Outside T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va. on a sunny Tuesday afternoon in mid-April, groups of high schoolers meander through gym class, playing a soccer game, listening to a teacher talk about golf swings or listlessly walking around the cinder track. Once in a while, a student in the golf group glances over to the back corner of the complex. Four members of the Georgetown track and field team are working out at the jumping pits, oblivious to the gym classes, while Assistant Coach Hank Bradley rakes the pits.
“It looks like torture, but it’s not torture,” said Bradley, raking until the hard, beige sand becomes soft and brown.
Every Tuesday and Thursday this year, weather permitting, Bradley’s long jumpers and triple jumpers practice outside at T.C. Williams. The group is not alone. Most of the track team’s runners work out across the street from T.C. Williams at Episcopal High School; the vaulters go to the PG Center in Prince George’s County, Md.; another small group practices at American University.
There is no place at Georgetown for them to practice.
“You’ve got to be creative,” said Bradley. “If nothing else, we’re very creative.”
While the basketball and baseball teams’ lack of adequate on-campus facilities receives more press, arguably no one at Georgetown has been as negatively impacted by the absence of a facility on campus as the men’s and women’s track and field program. Since 1974, now-Director of Athletics Joseph Lang’s first year as Director of Track and Field, the Hoyas have produced 126 All-Americans in cross country, indoor and outdoor track. Even taking into account track’s unique status as a three-season sport, the team has averaged more than four new All-Americans each year, with many achieving multiple honors.
Yates Field House is now being renovated to repair damage caused by having two surfaces on the roof, the Astroturf on Kehoe Field and the rubber from the track, and the team has been forced entirely off the campus. Since there is little training space in the D.C. area, each Tuesday and Thursday, the team makes the 30-minute trek, via athletic department vans and a bus, to Alexandria for two hours of workouts until the high school teams need to practice and classes beckon the Hoyas back to campus. The only opportunity for the team to train on collegiate facilities is at weekend meets. Track teams need facilities to practice. Athletes in most events can’t run just anywhere. You can’t practice sprinting without starting blocks on a track, can’t jump without a sand pit and can’t throw a shot put without having a place for it to land.
“It’s kind of hard to have a basketball team without a basketball,” said five-time All-American jumper Raymond Humphrey, (COL ‘87, LAW ‘94). “But we have a track and field team without a track and a field.”
This entire situation has placed an undeniable strain on the athletes, the coaches and the program. While the Hoyas have performed well this season, without a quick solution, one of Georgetown’s most storied athletic programs could face irreparable damage.
This season marks the third time since the groundbreaking of Yates Field House in the late 1970s that the team has had no place on campus to practice; Yates was built on the site of the old track. Lang, the coach when Yates was being built, moved his practices to Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, Va. for approximately three years.
“We would leave here, drive across the river and they’d jog up to the track at Washington-Lee and we’d meet them there,” said Lang. “We’d get in a workout, put them back in the vans, drive part of the way, drop them off and they’d jog back. We’d be sitting in traffic and they’d pass us on the Key Bridge on their way to the cafeteria.”
Georgetown built a track on the roof of Yates, despite warnings from the building’s architect that in the long term, having two different kinds of surfaces on the roof would result in major drainage problems for the field house. The track held up until the mid-1980s, when water damage took its toll and made the surface unusable. The University ripped up the track and legendary Director of Track and Field Frank Gagliano, who replaced Lang, arranged a deal to allow the team to practice at Episcopal.
Humphrey was at Georgetown during that time. He had the use of a track his first-year at Georgetown, but lost it in the middle of his sophomore year.
“It was very stressful,” he said. “The biggest problem was having to commute to another facility. It was very mentally and physically challenging.”
Problems with contractors dragged out the renovation process, and despite the efforts of Humphrey and his teammates, many of whom stayed a summer to help lay the track, Humphrey was not able to practice on campus either his junior and senior years.
