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Ah, c'mon guys. I love track too. But we all know it's just another conditioning venue for football. And baseball......it's for the ones that want to take a break from conditioning

This quote was made by a "supporter of all sports". He lives in the same town that created 3 pro football players; Jeff Hartings, Jim Lachey, and Bobby Hoyng. This comment was made on a very popular forum that is used as the news source and gossip collumn for our athletic conference.
Just a little information on where this guy is from and the mentality of the region.

Is this just Ohio or does there seem to be just a complete disregard for track and field? The idea that track serves as conditioning for football is a slap in the face of the serious track and field athletes. I used to play football, but when track came that was what i was focused on. If it was said that an athlete was only playing football to get stronger for track or wrestling. People would have a fit. Sorry about my ranting, but i don't see this kind of thinking as constructive to our sport.

I always tell my coaches track is the neglected younger sibling of every school. Its a bunch of crap

well, i run track as a serious sport, and play football in the fall just because theres nothing else to do (ill admit i do like football though). Allot of the other football players though run track just for conditioning, and some are good enough to contribute to the team, but just dont care about track as a sport, and dont show up to practice, meets, etc.. If all thsoe guys say, played baseball for conditiong (not that thers any conditionign involved in baseball), then people would get mad..

Track is one of the most looked down upon sports at my school. It's a total joke for most people, but I think it is starting to pick up wiht more seriousness

I hate it when people think that all people in track and field are runners. I'll say that I'm in track and field they automatically ask "Oh, what event do you run?" Uhhh.. no, I don't run an event. I pole-vault. Its like they completely forget that pole-vaulting and other field events are a part of track and field. Its kinda annoying

FlyinDaisy35 wrote:I hate it when people think that all people in track and field are runners. I'll say that I'm in track and field they automatically ask "Oh, what event do you run?" Uhhh.. no, I don't run an event. I pole-vault. Its like they completely forget that pole-vaulting and other field events are a part of track and field. Its kinda annoying

Same happens for me

I noticed something at my school.. we defintely are the least popular sport, on top of that, the school has little to do with us, we have no organization. Also, we don't even get the publicity that other sports do. Hell, even on the weekly newsletters that come out we don't even have our meets on there. But every other sport has their meets on it.... grrr.

It used to be a lot different.

Back in the 70's, at least at my school, track was considered a cool thing to do and we had all the best athletes out. The fact that we were a poor school and didn't have a lot of money to fund equipment for the equipment-intensive sports (like baseball) probably had something to do with it. That translated to a lot of competition to make varsity. A 6'4" high jumper, 22'6" long jumper and 12'6" vaulter didn't make varsity that year, as our top three in each event went 6'11 3/4", 6'10" and 6'6", 24'4", 24'2" and 23'6", and 13'9", 13'0" and 13'0".

The high jumpers jumped off of grass and our best dude was a straddler.

The guy that didn't make varsity in the high jump and long jump was none other than Dwayne Joseph, who went on to star at UCLA. One of our varsity vaulters was Nesbe Glasgow, who played defensive back in the NFL for something like 16 years. He went to the Pro Bowl with the Colts, I think. One of our sprinter/long jumpers was Kevin Cole, who was a high school all american running back. Too bad he was too stupid to get into a real D I school.

James Lofton edged out both of our long jumpers by an inch at the state meet and knocked us down from second to fourth.

The other crazy thing is that as deep as we were (we were also loaded with sprinters), Pasadena (CA) Muir High School probably would have kicked our butt in a dual meet. Same with Galveston Ball High School. That's how big high school track was back then.

In the 60's and 70's Track was taken very seriously in our area. Football players were almost required to participate because the football coaches were often the track coaches. That has changed somewhat now with all the new sports in the schools.

What I find fascinating now is guys who can run like a madman with all the football gear on don't come out for track&field. Why? Don't you think you can compete? This year and last, our "Fatman" relay team beat our regular guys. That should be embarrassment enough for anybody.

I can understand losing guys to soccer because it's a running sport, and baseball just because it's Baseball. But a lot of elitist H.S. football players should really consider spring sports, not just hanging out in the weight rooms till fall.

The high school I coach at has 300 students out for all spring sports. We have nearly a third of them in track 99 students. I think that is pretty awsome.

At my high school we would have 100+ on the boys team and the same for the girls team, But with our head coach being the distance coach, about 80+ will HAVE TO run distance.

I've never seen so many people line up for a mile. we would seriously have about 20-30 kids from each level competing in the mile or two mile.

My first year of coaching i had 4 kids that had to run thier distance workout then vault. Its kinda hard to vault after doing 1000m repeats and hill repeats....

With the pro-distance coach, nobody wanted to be the sprints coach, so we had no sprinters, Which lead our team to be full of at best, mediocre distance kids. very frustrating......

Track at our school...hasn't been looked at in years!! This is the first time that our girls track team has even won a meet in over 4 years! Our girls track team didn't even score over 50 points in over 10 years! Now, we're getting looked at because we have good coaches this year! Finally!

Jaimie
(Hopefully we'll have a pole vault pit next year, so I can actually practice, instead of just practicing at meets!)

at my high school, track and cross country are the most respected sports, because they have won consistently for years. cross country has won 23 state titles in 43 years and track has been a powerhouse as well. i hate seeing track get no respect. we are a distance centered shcool, but the other events are not helpless. it sucks when track is ignored, like at my college now. home meets have empty stands and that is sad.