Newsflash: We don’t have a track

Last night, I went to a long and wide-ranging meeting/info session at our local high school. The topic was the possibility of a re-vote on the new track/turf field facility that was voted down by a mere 65 or so votes in the fall (see previous post about that …).

Anyway, the meeting was truly excellent. It lasted about two hours. There were several hundred folks there. The format was such that everyone in the room was able to have their voices heard, if they chose to speak. It was fantastic. Collectively, I think the consensus is that there should be re-vote and that the necessary 70 or so “yes” votes could be garnered.

An interesting and enlightening side note to the evening was the lack of local understanding of our situation here at Marist.

In various small-group discussions, I chimed in quietly with my opinions. In some cases, I identified myself as the track coach at Marist College, and mentioned that facilities (or lack thereof) are and have been a pertinent topic in our lives for decades. So this forum had a lot of relevance for us on several levels – we are aware of lack of facilities, and yes, we have children in the district who will benefit from these improvements in the years to come.

Everyone, bar none, was stunned and surprised at our lack of track facilities at Marist. In some cases, people I have known for YEARS had NO IDEA that we schlep off campus (example: TODAY) for practice most days and that – barring one XC meet at Bowdoin – we are “away” for all our competitions.

The assumption was something like this: Oh geez, Marist is such a nice school, it’s so beautiful, how could it NOT have a track?

Well, we don’t.

This is not breaking news, folks.

And, it’s not exactly like we’re some remote campus. We’re located right on Route 9 -- Main Street for Dutchess County! If there were a track here, don’t you think you’d know about it or see it?

Anyway, I thought it was interesting.

Hopefully, we’ll get the re-vote, and it will pass.