Eventually the track was completed, and for a time the situation was under control. In the mid-1990s, more problems began to creep up, this time not only with Yates, but also with on-campus space. North Kehoe Field, which currently accommodates the soccer and lacrosse teams, was converted from a throwing facility for the javelin, hammer and discus into a practice area for other sports and an intramural area. Within the last five years, the Yates issue again came to the forefront. Heat and water bubbles began to appear under the track. Leaks sprang in the Yates roof.
Two years ago, the University again tore up some of the track, leaving only a 300-meter horseshoe. Around this time, the team began going off campus to train, sending some runners to American. Finally this summer, the University removed the entire track. According to Lang, there are no plans to put a track up on Yates ever again.
“The problem is that we have this field house, which is critical to the quality of life on this campus so we have to deal with that,” he said. “It affects faculty, students and staff dramatically as well as our ability to have intramurals, our ability to have recreation during the wintertime. We ultimately had to accept the fact that it wasn’t good to have two different kids of surface up there.”
Ron Helmer has been coaching at Georgetown for 17 years. In 1999, he was promoted to Director of Track and Field. Undoubtedly, this has been his most difficult year at Georgetown.
“I haven’t had a team meeting this semester,” he said. “It’s impossible for me to get everybody on the team and the coaches in the room at the same time.”
The large amount of time the coaches spend off campus creates both hectic schedules and zero flexibility. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Associate Head Coach Andrew Valmon leaves campus for Alexandria at 11:50, returns around 3:00, then leaves again right away with a small group bound for American. He often does not get back to Georgetown until 6:30. Being gone for the heart of the afternoon limits the time the coaches can spend with athletes and administration.
“We’ve still got deans we need to communicate with, professors we need to communicate with, and they’re not here at 6:30 at night,” said Helmer. “When I’m back on campus I’m doing so many administrative issues, that I’ve lost a lot of time that previously would have been devoted to one-on-one communication time with athletes.”
Bradley, a volunteer coach who works as an insurance agent, cuts out in the middle of his workday to go to T.C. Williams. He cannot find a convenient place to keep equipment.
“When the on-campus facility went, I was at a loss,” he said. “Now all I got is a rope, a weight belt, a rake and a shovel. It’s kind of crude. We don’t even have a shed [at T.C. Williams] where I could keep some equipment.”
For athletes, the strain is perhaps more difficult. Desperate for training space, the team has practiced on days after running in meets at other schools’ facilities, something that is almost never done for fear of injury. The team has even been kicked off of tracks while trying to get in a workout. Injuries are often not nursed properly because it is impossible to go to the training room after practice without infringing on afternoon class. Academically, athletes have to manufacture a three-hour block in the middle of the day for training and many have classes on both sides of practice. Again, there is no flexibility. Have to talk to a professor after morning class? If you do, you’ll miss both the bus and your training that day. Want to shower and change after practice? If you do, you’ll be a half-hour late for your afternoon class.
“People have been very positive on the outside, but I can feel the tension and the frustration building for the coaches and the athletes alike,” said senior jumper and team captain Davin Williams.
This year has been particularly hard on Williams. He had a breakthrough season last year, improving by three feet in the triple jump. Williams believes that without the consistency of last year’s practices he has not performed as well this season as he could have.
“Last year, I was up [on Kehoe] three times a week really training hard,” he said. “Now I’m just surviving off that training I got last year. It’s really frustrating, but it’s hard to figure out what to do. It’s impossible for me to get away every day. My body feels weak, I can tell: It feels like it hasn’t had the proper training.”
Paradoxically, much of the team is performing better this season without the use of facilities. Lang and Humphrey noted similar success stories during their years without facilities, attributing it to the team having bonded together to overcome the obstacle. In the mid-1980s, the team even made a video documentary about their trips to Episcopal.
“Basically, you just learn you’re not going to accomplish anything through complaining,” said three-time All-American senior sprinter/hurdler Jamillah Bowman, who has put up career-best marks in recent weeks. “We just realize that we have to suck it up and just work even harder to get where we want to be running-wise. It shows that we’re able to handle adversity through our performances so far this year.”
