by James Coulter
Half of the members from the Boys and Girls Track Teams at Lake Wales High School will be racing to Jacksonville on Friday to compete in The FHSAA 3A Track and Field Championship.
“It is a reassuring feeling for me and my staff to have our athletes reach this level of success,” said Johnathon Feagin, Head Track and Field Coach.
Being able to see more than half his students qualify to compete more than met his expectations, which remain consistent each year: to keep his athletes performing at peak level so they can compete at the state level. Such consistent expectations always manage to produce consistent results, he explained.
“We want to attract talent and convince them that a state title is worth pursuing,” he said. “We all have the ability to work consistently towards any goal. Track is a talent sport, and when you are able to convince talent to work harder, you will begin to see some separation in fitness and performance.”
Feagin owes his fellow coach, Stanley Smith, for doing a phenomenal job preparing their athletes in both fitness and performance. Through such hard work and determination, they have managed to overcome their two-fold challenge of keeping their athletes healthy and training in a less-than-state-of-the-art facility.
“This season, we have had major setbacks on our boys’ team with CJ Brantley, Jayden Johnson, and Dylan Garcia getting injured during our push for the State Championship,” he explained. “We do not have an up-to-date synthetic track, which is ideal for sprint performance training, but we are doing our best with what we have.”
As his expectations for his runners always remain high, his expectations for them in the upcoming championship remain even higher. They overcame so many hurdles to reach this level, and they hope to overcome even more to make the championship.
“We expect our athletes to focus on competing, and not watching,” he said. “We are positioned to compete against the very best…[and while] this will be tough for us, given that we are small in numbers, but my athletes are trained and prepared to leave it all on the track.”
The FHSAA 3A Track and Field Championship will be held Friday, May 17 at the University of North Florida at Hodges Stadium in Jacksonville, FL.
