When Polk County’s seniors graduate, a huge portion of the school’s athletics record book is going to walk across the stage with three seniors.
Bailey Staton, Gunnar Alm and Zalen McCraw possess more than 40 school records in basketball, wrestling and baseball. Staton has nine career records, four season records and three game records, including the marks for career points, 3-pointers made and assists as well as the single-game record for points. Alm’s career marks encompass runs, hits, batting average, on-base percentage and every single power-hitting metric along with walks, hit-by-pitches and total bases, just to name a few. McCraw is the school’s all-time winningest wrestler over a career and a season, and an individual state champion on top of that.
And none of them want to talk about their accomplishments. They’ll tell you about them, if you press them nicely, but they’d rather tell you about the work that it took to get there, the future of the programs, the unsung folks behind the scenes.
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They don’t want to tell you that they’re successful. They want to tell you why.
“It’s About The Work”
Staton doesn’t think back on the hundreds of shots that went in. Instead, she thinks about the thousands that went up in dark and empty gyms as she perfected her game.
“I think my career was just a bunch of hard work,” she said. “Looking back on it, those records are really cool, but I think more about the late nights of me just grinding and grinding and grinding.”
That obviously made her better. It also cost her some high school experiences. And while she’s proud of her long list of accolades, she’s just as proud of those sacrifices.
“It’s work that I wanted to do, because I love the game,” she said. “But those are times I’d go to the gym instead of going out with my friends, or missing out on other stuff because of basketball. And looking back on those records now, I see that work. And at the end of the day, I think about the work and what I’ve done to be prepared more than about my name on anything.”
Her name’s on plenty, including the 2025 conference championship roster. Sharing that with her teammates means as much as anything else, Staton said.
“Oh, that’s a great feeling,” she said. “Just knowing when I’m older and I have my own family I can look at that 2025 team and have so many memories from them. From us. Knowing I was a part of that, that I helped to lead Polk to some of the best years ever, is something that’s very special that’s going to stick with me forever.”
Another thing she’ll treasure is her relationship with Wolverines coach Brandy Alm.
“She always knew the work that I put in, and she always trusted me,” Staton said. “She’d sometimes tell me that we loved basketball on a different level than everybody else. She’d help me understand that not everybody’s going to have the same mind as me, that I had to talk to them in different ways so they could react to me and so I didn’t come across in a bad way. She helped me understand that, and understand how to interact with my teammates in a better way.”
All of that helped push Staton to incredible heights, with no regrets.
“I might regret taking a couple of threes instead of driving a little bit more,” she said with a laugh. “But it was great. It’s stuff I’m going to remember for the rest of my life. And I’m going to miss it a lot.”
“I feel like I’m leaving a starting point”
McCraw capped his senior season with a state championship, rallying from two points down with 33 seconds left in the third period to win with a pinfall. But his career mark, obviously, began long before that. Having his name on the plaque outside the Wolverines’ wrestling room is something that he doesn’t plan to take for granted for a single second.
“It shows that hard work and dedication pays off,” he said. “Those records before me had been there for 20 years. It feels good to show that all my practice in the wrestling room and on the mat translates into dominating and setting new records.”
While Staton and Alm had a lot of their success helped in part by their teammates, McCraw is a little different. But so is wrestling. In the team aspect of the sport, you can count on the people around you for some points. But when your weight class is called, it’s you and the wrestler on the other side of the mat.
“That’s what it comes down to,” McCraw said. “It’s you against your opponent. Just go out there and do your job. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done before, because every match is a different match. You go out there and they blow the whistle and it happens. You give it your all, win or lose.”
A huge part of that, though, does depend on the guys who helped make McCraw better every day.
“When we step in that room, we’re not friends,” he said. “We’re trying to make each other better, and trying to grind. We see those names on that sign on the outside. You’re trying to live up to those names and still do your own thing and make history.”
Mission accomplished, in a big way. But McCraw doesn’t think of his career as a capstone. He sees it as a foundation. He’s expecting more little gold plaques to join his in the immediate future.
