It was Tuesday, March 25, and I was in class. I checked my notifications on my watch, and received a text message from an unsaved number. At first, I thought it was one of my sources getting back to me for one of my upcoming Foghorn articles, but when I clicked to see the full message I saw it was from Jordan Carpenter, the coach of the USF men’s track team.
Carpenter asked if I was interested in running a couple meets for the team due to some injury concerns of other runners. He mentioned that Marshall Bush, a former runner on the team and my former coach for club running, referred me to him. There’s no doubt connections will give you crazy opportunities in life.
I instantly got excited, and couldn’t pay attention in class at all. I wouldn’t say this situation was shocking though, as I always had a feeling that the team would reach out to me again after a fall through in my sophomore year. I just didn’t expect it to happen now.
I immediately called my mom after class to tell her the news. I only told three other people about it in the next couple of days, but I wanted to wait until it was official to tell more people.
After meeting up with the coaches, filling out paperwork, doing some tests and picking up my uniform, I was set to run the mile at the Mike Fanelli Track Classic on Apr. 5 at San Francisco State University.
One of my favorite moments had to be when I announced what I was doing during the Thursday night Foghorn meeting. I pulled out my jersey from my backpack and said that I got called up to the men’s track team. Everyone started screaming. I’ve never seen a reaction like that before.
Just like that, it was race day. I took the team van with one of the other coaches. Walking around on the track and seeing all the different teams brought me back to my highschool years. I hadn’t ran in an organized track meet since senior year of high school.
One concern I had was that I wasn’t in the best of shape, due to a rigorous academic semester, and I wasn’t able to dedicate as much time and energy to running as I had done in previous years. Luckily, the coaches said that I would still be able to compete in the race, as I was going against runners with similar times as me.
The race kicked off, and I tried to battle for position in the middle of the pack. Heading towards the back stretch of the track, I heard the cheering of all my friends who showed up. I loved it so much.
I got last place in the race, but it was a fun competition. I finished with a time of 5:28, which is nowhere close to an average Division l time, or even a decent high school time, but I’m not going to let comparison steal my pride.
What’s really important is that I was able to compete in a Division l track meet, which was something that I always wanted to do. What struck me most was the amount of support I got from all my friends. I originally was planning to go to the meet on my own or with a friend or two, but I didn’t expect seven people to want to go. Shout out to my run club friends Hadley, Alex, Brayden and Emma and my Foghorn friends Dakota, Sophia and Lina for cheering and creating fantastic signs, and shoutout to those who weren’t able to make it but wished me well such as Ty, Murphy and Carly.
I also want to thank the men’s track team and the coaches for giving me the opportunity to run, and I want to thank Marshall for making this happen. I will be running again at San Francisco State University on Apr. 19.
Editor-in-Chief: Jordan Premmer, Chief Copy Editor: Sophia McCrackin, Managing Editor: Jordan DelFiugo, Opinion Editor: Dakota Duran, Scene Editor: Elina Graham
