Jack Edwards

Senior Camila Figueroa successfully crosses a hurdle. Hurdles are one of the many different events preformed during a meet. “I like the competition,” freshman Jonah Fields said. “I like the heat of the moment and being my best.”

Speed, strength and endurance are put to the test in track and field. The Nixa High School team strives to cultivate a positive, family-like environment with bonds formed through sportsmanship and determination.
Track and field is a combination of multiple events that includes running, jumping and throwing.
“Track is a really interesting sport because it’s kind of a whole bunch of different sports in one,” senior Mason Shank said. “There’s 19 events in high school track and field. It’s all sorts of different training groups of people, training for a whole bunch of different things that all come together, wanting to be the best.”
With all of these different events, the athlete’s work in separate groups but will come together as a team at times.
“[At the start of practice,] the team warms up for about 20-25 minutes then athletes will find their specific event coach,” head track and field coach Lance Brumley said. “[The team] will spend about an hour doing the techniques for their specific event.”
Each event has intricate mechanics to achieve efficiency in order to have a better chance of winning that event and improving the skill set of the athlete.
“Let’s take something for example like a long jump,” Brumley said. “A kid would start out working at the speed that it takes. Then they would learn how many steps it takes for them to get into a good position. Then they would measure that out and work on their approach. The whole process could take years, and sometimes it might just take a few weeks to be able to do it.”
With each group working primarily in their own event, the overall team bonding is different from many other sports.
“The team bond is really interesting because even if we are in different events and kind of train separately, you still have that part of the beginning of practice where we all train together,” Shank said. “In meets and [events] when we’re not competing, we’re all kind of hanging out … we are all competing for a common goal. Track is still a team sport even though it doesn’t look like that. We can still come together and bond and be happy for each other because that’s still contributing to Nixa being the best team that we can be.”
Freshman Jonah Fields joined track when he was in the seventh grade and was surprised about the intensity of track and field at the high school level.
“Here, it is a lot more intense,” Fields said. “They don’t tell us how it’s going to be at the high school, and I feel like they don’t prepare us for it … but it’s a lot more fun so that’s OK.”
Shank has mixed emotions about his senior season of track.
“It’s bittersweet,” Shank said. “I know it’s weird to have been with Nixa track for six years now. The truth is, I don’t even know where the time went. We got one more season so we just kind of need to make the most of it. I’m going to be really sad to leave the group here, but we’ve gotten to form a lot of good memories together and had lots of good meets together.”