In the previous post about the Track Question at Marist, I mentioned about how there was an unusual amount of interest on campus in our lack of facilities. If you have a spare 15 or so minutes, check out this video dubbed "Marist College Track Campaign," which was the capping project for a group of students who worked on this for the balance of the semester. We appreciate the effort and concern they put into this project and into this video. We hope the interest garnered by this and other classroom projects -- notably, all done by non-team members! -- will continue past this semester. There are many positive aspects to the video, but it is clearly flawed in the following ways:
1. Only one current Marist track athlete was interviewed. Katie Mac did a good job representing her point of view and highlighting the plight of our team in an honest and accurate manner. But she is just one person. Other voices were sorely needed. I mean, they interviewed our MASCOT before another track athlete. Really?
2. The opinion of some of our loyal alums would have greatly enhanced the effort of this video; they lived and breathed the no-track life for 4-5 years, and we are proud of them all.
3. The "person on the street" interviews, asking general Marist students of their awareness of a lack of a track, seemed contrived at best and unnecessary at worst.
4. A vital member of our track family -- assistant coach Terry Horton -- was dubbed "Terry Gordon" in the video. An honest error, but an error nonetheless. Sounds more like a NASCAR driver than a track coach!
Having said all that ... there were some compelling moments.
1. Their juxtaposition of the before/after at FDR High School in Hyde Park was fantastic and made their point about what a new facility can do very salient.
2. The interview with Dr. Brackett, Marist EVP, was refreshingly honest and informative.
3. Athletic administrators interviewed also expressed their opinions clearly and strongly.
4. The videography was very well done and clearly a lot of work was put into this.
Again, we hope that the thought process continues in all corners of our campus.
2 comments:
Jeez why don't you just insult their mothers while you're at it. This was a project that should be encouraged as students- track "stars" (I use that term lightly for most of the team) and regular students alike- would love to have and use an indoor track facility. With your harsh critiques of this project and other projects like it, you won't win many more followers and this program will continue to reside in mediocrity as they train without normal facilities.
As a former team member, the above comment entirely misses the point of this blog post.
First, I think anybody that's ever been associated with the program in the last 25 years will tell you that the effort was certainly appreciated, and other projects of this sort will be warmly welcomed in the future. It was even written here, which seems to have been totally ignored. Pete and two assistant coaches were interviewed in this video. Pete was interviewed in another, posted on this blog the other day. I am sure any athlete on the current team, or any of the other three coaches (Chuck, Terry, Cuesta) would be always willing to answer some questions about the situation as well. With that said, the comments made about this video are absolutely legitimate, on BOTH sides. A central coach's name should be spelled right on a capping video, and the interview with VP Brackett was great. I also don't think videos like this are the difference between having some facility built and not. The school knows what they want and what they're going to do next.
Second, I take great offense in how you marginalize the accomplishments of the XC/Track program and the athletes that make it up. Many of these athletes, including myself when I was a student, are not receiving ANY money from Marist Athletics and are there because they simply love the sport. Others are receiving a very small amount, much less than what other schools' programs offer. Marist is expensive, and the school does not give a lot of financial aid. You do the math. With that said, we still managed to break multiple school records EVERY season that I was on the team (I can even list them all for you) and we qualify numerous individuals and relays for a pretty competitive east coast multiple-conference championship meet. We've had individuals win MAAC titles and had an MVP of the outdoor MAAC meet a few years ago. This done without a training facility. Side note: Our cross country team, where every runner there is also a distance member of the track team, REGULARLY beats teams in the conference with significantly more scholarship funding than we have.
No, nobody on this team is going to Rio in 2 years. That doesn't happen at a midmajor school with 4,000 kids. Still, I'd like to think that the majority of the team does the best they can, and is a better athlete after their senior year of college than their senior year of high school. That doesn't seem mediocre to me - mediocrity is when talent is wasted, and I've seen that happen elsewhere. The team also regularly leads the conference with number of All-Academic Team members - remember that these are "student-athletes" and not "athlete-students." The school and conference take note of that.
If you still want to put "stars" in quotation marks and make note you're 'using the term lightly', kindly go do some real research about what the goals of the program are, because it just seems you're here to criticize. And honestly, unless you were an All-American in college or dealt with the same issues the team currently does, you really don't have the right to criticize.
And unlike you, I'll put my name to this and not hide behind anonymity on the Internet.
Sincerely,
Billy Hild, Marist Class of 2014
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