Winter Track Looks to Remain Competitive

It is difficult to grasp how successful a high school winter track program is each year because there are no team won-loss records kept. But when you look at the overall success of the cross-country, winter track, and track and field programs at , you find that each program helps the other.

“That’s the crazy thing about winter track; you go to a meet and you’re going up against 30 teams," head coach Charlie Kind said. "Those teams can be from around the corner, like Willingboro, or from Cumberland County or Atlantic County. You also run into Haddonfield, Bridgeton, and Pleasantville. It’s a good thing because it makes our kids better.” 

It all begins in the fall, when cross-country competes in one of the toughest divisions in South Jersey. Some of those runners move on to winter track, where they compete against the best runners in the state. Then, the seasons change and track and field begins, with athletes from the fall and winter running programs taking part.

“First of all, you’re surrounded by great coaches here," Kind said. "Having the opportunity to work with someone like Dan Fourney, he pushes the kids and he pushes everyone else. Being able to work with coaches like that and coaches like Derek Moore, you just feel lucky and you want to give more to the kids and to the school. We are so successful here. In the spring, we haven’t lost a dual meet in six years for the boys.”

All three programs feed each other runners from one season to the next, while also preparing the runners for long athletic years on the track and the course. Winter track is competing through a bit of a rebuilding year in 2011-2012, but Kind is hopeful the coaching staff will find some diamonds in the rough this year.

“Right now, the boys are rebuilding a little bit," he said. "We are looking to find maybe some diamonds in the rough here in the winter time. We have a couple really solid contributors but we are looking to find something else.” 

The Pirates are led by some very talented individuals. competes in the high jump, competes in the shot put, Andrew Stewart and Kevin Wright compete in distance running and is the team’s only girl distance runner.

“We have a strong group of guys in the distance but everywhere else on the track it’s a rebuilding year. This year we have around 27 kids, a real low number this year, but it’s a quality group of kids,” Kind said.