Hurdles & high hopes: Cesar Chavez Academy athletes excel despite meager facilities and limited experience
| Myriah Gutierrez started off her
track career on the right foot. At the recent Cougar Invitational at St. Clair Shores Lakeview, Gutierrez blazed to first-place finishes in both of her individual races. She even set school records in each. "One was a distance run -- I don't remember what it was called -- we had to run around the track twice," the sophomore said. "One was a sprint, but I don't know how far we went. You'll have to ask my coach." OK, so this track thing is fairly new to Gutierrez and her teammates. But that didn't stop her from defeating all competitors in both the 800-meter run and the 200 dash.
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| Her school, Detroit Cesar Chavez
Academy, is
starting a program from the ground up and has no track of its own.
After an initial sign-up campaign last fall drew 40 students, about two
dozen boys and girls have stuck with the program, a respectable team
turnout for a school with an enrollment under 500. There are also four
coaches. "Our administration has been really, really supportive about it," head coach Brian Goodwin said. "The uniforms were costly, and we got T-shirts to make us look like a team, at least. The administration bought us things like batons and discs. They really kind of pushed for a track program. They could have said, 'No, we have a limited budget,' but they're really trying to make it work." |
Brian
Trollman, 30, assistant coach, gets the sprint team |
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Although the Aztec Eagles are short on experience and equipment, they aren't short on enthusiasm and a desire to learn the sport, something Goodwin saw in abundance during the Cougar Invitational on April 5. "That meet was a really good experience for them," he said. "The times weren't great per se, but since we were competing for the first time ever, the fact that they weren't quitting was real positive." He said the Cougar Invitational was a good fit for the Cesar Chavez team. The competition was organized and hosted by Roseville Conner Creek Academy East, another fairly new squad, and also included Detroit Weston Tech (another start-up program) and Plymouth Christian Academy. Conner Creek Academy East coach Tim Guthat said the focus of the invitational was instructional rather than competitive. And the Cesar Chavez team got quite an education. Goodwin described it as a "cram session." |
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| "The big thing going in was that a lot of these kids, probably 95% of them, had never stepped on a track, unless it surrounded a football or soccer field they had played on before," he said. "The meet started at 9 a.m., and when we got there at quarter to 8, we were the only people there. So we walked around the track for an hour, showing the kids where the exchange zones were, showing the discus guys the throwing circle, that kind of thing." |
Don't drop the baton! Sprinters work on their relay |
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"It was kind of scary, because we were nervous to compete against other people and we never actually ran on a track before," Gutierrez said. "When we started running on it, we were OK, we got comfortable with it. We thought the other people were going to be a lot better than us, but they really weren't that much better." Besides
the two wins from Gutierrez, senior Javier Guerra and junior Rueben
Day-Lopez took the top two places in both throwing events. Sophomore
Xavier Cavilla won the 800, was second in mile, and third in the
two-mile. "Basically, I got a chance to see what it's all about," Guerra said. "I had no idea what it was all about. We don't own any shot puts, and I hadn't even had the discus a week yet. They got us some discs on the Wednesday before, so I had been throwing for three days." <>Clearly, workouts at the Southwest Detroit charter school aren't like those done by most other teams. |
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"We practice in the Cesar Chavez parking lot, where we do drills for sprinters and field events," explained Goodwin, a social studies teacher at the school. "We run sprints in the alley, which is more like a dead-end street behind the school, but it works for us because it's a straightaway and there isn't traffic. "We practice relays, we hand off the baton, we practice explosions. We run around the school a couple of times. We do drills like high-knees and build-ups." Participants in other events have to make do with the surroundings as well. "Adjacent to the alley, we have a gravel-dirt-rock field, and that's where our throwers have been messing up our brand new rubber discs," Goodwin continued. "The discus guys can say, 'I hit that rock,' but maybe that's a big improvement for them." |
Freshmen
Luis Guerra, left, and Christian Villarreal |
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Distance runners run from the school to Clark Park or Patton Park and back. As a small, independent school with a new program, Cesar Chavez has been scheduling any meet opportunities it can find, Goodwin said, sometimes with little or no notice. He isn't sure how far the Aztec Eagles will take things this first season. "We just want to keep improving, which is easy to say, but once they compete, that competitive edge takes over," Goodwin said. And the athletes are discovering that the sport can be more
than just times and measurements. |
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Chalk up at least one big victory for the Aztec Eagles. "I always wanted to be on the track team, but I couldn't before because we didn't have one at our school," Gutierrez said. "I've just always loved to run. I have no other reason. I just love it." |
Sophomore Luis Pablo winds up to
hurl the discus onto a rock-strewn
field near the school. "That's where our throwers have been messing up our brand new rubber discs," coach Brian Goodwin said. "The discus guys can say, 'I hit that rock,' but maybe that's a big improvement for them." |