Amiayah Ballard & Ava Ryan

There are a lot of sports that only focus on one certain activity, but track and field is the one sport that has many different options for the kids.

They are all trying their best to get the farthest throw or the fastest time. They work their hardest and sometimes injure themselves.

“My farthest throw in the disc was 111 feet and 3 inches. And my farthest in shotput was done at a practice, and it was 28 feet and 5 inches,” sophomore Mya Gardener said. 

With every sport comes the possible chance of injuring themselves.

“I’ve never got seriously injured to the point where I couldn’t compete or I had to take months off. But, of course, my shoulders get sore and tired and mentally exhausted, but usually it’s fine by the end,” sophomore Gardner said. 

Track and Field is probably the one sport that could have open spots for any new or  returning athlete. 

“So far, I got injured. That wasn’t great, but now that I am not injured, it’s really great to be running again with the team. And we haven’t had any outdoor meets because of rain, but I am looking forward to when we do have our first meet,” freshman Kendall Adams said. 

Every one of the kids that go out every day and work their bodies to the core do it for a certain reason.

“I think the best part of being a runner is just the community as a whole. Track and field has so many different people and different options. There’s throwing, jumping, pole vaulting, running. I really like distance. I like the people and the events,” freshman Kendall said. 

The most important thing in the part of having a sport is having a good encouraging coach that wants what is  best for the students. 

“So counting the years that I taught at the middle school and helped out over there, this is 19. I was an assistant here at the high school for six years and then the head coach of the girls team for 12 and the boys team for 10,”Mr Blaine Williams, track coach, said. 

It’s good for the coaches to have expectations and goals for all the members but also not to push them too hard. 

“We had a really good season last year. We got a lot of people to the State meet so I think our expectations kind of start there. We want to get the same people we got to the State meet last year plus a couple more people I would love to see go because that is always the goal to get more people advancing to the State as we can. I love to see it when school records get broken. We broke a ton of records last year so would love to see more of those fall,” Mr. Williams said.