“I think when I come back here in five years, there are going to be a lot more names on that wall,” he said. “Wrestling’s just growing here, with the club and middle school doing really well. Even some of the underclassmen wrestling now, they’re going to be really good.”
Some of that is talent, some of it is commitment, and some of it is watching McCraw work, day in and day out. He’s a guy who leaves that kind of mark on a program.
“I feel like I’m leaving it better than I found it,” he said. “But mostly I feel like I’m leaving a starting point. I really feel like I’m going to be the first of many after. Wrestling’s just going to keep getting bigger and bigger around Polk County.”
“That’s more important than anything”
All of the career marks, naturally, took a long time to accomplish. But Alm’s seemed to take longer than the others because of the nature of the game he plays.
As the baseball season stretched deep into spring, Alm continued to demolish record after record. And the Wolverines demolished expectations, earning a conference crown and playing into the third round of the state playoffs.
Alm, a coaches’ kid who’s been around Polk County athletics for as long as he can remember, said the journey’s been special.
“You know, when my dad first got here, they struggled the year before, and they struggled that first year,” he said. “Then the boys started getting in the weight room and using the resources they were given and they started pumping out winning season. In previous years, we’ve struggled. But our base core of seniors stepped up and put in the work and we won a conference championship.
“It’s about using the resources we’ve got and just working. Just following your process and living with the results. It’s going to be a roller coaster. Baseball has ups and downs. It’s just doing the work you need to do.”
Alm has long seen first-hand the work that goes into athletics at Polk County. That’s a big reason he played basketball through his junior season.
“My parents have been coaching here a long time, and a lot of what I’ve tried to do is because you have so much respect for these other coaches and what they do,” he said. “I’ve played basketball as long as I’ve played baseball. And everybody cares so much about sports here, you want to play. It’s about having pride in your school and going out there and wanting to win. Playing multiple sports is a great thing, and I don’t regret it at all.”
Alm’s work has paid off with a scholarship to North Carolina State. It could result in a lofty draft pick. Both of those possibilities have helped not only Alm, but his teammates.
“You love when the pro guys and recruiters are out here and they’re not just watching me, they’re watching the other guys play,” he said. “Even if they’re not being scouted, those guys can call a college and get somebody a spot. It’s good for all of us.”
That attention, and the spotlight, is something Alm to which has tried to grow accustomed.
“To be honest, the joy of baseball is just something that I’ve always loved,” he said. “Sometimes I don’t really love the spotlight. I’d just rather go out there and play. But at the same time I’m grateful for it. That gets more eyes on us, more eyes on our team.
“It’s something that kind of comes with the territory, and something I’m trying to learn to be better at. At times when you’re struggling you don’t love it, but it’s a positive thing and you’ve got to learn to like it.”
It’s a common theme, one that Staton and McCraw have already emphasized, but Alm said it all comes back to working hard.
“Everything we’ve been able to accomplish shows the amount of work we’ve put in as a team,” he said. “All the time the coaches have spent out here with us not getting paid much, just because they love it. The resources we have out here, this big building, the hack machines so we can stay out here and hit and hit and hit. I’m just so grateful for all the stuff we have here that we’ve accrued over the past 5-8 years.”
One of those things they’ve picked up is the result of that work: a conference title.
“When I come back, that’s what I’m going to care about the most,” he said. “That’s more important than anything. And I’d like to say that baseball is in better shape. Three or four of us have been varsity starters since ninth grade. We struggled and struggled and struggled, and we finally broke through this year. We’ve had some success. But I do think we’re leaving the program better than we found it, and that’s all you can ask for. These guys in the dugout next year can kind of follow those footsteps.”
So, what does it take? Hours in an empty gym, just you and a basketball. Standing across the mat and committing to get just a little better than you were when you walked in the room. Swing after swing after swing and the willingness to embrace a sport’s rollercoaster nature.
Work. And the chance to put that work in at a place where it’s rewarded.
Alm didn’t hesitate when asked what Polk County sports means to him.
“It’s been the biggest blessing you could ever have growing up at a place like this and seeing what hard work does.”
