at SVSU culminated in several awards and All-American placements both in track and cross-country. Stimpfel’s own most memorable race was the Division Two national cross-country meet in 2021, held in Florida.
“The whole race had every aspect,” he stated. “It was a hard course, my body and my mind got to me … I fought off the bad thoughts and pushed.”
He ultimately climbed his way through the chase pack and placed third in the nation. After this race, the Hansons-Brooks team approached Stimpfel. Wanting to continue with his schooling, he held off on the offer and pursued graduate school, moving to MSU in 2023.
Stimpfel stated he enjoyed the opportunity to compete at the Division One collegiate level with MSU, but regrets that an injury kept him from performing his best. A bilateral sports hernia required surgery, and recovery took six months.
He stated, “[The injury] really dampened my ability to perform … but I’m very grateful for the opportunity to test my skills against the best in the nation.”
Stimpfel competed in several professional races since his debut in 2024, including the ten-mile Medtronic TC10 in Minnesota and the Pittsburg Half Marathon. He expressed that he’s looking forward to this year’s TC10 race in October.
