Will history be made at Pocahontas?
’Hawks proving ‘Good to Great’
The meet is already over, but at press time it was still to come.
The boys and girls competed at the 4A state championships in Pocahontas Tuesday. The ’Hawks had in place their greatest track and field squads the school has ever assembled in the history of the school.
I have greatly enjoyed watching the progress the teams have made since they opened the year with a bang at the state indoor meet at the University of Arkansas in February. Not only have they dominated the local competition, they have have turned in times and distances that have just plain been impressive.
Teams in sports like football or basketball may compile enviable records locally but until they have been tested by teams from other places, you really can’t always tell how good they are. Track, on the other hand, is on the clock. Marks that can be compared with other schools and even other eras.
The Blackhawk 4x400 relays lead the state (girls 4:15, boys 4:28) and those times are just flat out fast. The boys’ time is well ahead of last year’s winner and the girls is close to last year’s winner and with the wide victory they enjoyed at the district, they can probably go much faster if they need to. They won both events in the indoor championships.
A track fan since my first experience as a track athlete in the spring of 1966 as a Monett, Mo., Cub seventh-grader, I have seen so much change over the years.
My first experience was running on four track meets that were chalk lines on grassy fields. Landing pits for pole vault and high jump events were saw dust, which meant you ALWAYS landed on your feet.
The hurdles were homemade, made of rather heavy wood, which meant if you hit one, you came down hard. The track shoes were heavy leather with four spikes in them. The pole vaults were of unbending aluminum and some wooden ones.
By my freshman year, we got a new coach, Burl Fowler for whom the field was later named. He built a red dog track (clay and gravel) and we then had much better pits and other equipment. As a result, our record board was nearly wiped clean by my senior year. We did have a few records that were still intact from the 1920s (100 — 10.9, 200 — 22.8, and 110 hurdles — 14.2) that were set by guys who made the Olympic trials.
Our school had a rather sorry track team until Fowler’s advent. His enthusiasm, knowledge and leadership were all that was needed to create a winning culture that eventually spread to all the sports Monett had at the time.
Fowler believed that a solid track program would pay dividends on the football field the following fall, and that was the experience at Monett. The track team got better and so did the football team, culminating in a state football crown in 1971. Fowler also brought a wrestling program into play as well with that adding to the athleticism of the Friday night lights boys.
Besides the improved speed and agility that track and field has that can be carried over to other sports, there is also the intangibility of just the competition. Competing is a learned thing, and the more competitive an athlete is, the more successful he/she is going to become.
The Blackhawk motto “Good to Great” seems to be firmly entrenched here on the Ridge.