Wednesday, April 11, 2001
[ HIGH SCHOOL TRACK ]
Wolfpack track Officially, the nickname of the Pac-Five track and field team is the Wolfpack. But these days the team may as well be called the Nomads.
team makes do
The teachers' strikes haven't
just paralyzed public schoolsBy Jason Kaneshiro
Star-BulletinThe dual strikes that have paralyzed Hawaii's public education system have also turned Pac-Five into a team on the run. The squad, made up of student-athletes from 13 private schools, had been practicing at Cooke Field on the University of Hawaii campus and the Kaimuki High School track. But with strikers blocking access to both sites, the team must now set up shop at Kapiolani Park.
"We just have to improvise," said Pac-Five head coach Al Wilson.
The Wolfpack's practice sessions at the Diamond Head end of the park opened Monday with orange cones marking running lanes, sprinters performing drills around coconut trees and long jumpers working out in the sand of San Souci beach just across the street.
In past years, Pac-Five used Cooke Field for its practices. But when UH started its women's track and field program this year, the Wolfpack's time was cut to Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. The team then moved its Monday, Wednesday and Friday workouts to Kaimuki's dirt track. But when strikes involving the UH Professional Assembly and the Hawaii State Teachers' Association started last week, the Wolfpack were shut out of both locations.
Wilson and his staff considered practicing on the tracks at Punahou and Iolani, but the heavy use of those facilities snuffed those possibilities. The team worked out at Mid-Pacific Institute's field several years ago when the UH football team reserved Cooke Field for spring drills, but Wilson felt the field was too cramped. And while Stoneman Field at Schofield Barracks is available, the team doesn't have the buses to transport 70 varsity, junior varsity and intermediate athletes to Wahiawa every day.
"We were kind of stuck and I thought, 'Where can I get our kids to practice in a place everyone pretty much knows and would feel comfortable with their kids being at?' " Wilson said. "And I thought the park would be the place."
That means the runners will have to train on grass during the week and adjust to the rubberized surface at Punahou for Saturday's Interscholastic League on Honolulu meet, with precious little preparation time.
"You're wearing spikes and your body needs to have that muscle memory tuned in by having run on the track," Wilson said. "We've had kids in their first time in spikes and they'll take five or six steps and plop, because they're not accustomed to it grabbing."Still, working out at Kapiolani Park isn't without its advantages. In fact, Annie Kawasaki, who won the state girls cross country championship in the fall, prefers running around Diamond Head to navigating the streets in Kaimuki. And while the St. Francis senior isn't overly concerned about the teams' practice accommodations, she is monitoring developments surrounding the strike for other reasons.
"This is a pretty good place, I'm happy we're here," she said. "What I'm upset about is that if the strike is long enough, there won't be states. I've been running since I was in the seventh-grade and it's all been building up to this one season, this one championship. I've been in second place in the (1,500-meter run) the past two years, and I really want to win first. And if I don't have the opportunity I'm going to be kind of upset.
"I didn't think (the strike) would affect me," she added. "But it affects so many people in the state."
While Kawasaki frets over the possibility of losing her chance at a state title, she realizes things could be worse -- she could be a public school athlete.
"They can't even train," she said. "I keep thinking they have it so much worse than we do. At least we're going to have an ILH championship."
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