As track and field’s chance to compete returns, value it

Track and field meets have a peace and a pace all their own.

All of it — yes, even those nine-hour marathons starting bright and early on a Saturday morning — has been sorely missed.

The first full invitational Saturday in nearly two years — most NewsHerald coverage area squads did not compete March 27 as the season officially commenced — will be upon us April 3.

When it’s here, let us not forget where we have been, nor what we have lost.

In turn, every effort must be made to ensure these precious moments are embraced and valued like never before. Every workout. Every heat.

Every attempt. Every drive phase. Every turn attack. Every lap. Because in a sense, two seasons are transpiring this spring — the one in front of us, as well as trying to recoup in some form the one that never began.

Last outdoor season being canceled entirely due to the novel coronavirus pandemic left several rough realities in its wake in an athletic sense, obviously far down the priority list when compared to the life and death impact the pandemic has had on our world.

One reality that needs to be noted first and once more before turning the page are the graduated seniors from the Class of 2020, particularly those who qualified for state as juniors and never got that final additional shot at glory. Yes, life goes on, and it already has.

But that void should nonetheless hurt all of us.

That group was composed among News-Herald coverage area ranks of 33 student-athletes.

No matter what they fell in the hierarchy, contending for a state title or not, let us recognize them one final time:

Brush’s Taron Austin. Mayfield’s Ben Sherlock and Marco Tramontano. Mentor’s Nick Kozlowski and Andrew Kobasko. University’s Justin Iler. Beachwood’s Langston Gaines-Smith, J’khai James, Maddie Alexander and Ashley Perryman. Hawken’s Mikhail Stiffler. NDCL’s Harmond Richardson, Jacob Gerhardt and Emma Liberatore. Gilmour’s Craig Wilson, Nathan Reichard, Leilani Zeller, Sophia Giancola, Jorja Hlifka and Madison Olsen. VASJ’s Cameron Williams and Antonio Bryant. Euclid’s Kristan Ross and Cyncere Cunningham. Geneva’s Elizabeth Joy and Tayler Jamison. Kenston’s Elyse Myles. Riverside’s Sydney Logar. South’s Katherine Mendenhall. Beaumont’s Mia Mlynek. Chagrin

Falls’ Hannah Clark. Lake Catholic’s Elaine Szep. West Geauga’s Abigail Drayer.

Granted, it took a minute to rattle through all those names. But they deserve to be mentioned again.

Perryman and Alexander were hoping to lead one more Division II state team title charge for the Bison, and both would have been state title contenders in individual events — Perryman in sprints and long jump and Alexander in high jump.

Iler had a golden opportunity at vying for a D-I state crown in 3,200.

Kozlowski had such a decorated career for the Cardinals and merited a shot at adding to it. Ross will go down as one of the five best girls 400 runners ever from Euclid — and that’s saying something when that list is headlined by Jessica Beard.

Sherlock came all the way back from a gruesome broken femur suffered in 2018 to become a D-I state long jump qualifier as a junior.

Joy and Jamison really could have done some damage, individually and on Geneva’s highly regarded relays, with the Eagles heading down to D-II.

Mendenhall is the only South girls high jumper in school history to make it to state, and a third trip was there to be had.

Liberatore already had the most individual event state berths for an NDCL girls track and field athlete with four and likely would have amassed more.

Mlynek is one of the premier milers from a Blue Streaks’ program renowned for its distance prowess.

All told, all of these 33 student-athletes had a journey that should have been full but through no fault of their own was not.

But even for those who do get to return, something is assuredly missing.

With the exception of course of this year’s freshmen, every track and field athlete who is a sophomore, junior or senior gets 75% of a high school career. That 25% lost to a missed season isn’t coming back.

Among that group, there are so many narratives of athletes who held out hope and improvised to the very end until all hope was lost for a 2020 season.

Mentor’s Tori Lanese, for example, refining her high jump technique by doing attempts onto her bed.

Distance runners getting out on park trails to log miles. Sprinters using homemade methods to keep up on power workouts without access to proper training. Hurdlers finding loose hurdles wherever they could and working on their form without a coach. The 400 runners who would approximately measure off part of their neighborhood street to mimic the event as best they could.

And then you think of what happened to, say, pole vaulters who basically couldn’t do anything.

Those reasons, in name and in situational reality, are exactly why every Friday and Saturday at an invitational in 2021, and weekday duals and tris as well, should feel inherently different this year.

Because not only are you doing it for yourself, remembering the lost development, performance and general high school experience for an entire season.

You’re doing it for the people who didn’t have any more opportunities remaining and now have to watch from afar as you get yours. This is for them, too. This will be my 20th year covering high school track and field for The News-Herald.

My first invitational of the spring is likely to be Harvey’s Red Raider Relays on April 3. As a Harvey alumnus, for me there is no better place to return and chronicle a sport I love than to do so back home.

Those moments after walking into Jack Britt Memorial Stadium and onto the football field to put my computer bag down at the scorer’s tent will feel a lot different this time, though.

Seeing athletes getting in a light run on the track, saying hello to area coaches, field-event athletes warming up and that general serenity of a spring morning back at the track — it will admittedly be emotional.

It’ll probably be worth it for all of us just taking a moment from time to time this spring, pausing for a deep breath and remembering why what’s transpiring around us resonates so deeply.

Yes, it’s because we’re back.

But it’s also because of where we have been and what we lost along the way.

For once, the peace and a pace of a track and field meet cannot move more deliberately, so we can acknowledge the journey we’ve undertaken and the one we will forge in the weeks and months to come.