“They tend to overcome whatever it is they need to overcome to be successful,” said Helmer. “That requires a real level of concentration, a real level of dedication and a real level of focus that they’re constantly ready to do anything to make the best out of whatever situation we’re presenting them with.”
Still, all agree that all the travel and scheduling contortions take their toll.
“We persevered and did better because we were able to bond,” said Humphrey. “But it was exhausting and it got old quickly. I wouldn’t say it’s impossible to perform, but it’s extremely draining.”
Despite assorted grumbling to the contrary, the University has not sat on its hands regarding the lack of facilities. There are two short-term plans that should return the track team to campus or nearby by next year and a long-term plan that would allow the school to eventually host meets.
In 1995, foreseeing the impending lack of facilities on campus, the athletic department commissioned the real estate advisory firm Grubb & Ellis to do a land survey of all available spaces in the District, Maryland and Virginia close to Georgetown. After receiving the results of the survey, the department looked into a farm in northern Virginia, an area near the Burning Tree Golf Club in Bethesda, Md. and even another golf course 40 minutes from campus to see if these places would sell space to Georgetown. When none of the sites panned out, the University set its sights on a track only a block from campus, at 38th and Reservoir, currently owned by the Duke Ellington School, part of the D.C. Public School system.
Five years ago, when there was a possibility that the track would be sold, Lang presented a plan at an Advisory Neighborhood Commission 2E meeting for the University to resurface the one-fifth-mile track for the track team and general community use. The ANC rejected Georgetown’s plan.
A year and a half ago, Georgetown Assistant Vice President for External Relations Linda Greenan and Senior Associate Director of Athletics for Legal Affairs Adam Brick looked into the issue again and were able to build support in the community.
“Right now the track is made up of cinder, dirt, asphalt and who knows what else,” said Brick. “We want to renovate the track and we’ll have the ability to use it four days a week at a time that doesn’t impact the school or community users. It will be open in the same way it is now.”
In Sept. 2002, the issue came up for a vote in the ANC and the resolution passed 7-1.
“It seemed like a good thing for both sides,” said current ANC 2E Chairman Tom Birch, who voted for the resolution. “It was an open and inclusive plan.”
Despite the ANC’s consent, ground has yet to be broken since the track is under the jurisdiction of the D.C. School District. According to Greenan, the University has been complying with the process presented to them by the school board and the final step is that the University needs to do an architectural survey on the property before formally submitting it to the school board.
“The survey will be done any day now,” she said.
Greenan added that once the week-long survey is completed, the proposal will be formally submitted to the School Board’s Facilities Committee and from there it will move to the General Board for final approval.
Funding for site has already been raised and set aside by the Spiked Shoe Club, the alumni and parent fundraising organization for the track team.
“I’m hopeful that something will occur on the Ellington track by the beginning of next year,” said Greenan.
While the Duke Ellington track will help mainly the distance runners, a second short-term solution is designed for sprinting and jumping. The plan calls for an on-campus six-lane 100-meter straightaway, jumping pits, a pole vaulting facility and a shot put area to be constructed in the open area between North Kehoe Field and on the soon-to-be-completed Kehoe Field. Like the Ellington track, funding has already been secured. Brick said that he hopes this project will be completed by the fall as well.
For the team, both solutions will be major upgrades over this year’s conditions.
“People on the outside could look at what we’re doing and not understand the value of those two band-aids,” said Helmer. “Relative to issues like the wear and tear on the coaches, the wear and tear on the athletes, particularly as it relates to their academic challenges and the general morale issues of being able to get people together it’s a huge improvement.”
The athletes, however, remain skeptical about whether the University will deliver.
“I don’t think about resolutions anymore because I’ve heard so many resolutions that have all fallen through,” said Bowman. “I don’t keep my hopes up anymore. I’ve just realized that we’re not going to have a track … whatever else we get will be extra.”
