Track Season

Join the Fun Rush
by Omar Arce

The spring sports season began last week. With it, begins the multifaceted, yet underestimated sport of track and field. Take it from a member of the team, Raiders should join track.

The thing that many people seek by joining Track and Field is to get in shape. Many football and basketball players join the team to gain speed. Whenever people encounter fast athletes in the field or on the court , it must be because these athletes are in track. The best example is the 4X100 team. These sprinters usually come every year to become faster and stronger and they achieve it. Developing endurance is also another reason to join track. As a freshman, I ran my fastest mile in seven minutes and forty seconds during physical education and I felt that I had left a part of me in that track. I joined track in Junior year and now I am trying to break the attainable ,yet elusive barrier of five minutes.

Another reason to join track is to improve grades. Yes, you heard right. Track and field teaches self reliance, discipline and the importance of will power. One of the many unique aspects of this sport is that progress can be easily measured every week at meets. It is only a matter of looking at the numbers. Throwing the shot put farther, jumping higher and longer, or running faster are products that are put into practice. The positive feedback obtained from training reinforces the value of discipline, self reliance and will power. Once the importance of these values has been established, then they can be applied to any part of life, in these case academics.

The most important reason to join Track and Field is to obtain a banner. It has been ages since the team has won a Metro Leagues championship. In order to win in this sport, numbers matter more than quality. It does not matter if the team has 70 average athletes because they can be turned into 70 great athletes instead of having 40 great athletes as in seasons past. The main reason why schools such as Castle Park and Sweetwater have dominated the sport is because they have a large number of athletes, so many that they can fill each event with three or more competitors in events like pole vaulting where not many are brave enough to compete. Thus the more the merrier.

As the great Cassius Clay once said:"If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make something out of you."