Track and Field has a smaller team than it has had in the past. There are only eight people on the Track and Field team for the middle school. That doesn’t seem like a lot, and it’s not. Our Track and Field team may be small, but it’s doing very well despite the number of athletes on the team.

The Track and Field team has not had very many meets this season. They have had one meet already at Avonworth on Thursday, April 15. They will hopefully have two more. One at Riverside and the other at Carlington. Most meets have not been scheduled or have just been canceled, due to the coronavirus pandemic. The team has done very well at all of the meets that they participated in so far.

The coaches for the track and field team are Mr. Tom Hickey, Mr. Jim Gregg, Ms. Debrah Evans, Mr. Chris Bennett, and Mr. Dave Badamo. 

This year’s track and field team did not have many athletes on it. Mr. Ryan Smith is working with John Rosa, athletic director,  to recruit more students for the track and field team for the future seasons. Fifth and sixth grade joining would be super cool, however, due to requirements, it would be very difficult to make that happen.

Track and Field is not just about running and sprinting, as some may think. It has long jump, High jump, and triple jump. Long jump where you run as fast as you can and jump into a rectangular pit filled with sand, and High jump where you run and jump over a bar with your back facing towards it. Triple jump is where you jump into the same or possibly different pit, depending on which school, and where competitors attempt to jump as far as possible by performing a hop, a step, and a jump from a running start. 

If you don’t want to sprint, but still want to be on the track and field team, there are other events that you can do. For example, there is shot put. Shot put is where you throw a ball, and it is six pounds for girls and eight pounds for boys. There is also javelin. Javelin is where you throw a spear with a lot of force and try to throw it as far as you can. The other thing that you can do is discus, discus is an event where you throw a 4.4-pound disc and attempt to throw it as far as you can.

Then there is always running and sprinting. In middle school, you can only do the 1600 m., which is the one mile, but in high school, you can do both the 1600 m and the 3200 m, which is two miles. There are also the relays, where you have a group of runners and you each run a lap. Then there are always the sprints. You have the 100m, the 200m, and the 400m. If you just want a middle distance you can always do the 1500m and the 800m. Then there are also the hurdles.