Additionally, both short-term solutions have their defects. The Ellington track is only one-fifth of a mile, as opposed to the standard 400-meter track, and there are still drainage concerns about the Kehoe project. Georgetown’s long term plan for the track team is further reaching. The University would like to replace North Kehoe Field with a track and field complex featuring a 400-meter track, infield space for all field events except the javelin and hammer, which require the most room, and facilities for every jumping event. The obstacles to the plan are many.
“We have to go down about 15 feet in order to get the width and length we need out of it,” said Brick. “There are utilities underneath, there’s road work that would have to be done and a lot of infrastructure work that needs to be done.”
At the root of the facilities problem, like so many others on campus, is a lack of space and a lack of money.
“I think everyone understands that once you get landlocked your options decrease dramatically,” Lang said. “With everything that you do, you have to pay attention to the future. The Southwest Quadrangle is a perfect example. If they didn’t put a parking garage under that building, where would we do anything else on this campus if all those cars had to be parked? Basically, we’d be done. We had to put the garage there. You don’t have an option.”
Money is also a serious issue, especially with Georgetown’s small endowment and the fact that the athletic department is simultaneously trying to raise money for other facility projects, including a $22.5 million multi-sport complex to replace Harbin Field.
“Infrastructure costs a lot of money,” said Brick. “Think of yourself as an alum who’s got a fairly substantial amount of money. We come up to you and ask, ‘Would you like to name a building or would you like to name some infrastructure? Would you like to have some pipelines named after you?’ Probably not. You’d prefer to have your name on the building or on the track or the field.”
As a result, no one would confirm a possible timetable for the long-term facility. Regardless Helmer, Brick, Lang and the rest of the athletic department remain dedicated to seeing the project through to completion.
“It shouldn’t be lost that [the long term solution] is still the goal,” said Helmer.
Currently, Georgetown is one of only two track programs in the Big East without either an indoor or outdoor practice facility on campus. Additionally, the number of track facilities built or renovated recently is exploding. In the past 11 years, 10 of the 14 teams in the Big East have either dedicated brand new track facilities or have renovated existing facilities. Still, most have found it difficult to catch up to Georgetown’s success. Based on results from this year’s Big East Indoor Championships and last year’s Big East Outdoor Championships, Georgetown ranks second in the conference behind Notre Dame. Signs show that that gap is closing. Six of the top 10 teams in the conference have both indoor and outdoor facilities. Miami, which is ranked fourth, in 1999 completed the most recent outdoor facility in the conference and does not need an indoor facility because of the Florida weather. The only other school in the conference without any training facility on campus, Boston College, ranks last in performance. And they use a facility only 10 minutes away at Harvard.
In part due to the facilities issue, the Hoyas have developed an overreliance on distance running. Above 800 meters in the most recent Big East Indoor and Outdoor Championships, the Hoyas scored in the top three places in 58 percent of the events. Below 800 meters and in the jump and field events, Georgetown finished in the top three just 21 percent of the time.
Even with the increased convenience, flexibility and quality of facilities that come with on-campus tracks, the most significant positive effect that facilities have by far is on recruiting.
“Facilities make the greatest difference in the world,” said track recruiting expert Gary Verigin, statistician for Trackwire, an organization that publishes the most widely used individual and team rankings during the season.
“Looking at facilities for a track athlete are like looking at the grounds of a campus for a regular student,” said Miami Women’s Track Coach Amy Deem. “They’re what you remember when you go home to think about your choice.”
The events most profoundly impacted by a lack of facilities, the sprinting, jumping and field events, are also the ones that are hurt the most recruiting-wise at Georgetown. While Helmer is always able to note Georgetown’s quality of education and location to recruits, it is becoming an increasingly harder sell with lack of facilities and there is a concern that athletes already here may transfer to a school with a complex.
“We can talk about Georgetown, we can talk about education and we can coach, but if recruits are looking at many options and they can say, ‘These places are about the same,’ in most cases they’re going where the facilities are, and as a coach I don’t know why they wouldn’t,” he said. “In terms of the numbers and the depth there’s probably going to be a price to be paid.
