| New bleachers, same old track: No track (04/08) | | Print | |
| Written by Elena Chin | |
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Foresight is one of the basic virtues educational institutions strive to instill in students. So when these institutions fail to look into the future, students often feel let down and frustrated. That was the case for most of Lowell’s track and field runners as we watched shiny new bleachers erected where the old ones were, too close for a real full-sized track to be put in between them. Simply moving the bleachers back another 10 feet on each side would have left more than enough space.
Foresight is one of the basic virtues educational institutions strive to instill in students. So when these institutions fail to look into the future, students often feel let down and frustrated. That was the case for most of Lowell’s track and field runners as we watched shiny new bleachers erected where the old ones were, too close for a real full-sized track to be put in between them. Simply moving the bleachers back another 10 feet on each side would have left more than enough space. Realistically, of course, the school’s athletic department will not have ample funds to construct a rubberized, eight-lane, distance-accurate track over the current dirt oval any time soon. With the ongoing budget crisis, Lowell and all other public schools in California will barely have the funds to stay open. But constructing the bleachers where they are now meant that, even if the school weathers upcoming budget cuts and finds it feasible to build a track, it will also need funds to demolish and rebuild the bleachers a stones throw farther away on each side. Construction planners clearly did not consider such a possibility. The woeful shape of the current track is obvious even to those who know nothing about track and field as a sport. Any Physical Education student will tell you that the track is muddy after rains and dusty and hard during heat spells. Anyone with a measuring tape and plenty of time can figure out that four laps around the football field is not a mile unless you’re running in the middle of the current track. Though the school’s athletic facilities are by no means ideal, and though track runners do not suffer as much as some other sports teams, that does not excuse the lack of foresight on the part of the construction planners. A new track would benefit everyone. Nearly all of the sports teams and PE classes use the current one. A rubberized track would be usable after a hard rain, dust-free during heat spells and softer on runners’ knees all year round. These improvements would make running more accessible to the entire Lowell community — PE and Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps students, sports teams, cheer and song, faculty and, most of all, the track team, which commutes to Twin Peaks because School of the Arts’ track is the closest one available. As a member of the school district’s best track and field team I am constantly reminded of how the bleachers’ location negatively affects this program. The hope of having our own track is now completely out of the question, along with the possibility of hosting inter-city invitational and league meets. We will continue to commute, to cancel home workouts in rainy as well as dry weather and to suffer from knee problems. For a team that last lost to Eugene McAteer, a school that no longer exists, it is a shame that we do not have respectable facilities. We runners who did not speak out sooner apologize to future classes of track runners and ultimately all athletes and PE students, who now may have to indefinitely use that same muddy or dusty dirt “track.” Moving the bleachers back could ultimately have benefited the entire student body with little cost to anybody. |
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to listen.
