Emma Laus and Jazmin Gomez, Staff Writers
Haley Carlin
As Beloit College begins the spring semester, the excitement and pressure a new quarter brings restores a sense of possibility on campus. For the Track and Field team, a new semester means a new season as the members strive to reach their fullest potential. Track and Field team coach Brian Bliese comments on the dynamic of track saying, “There have been a ton of positives and in track there’s always some great things and then there’s some things that are kind of a buzzkill.”
Bliese relates the team’s biggest hardship this season. Jake Fein’27 broke his left femur bone immediately after finishing the 800 meter event at a conference meet. Described by Fein’s doctors as a “fluke” accident, the injury invoked questioning directed at the intensity of track practices and expectations.
“I don’t think it was a training thing. The fact that I kept training on [a prior hip injury] for so many months was probably what led to the hairline fractures and ultimately the break,” Fein says in their explanation of how it happened. When asked if their decision resulted from external pressure from the track environment, Fein said, “I think it was mostly individual pressure on myself. For past injuries I’ve always pushed through and it always went away.”
Track members also acknowledge personal struggles linked to participating in the field. Many students need to balance classes, multiple sports and work on top of track training. “It does get really frustrating, but then you just have to take a step back and think about why you’re here. The coach never really puts pressure on us. I have really high standards for myself,” says Haley Carlin’27.
Even the track facilities add pressure onto the team. “One of our problems is that our facilities are somewhat lacking, we don’t have the facilities that other schools have; It’s undersized and the turns are too tight,” Bliese says. Being creative with different training approaches and ensuring focus helps the team not fall behind.
Despite these setbacks, many of the members highlight the benefits of track, including Bliese. Contending lessons learned through athletics extend to the classroom and into life, Bliese emphasizes work ethic saying, “Discipline, teamwork, communication. You know, all these things are great teaching tools to make kids better individuals, once they graduate.”
Even members participating in a second sport explain how one strengthens their performance in the other. Israel Zewdie’26, a soccer and track member, says, “For soccer it’s a lot of conditioning and for track it’s pretty easy to translate into. Soccer is a little more taxing because its different from what we do in track, but its not too different.”
Football player and three time track record breaker Josh Yearby’27 says, “Football helps me with track as far as the competition level. In football you kind of have to have grit about yourself. You want to be great. You want to stand out.”
“Coach Lehua is really intense and pushes us a lot and track pushes but in a different way, cause it’s an individual sport, but Bliese’s really supportive,” says Naomi Murphy’27, a volleyball and track member. Track seems to stand as a measure of individual effort differentiated by experience and as a basis for success.
Recently, the track team has been gaining attention on campus. On Feb. 10, Yearby broke the school record for a third time, with a time of 6.92 seconds in the 60 meter event. The prior week, Candis Damste’24 achieved recognition as athlete of the week in the entire conference.
According to Bliese, watching athletes enjoy their successes is his favorite part of the job. Whether breaking a personal record or achieving wide scale recognition, Bliese believes every success is worth celebrating. “Within our team, we have a wide range of abilities, some kids have never competed before, and others who want to try to get to Nationals,” he says. “I don’t favor one over the other; we try to give them all a positive experience. I tell them to be the best individually you can be.”
Despite the varying levels of experience with track and field, the team has formed a tight knit community. “I think a lot of the people (on the team) are really committed to the sport so that makes it fun and it’s just a good community,” says Darcel Royster’24, one of the team captains.
This community has helped to improve the overall experience in multiple ways. Awo Akosa’27 cites her friends on the team as a reason to continue when track gets difficult. “(When) my friends… are like, ‘Oh, you do so great. Like you did so well,’ that gives me motivation to keep going,” she says.
Unlike other sports at Beloit, the track team is co-ed— a factor Bliese believes has created a unique dynamic. “Our team is different; our team is co-ed,” he says. “So there’s that interaction between men and women, which I think is kind of a cool interaction.”
Bliese takes an optimistic approach to coaching, saying, “My glass is always half full, no matter how empty it is. It’s never half empty. I go by that philosophy…and that’s the way to motivate.”
In any college level sport, athletes can feel a demand to perform their very best and Bliese’s approach helps relieve the team of some of this stress. “(Bliese) likes to joke around sometimes which is good because it will take pressure off of us. He always lets us come into his office to rant if we ever need to and get our problems out,” says Carlin.
Despite the challenges the athletes face, track has become an important part of many of their lives. “It would take me physically not being able to run for me to stop running and then I would still try,” says Fein. “In my head, there’s no way of not doing track. It’s something that’s a part of me.”
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