“The other part of it is that it’s easy for another coach to say, ‘Be careful about going to Georgetown because they don’t have a facility,’” Helmer continued. “Is that negative recruiting or is that fact? At this point in time, it’s fact. Now if they go further and say Georgetown isn’t committed to track and field, that’s negative recruiting … From the beginning the first conversation we may have with a kid from California, they say, ‘We heard that you don’t have a facility.’ They didn’t hear that from reading the newspapers, they heard that from another coach.”
With the facilities situation as is, both Williams and Bowman expressed serious doubts about whether they would attend Georgetown if they were high school seniors, despite affirming their quality experiences at Georgetown. First-year sprinter/jumper Jesse Patterson knew that there was not going to be a track this year, but decided on Georgetown anyway.
“In high school, we didn’t have any track facilities in my first two years and I was considering not attending that school, but they promised we would get them,” he said. “We gritted it out and the third year we got facilities and had a great year.”
He worries, however, about the future of the team.
“In practice, you compete with your teammates and that ends up determining how well you do in meets,” he said. “I hope people don’t get discouraged and leave or don’t come to Georgetown. If people don’t come or if people leave, then we’ll lose that competitiveness.”
Another significant issue dealing with track facilities hides below the surface.
“What track and field at Georgetown has been for a number of years is a very diverse group of athletes,” said Helmer. “Because we can go out and recruit all over the country it’s racially, geographically and socioeconomically diverse.”
The track team is one of the most profoundly successful examples of diversity on this campus. The team excels both athletically and academically, (it has the highest cumulative GPA of any sport at Georgetown), and also represents the largest group of minority students at the University. The lack of facilities however could significantly cut into this diversity.
“We are finding it easier to recruit distance runners, most of whom tend to be white, than we are finding our ability to recruit sprinters, jumpers and hurdlers, most of whom tend to be black,” said Helmer. “The ability to give both groups of people the opportunity to be as successful as they can possibly be is critical as we’re looking at what we can do to improve the facilities. The makeup and the diversity of our team and who’s being successful on that team can be very much impacted by the facility that we’re providing … It’s also important to a lot of other people on campus who may not be associated with track and field or with athletics in general.”
Lang agreed.
“The notion that because of the population that some sports draw from, that those sports are somewhat more diverse and that helps the University community, I accept that claim,” he said. “What happens is because you’re not going to have facilities over a period of time, and you therefore begin to lose an opportunity to recruit kids that can effect the diversity of the team.”
The consequences of Georgetown’s track facilities’ dilemma are far reaching. They extend from a tradition of quality performance, to maintaining the University’s commitment to diversity, to even impacting the jobs of opposing coaches.
“I think that Coach Helmer has done a tremendous job with the obstacles they have to overcome,” said Deem. “Sometimes I imagine what Georgetown could do if it did have a facility. It would certainly make my job a lot harder.”
While Lang preaches patience and prudence when dealing with facilities issues on campus, he remains optimistic.
“We’re trying to do some things, but we’re trying to do it within the priorities of the University and we’re part of those priorities,” he said. “We’re not going to be running the show. We need to find a piece that we can do within the plan of the University and do what we can do to make it better. It not only makes it better for the teams, but if we do it correctly it makes it better for the entire community recreationally and improve the whole notion of community on this campus.”
Helmer also prefers to look at the positives.
“Relative to the primary issues that we’re dealing with on an everyday basis, getting [the Ellington track and the sprinting/jumping facilities] are just crucial so that we can buy some time,” he said. “Ultimately, hopefully, we’ll be able to address a permanent solution that would then upgrade our facility to a point where it’s at a level that we feel like helps us the best to compete, to perform, to produce and to put on and display the product that we’re very proud of.”
In the meantime, the athletes will have to continue to cope.
“I remember freshman year Coach Helmer mentioning the fact that he coached all these All-Americans with no track, but I thought this was just a scare story,” said Bowman. “He was saying don’t talk about training rooms and trainers and things you don’t have, think about what you do have and you can still be good.
“I think about that story every once in a while because now it’s us. We’re in that situation now and we’re still doing well.”
