Running in the halls is both a bane and staple for winter track athletes, like Hamilton West’s Alisson Ordonez.
Nottingham’s Elizabeth Pope practices in the school’s hallway.
Steinert’s Dave Teether braves the cold.
Not since 2010, when Nottingham’s Stephanie Hicks won the 55-meter gold medal at the NSIAA Meet of Champions, have Hamilton Township schools been actively involved in winter track & field.
Due to budget cuts, winter track and middle school sports were dropped after the 2009-10 school year. Part of that will change this year, as relentless lobbying by the schools and coaches finally got track voted back in by the board of education.
What this means is that a great Nottingham outdoor program will maintain its greatness, an improving Hamilton West program can get even better and a Steinert program that has struggled in recent years could get a kick start to revitalize its teams.
And while track is often an individual sport, it took a team effort to get it back.
“This just kind of goes to show that you need to work together to get it done,” said Steinert coach Mike Giacobbe, a former Spartan distance runner. “Back in 2010 when all the cuts were made, the track coaches then went to meetings and were asking and begging to not cut it and it didn’t work. But we kept asking our athletic directors and bugging them and it went up to a vote and here it is. We got it back.”
And suddenly, track becomes more relevant again.
“It definitely hurts the perception of track being important in the township, when you look at all the other teams that had winter track and we didn’t,” Hamilton coach Gerry Van Slooten said. “Kids are excited knowing track is a priority again in the township. The numbers are good for the winter, so the kids are excited.”
The numbers are good across the board, as all three schools have at least a combined 60 athletes out for the boys and girls teams.
Needless to say, the coaches are thrilled as all three will have several less things to worry about once spring track starts.
The biggest drawback with losing winter track was not really winter track itself. It’s not like huge crowds venture out of their homes to go watch the meets.
Basically, the biggest problem was that the athletes had no momentum carrying them into spring track, which put the township competitors well behind the rest of the Colonial Valley Conference.
“Hopefully this will help us be prepared when the season starts, rather than the first month-and-a-half we’re just trying to catch up,” Van Slooten said. “It helps me to get their technique working in the winter so when spring comes around they’re ready.
“Also, you get the kids who you know are committed. A kid doing winter track comes to spring track and he’s ready to go as opposed to the chaos of spring if they’re all doing it for the first time all year. You have a core group of kids who are invested and other kids will be ready to feed off of that.”
Which is something all the other CVC schools benefitted from over the past three years.
“Every other school we run against has a winter track program,” Nottingham coach Melissa Foley said. “It was gone for three years, we’re going into the spring with kids that didn’t have technique work and weren’t competing for two-plus months when other kids were. Any kid would be at a disadvantage.”
Cynics will say Nottingham shouldn’t complain, because the boys’ team has not lost a dual meet in four years and won county and sectional championships in 2011. But Foley says it’s about more than that.
“I think this will make Nottingham’s program a lot better, but just as important is that individually it gives kids a lot of opportunity,” she said. “Kids are competing to better their individual standing. As a whole, Nottingham boys are extremely good, but individually it’s going to really allow these kids to up their game.
“You’re not just looking at a team as a whole. What about kids on the borderline of getting a scholarship? This is giving them an opportunity to get better, to do more individually and maybe get that scholarship.”
Foley had that in mind last winter when, through a lot of research, she got two Northstars to compete as individuals in the state meets. Jermaine Griffith (now at Rutgers) and Grace Dwyer both reached the Meet of Champions and Dwyer finished third in the 3200. More importantly, they were on par with their fellow standouts once spring started.
Were it not for Foley’s hard work to get them in those meets, those two would have been behind as well come spring. Plus, Griffith and Dwyer are special cases in that track is in their future beyond high school.
For the average performers, it’s hard to self-motivate in the winter.
“You take the distance runners,” Giacobbe said. “You go from cross country, where you’re in really good shape. You’ve been running since August, all of a sudden you have four months off where you don’t do anything. If I’m in that position as a student, it would be the same thing.
“These kids do amazing things now. They’re in national programs, academic societies. They work 25 hours a week. It’s amazing what they do. So if they’re doing that and there’s no winter track, they’re not going to push themselves to work out alone.”
It’s important to note that not everyone doing winter track will be there in the spring. Numerous competitors come out just to keep in shape for spring and fall sports, while others come out for something to do after being cut from another sport.
But for those who do participate in both seasons, winter offers more than just the chance to stay in shape.
“One other important thing is that winter track has events they don’t have in the spring,” Foley said. “In hurdle races, they only have five hurdles in the winter as opposed to 10. That gives hurdlers the opportunity to work on their speed. In a race with five hurdles, whoever’s getting to that first hurdle first is usually going to win the race, so a quick start becomes really important.
“The same in the 55 dash as opposed to the 100. You need to work on acceleration and get your speed up quickly. So this gives them a chance to work on very specific parts of the things they need to do.”
Each coach feels they have some participants who may get some attention this winter.
Van Slooten points to Austin Jenkins, Jeff Meckel, Sebastian Cwalina, Joe Misciascio and Christina Welsh.
“You look at a guy like Meckel,” the coach said. “Last year, he had a good cross country season, but didn’t get his personal best (time) in track until the end of the year. Now he’ll be in shape when the season starts.
“Jenkins and some other kids stayed in shape with swimming, but you’re not working the same muscles in the pool. You’re staying in shape but those leg muscles take a while to get ready.”
Giacobbe feels that sophomore Emma Meiczinger and senior Jill Murphy could be heard from.
“Emma was kind of one of those lost souls in spring track as a freshman,” he said. “She didn’t know what she wanted to do. She said ‘I think I’m a sprinter’ so we gave it a whirl. All of a sudden I said ‘I don’t think you’re a sprinter, let’s try distance,’ and she finished seventh overall in the CVC freshman/sophomore race in the mile. She had good cross country times, but had a foot injury that held her out of counties and sectionals.
“Jill Murphy will be running the 400. She had a fall season of playing soccer so she has that endurance in her. She will keep it up in the winter and hopefully that helps the spring times.”
Foley has a plethora of athletes she thinks will excel, including Alex Borzelin, Larry Velasquez, Reggie Phillips, Arthur Johnson and Ramsden Madeus for the boys, and Dwyer, Marissa Colon, Lily Witzel, Justin Echardt and Ky-Rae McRae for the girls.
Whether or not they excel in the winter isn’t the main point, however. While it’s always nice to win, this is more about setting the groundwork for April.
The teams have been practicing since the start of December. A light meet schedule will take place in January and February at Lavino Fieldhouse in Lawrenceville, where four and five teams may compete against each other in the same meet.
There will also be whatever invitational meets the schools can get into, along with the county and state meets.
“Our main goal is to get in shape for spring track, or whatever spring sport it is they’re doing,” Giacobbe said. “We will work together. We kind of want to show the other surrounding schools that Hamilton Township can be a track township.”
“This is awesome,” Van Slooten said. “The kids are so excited. They go to the weight room, they’re focused, excited and ready to go. The seniors look at me so much differently now. They appreciate it. They’re asking me ‘How come we didn’t have winter track before this?’”
The answers to that are long and complicated. What’s important is that track is back.