By Jorja Carroll, Olivia Bustos, Gabby Cave, Hailey Hutcheson 

With the Greenwood High School track and field season coming to an end, athletes reflect on their most memorable moments. 

Starting track at a young age helps an athlete get better. Track takes a lot of training and conditioning to be the best. Track is an all around competitive sport, so starting earlier gives an advantage to work harder and reach higher goals in the more time an athlete has to learn and train.

“I’ve been involved in track since fourth grade,” junior Melanie Le said. 

Track and Field is a diverse sport with plenty of events to choose from. Long distance, short distance, throwing and jumping events are a few options to choose from. The athletes cannot do it all, so they have to limit themselves to a maximum of four events.

“The events that I do are shot put and discus,” freshman Andie Jacks said. 

Getting better is something everyone strives to do in their sport. Setting goals to reach by the end of the season can help them work harder and be better. Goals are a good way to make someone want to be better and stay in the sport. Track having lots of events makes various sets of different types of goals. 

“My goal for this season is to PR in the 400-meter dash at 55 seconds and in the long jump at 19 ‘5 ft,” sophomore Davion Jones said.

Not every sport is all serious, especially when it comes to a large team. Friends make sports fun. 

“The funniest moment of track would be when we have pool practice before Spring Break. It’s just a lot of fun because we do swimming relays and jumps around in the water together, and it’s funny because we are struggling to not drown or swallow the water,” Le said.

Being a student-athlete is not always easy. Coming home from a long, hard practice, not many people dream about finishing their homework. Keeping up grades while also reaching for goals in the sport is not the simplest thing. They have to find a balance between staying on their school work and giving their best performances.

“For me, balancing school and track is not difficult. I get as much work done in class, and whatever I don’t finish, I make sure I get it done that night, or whenever I have the time, like after practice or before a meet,” senior Josh Carroll said.

For some people, balance does not come easily.  

“When it comes to balance, the only thing that gets hard to do is homework, but usually I get it all done during PowerHours and hope it’s due the next day,” Jacks said.