I do virtually nothing with regular-season interschoalstic events these days for a host of reasons (No. 1: time. No. 2: time. No.3: I’m semi-retired and I don’t feel like it), but when someone is nice enough to send along something, why not?
Below are the performance lists for the 24th Annual Pan-Ram Track and Field Invitational on Saturday at Central Dauphin School District’s Landis Field, forwarded to me by CD cross-country coach Rick Leuschner, a very fine man. I always enjoyed covering the Pan-Ram (well, when it wasn’t 45 degrees and raining, which happened more than once at the P-R) because the folks running it were always such a hoot. They were always blasting me for huddling under a tent as opposed to, say, actually going out and covering the meet.
I always pointed out that despite my awful vision, I could see the finish line just fine. And as a scholastic sports sage pointed out to me years ago in regards to track: “You shoot the gun, the fastest guy wins.” Not a whole lot to argue there. As a sprinter once told me when I was trying to pry out some deep strategy re the start, the famous “second gear” in mid-race, whatever, “Um, I just run as fast as I can.”
Case closed. (Same sage as above also told me, long story short, that he couldn’t stand track because “they can teach a bleeping dog how to run around a circle.” Nearly pooped my pants.)
Besides, I was always faking it when it came to field events, especially the triple jump (Fave TJ question: “So, how’s your second phase going?”). Which reminds me: why did they rename the broad jump, anyway?
But the bottom line is that I generally enjoyed covering track despite my considerable lack of knowledge, mostly because the people – officials and athletes – were great, although sometimes that didn’t make up for 7 hours in the wind and cold (not that I made it to a whole lot of 100-meter and high hurdles prelims).
Whoa, got a little breezy myself. Anyhow, here are the Pan-Ram performance lists:
Enjoy.
