No consensus to make a change puts track & field at P-C
The future of track and field at Paton-Churdan was again a topic of discussion when the P-C board met Oct. 12 in Paton. The question was raised by superintendent Kreg Lensch at the September meeting, along with an invitation that P-C consider sharing track and field with Glidden-Ralston. (Lensch is a shared superintendent with G-R.)
Paton-Churdan athletic director Chris Petersen was at the Monday meeting to provide information. According to Petersen, seven is the most boys and one girl is the most that would participate for the 2016 season.
Those numbers are very similar to numbers from last year, when P-C asked to share girls track and field but not boys with Greene County. When Greene County agreed to take both or neither team, Paton-Churdan kept the boys team and had no girls team.
Although the P-C team had very limited relay opportunities, senior Jake Carey qualified for the 1A state meet in two individual events – the 400 meter and 800 meter races.
Petersen is contracting P-C into meets now as this is the time scheduling is being done. “I have to plan as if we’ll have a team. If we have to back out, we have to back out,” he said.
Registration fees average $75 per meet per team (boys or girls), and’s he’s looking at as many as 12 meets. Including a coach’s salary and transportation, it would cost about $5,000 to have a track and field team.
“I think we need to do what’s best for the kids versus what’s best financially for the school,” board member Deonne Robey said.
“It doesn’t make money. Track doesn’t make money for anybody’s activity calendar… I don’t think money is the issue. You’ve expended this much money for a number of years whether you’ve had a lot of kids or not,” Lensch said. “The conversation is around the participation experience you want to give them.”
Track and field is different than other sports because it offers individual events as well as relays. P-C this fall has three high school boys and one junior high boy running cross country. The teams don’t have enough runners to get a team score at a meet, but that doesn’t change the boys’ experience.
Petersen said the challenge is that there are P-C students who would run at Greene County so they could run in relays, and other students who would not run if it isn’t a P-C team. “I can’t tell you numbers one way or the other. You’ll have kids that don’t go out because they have to run individual events (on a P-C team), but if you move it over there you’re going to have kids that don’t go out, too,” he said.
Principal Annie Smith said students she has talked to have been clear that if P-C doesn’t have its own track and field team, they want to run with Greene County, no other team. According to Petersen, “The kids who really want to run track are going to run track, regardless of where it’s at.”
Board members Jen Maach and Steve Burrell both said they favor keeping track at Paton-Churdan. The item was on the agenda as a discussion item, not an action item. Without a clear decision to share track and field, the ‘default’ is a Rocket team. “It’s here already, so what we’re looking for is direction for Mr Petersen so he can make his plans,” Lensch said.
At this time, P-C has not offered a coaching contract for track and field for 2016.
Paton-Churdan has shared football with Greene County since the 1980s. This year, a total of five P-C high school students are out for football. P-C has its own volleyball and basketball teams. There are 11 girls playing volleyball this fall. Last winter, 14 boys basketball and 11 girls played basketball.
