Quote:

Damn straight! Go Indians!

Wow, the article brings back memories of running relays at the Armory for grammar school. It wasn't too bad, from what I remember, 'cept that we got dusted by St. Aedan's. And the Jersey City armory track from that time compared pretty well to the wooden track at the 168th armory in the city.

N.J. has site issues for indoor track

By PAUL SCHWARTZ -- The Record -- Dec 14

Mike Glynn remembers when indoor track was more properly called "winter track."

"When I first started coaching in New Jersey in 1967, few schools had winter track at all," said Glynn, now a coach at Ridgewood, then the coach of a fledgling Paramus Catholic program. "We started a meet at PC, but we ran it outdoors on our track. Queen of Peace and St. Joseph Regional also ran meets outdoors during the winter. But we were really at the mercy of the weather.

"Once it snowed so hard before the meet, we had to have 80 guys with shovels and whatever snowblowers we could round up to clear the track so we could have the meet," he said. "But we had the meet."

"Maybe there were 100 schools total in the whole state that had the sport. There weren't many places where you could run. And maybe there were 10 to 15 meets a year. The highlights of the year for a team were the State relays and the State championships."

That's why it's ironic that nearly 40 years later, with the state of the indoor sport at its peak in New Jersey, with more than 300 schools competing and more than 100 meets to choose from, that the State championships and State relays championships nearly didn't happen this season. And why, despite the increase in interest and intensity in the indoor season, it may continue to be a struggle to keep State championship track and field at the level New Jerseyans have come to expect.

For many years the State relays and individual championship series, five dates in all, were held at Princeton University's Jadwin Gym. With the relays held in four sessions, usually over a Saturday and Sunday in mid-January, and the individual group championships usually held in four sessions over consecutive Sundays in mid-February, the season was capped by the State Meet of Champions in late February.

But as NJSIAA assistant director Don Danser explained, over the past five or six years, Princeton no longer seemed interested in providing the dates needed to run the State series.

"Every year, it got more and more difficult to get the dates we needed at the times that fit with the program we wanted to run," said Danser, who has been involved with the State track program since 1972. "They seemed to want us out of there because they said their own programs were expanding, and that hosting meets like ours was too much of an inconvenience."

So this year, when Princeton cut the five dates to just one, in early February, the NJSIAA pulled out completely. But that left the question: What now?

"We wanted to give every opportunity to continue a program that attracted a lot of interest that otherwise would have been discontinued," said Danser. "We didn't have any serious discussions about discontinuing the program, but we might have had to set rigorous qualifying standards which we've never had before."

Places such as the Rothman Center at Fairleigh Dickinson, Drew University and Red Bank, which host invitationals, are not large enough to host even the smallest group meet. And Rutgers had no seating and an odd-sized track in its bubble.

That left the renovated Jersey City Armory, which returned to action last year after a long hiatus, as the only current site in New Jersey remotely able to host a meet of 60-70 schools. Then the Toms River school district announced that it would build a bubble with a six-lane, 200-meter track to be ready by the winter and Danser jumped in.

The State Relays will be in Jersey City in seven sessions over three days in mid-January. There will be eight sessions over four days in mid-February at Toms River for the group meets, and the State Meet of Champions will be split over two days: the boys Feb. 24 and the girls on Feb. 25, the first time the meet will be split.

"We also made some preliminary arrangements to move the group meets to Jersey City if the bubble wasn't ready," said Danser recently. "We didn't want to put all our eggs in a basket that wasn't built yet."

There will be unavoidable problems at meets, both at Jersey City and Toms River.

The lighting has been fixed at the Jersey City Armory, but the bathroom project has been stalled, forcing the use of portable toilets outside the armory. And while the Armory has enough seating to handle the revised schedule with only one sex and only one group at a session, except for Group 1, the limited floor space will be a challenge for high jumpers, shot putters and meet clerking. And there are no pole vault facilities.

That's not a problem at Toms River, and there's enough room for the high jump and shot, too. But with only 1,400 seats instead of the 6,000 at Jadwin, tight quarters are expected for each of the sessions planned.

"I really feel for the kids and the program on a state level," said Danser. "We have nowhere near the facilities a state like ours should have for a program that is the fifth-largest in terms of schools of the 33 sports we run. It's not fair to the sport. But somehow the kids, the coaches and the officials deal with adversity and we'll make it work."

Blog: www.northjersey.com/varsityaces/schwartz