It’s been seven years since Wrangell had a spring sports offering for high school students. Baseball was canceled in 2015 due to a lack of participation, but now a proposed track program might be in the works.
At the Nov. 21 school board meeting, Mason Villarma, the district’s activities director, said a survey was in process to gauge student interest in a modified track program.
“It’s just so good for those kids to have some outlet, and you can see the benefit in the classroom,” Villarma told the board. “I would propose track because there seems to be a lot of student interest. It’s a cheap sport. There are a lot of meets in the region. Ketchikan and Sitka both have a track. Juneau has a track.”
Before being asked the obvious question, Villarma addressed the conundrum of having a track program without an actual track. The training for events such as the 400-meter dash to the 2-mile race don’t require a traditional oval track to run on.
“You can certainly train for it,” he said. “The college I went to didn’t have a track and we found other means of training. We competed pretty well. It’s certainly doable. It’s pretty cheap. Baseball is more expensive.”
Villarma said it could take runners a couple of races at meets to adjust to actual track surfaces, but he had no doubts they’d adapt quickly.
Board member Ester Ashton asked Villarma where he would anticipate training if there wasn’t a level track to run, to which he responded that much of the training mirrors that of cross country. Runners would take to the cart path at the golf course, the surface streets, Nemo or Pats Lake for training runs, Villarma said. He added the path at Pats Lake stays level in the middle of the road.
“In a perfect world, we’d have a million-dollar track sitting on the … ATV track above the elementary school. That’d be awesome. Maybe one day,” he said.
Because field events like the javelin, shotput and hurdles require equipment that could add up in cost, Villarma said it was easier to start with the shorter events.
Schools Superintendent Bill Burr confirmed that surveys were in process, but was concerned about runners training on uneven ground, leading to possible injuries.
“Track training, just the fundamentals of it, you’re doing a lot of hill repeats, you’re doing a lot of tempos and what we call fartleks (Swedish for ‘speed plays’) and a bunch of different training styles that really sum up the premiere-style track runner,” Villarma said. “The variation of surfaces is really common, we do it in cross country. We’re definitely doing it in a safe venue, making sure they’re not rolling their ankles and stuff.”
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