A year of firsts for Vassar track and field

Kelly Capehart Staff Writer

Hidden behind the Town Houses, just across from Raymond Avenue and adjacent to the baseball diamond, lies the brand-new facility: a quarter-mile track complete with stadium seating and a turf field, flanked by a long jump pit at one end and a new scoreboard at the other.

This new facility has been getting plenty of use this spring—for the first time in the College’s history, Vassar now boasts its own varsity track and field team. But the road to varsity status was long, and the new team still faces many challenges.

Simply gaining access to such a facility was a hurdle for the track program.

Track and Field Head Coach James McCowan feels fortunate to be able to put his team on the new track. “I keep telling all the kids how lucky we are to have this wonderful facility in place now,” he said.

The track is more than simply a place to run; it lends a sense of purpose and community to the team as well. “We may be a small team, but we have a long club history that we’re trying to build up into a varsity program on the level of our Liberty League competitors,” said McCowan. “When you’re out [on the track], it’s hard to believe you’re an underdog in any way.”

A track club has existed at Vassar since 1985. Although the team did compete against varsity programs from other schools, it did so without the benefits of being a varsity program itself.
The facility provides a certain sense of tangibility to a team that has always had the spirit, but not always the space. The track “makes it a lot more concrete, makes it a lot more real,” said McCowan.

Women’s team captain Lisl Esherick ’08 agreed that the team’s new facility and varsity status have changed its dynamic.

“The cohesion of the whole program has really come together since we’ve been made varsity,” Esherick commented. “With the club we just didn’t click the same way.”

Men’s captain Colin Sanders ’08 credits the club program as a building block for the team’s new varsity status. “I think we always knew at some point that it would become a varsity program,” said Sanders. “So as a club program, we always took it as seriously as a varsity program in a lot of ways.”

Both the club program and the cross country team provided a wealth of talent for the new varsity track team. As a result of the cross country influence, McCowan said, “We’re definitely sort of a middle distance-based team right now, a lot of interest in track on campus has come from people who are participating in cross country.”

However, not all the runners come from the cross country program. Many come from other varsity sports, and quite a few are freshmen.

“I think a lot of the people who are coming and doing events other than long distance and middle distance are freshmen this year,” McCowan said. “They came here and are excited for the opportunity, and we’re just getting started.”

In spite of the interest from Vassar runners, the program does face some hurdles. Depth is the main issue for the young team. “We don’t have enough people to fill all the events, never mind people who are truly trained and ready for those events,” said McCowan.

Due to the youth of the program and the fact that it is still, as McCowan noted, in the expanding stages, “We are focusing on running events first. Field events are not something that we’re super-involved in right now.” As a result, “One of the things we’re doing is just focusing on non-scoring invitationals,” he explained.

Despite such challenges, the team’s outlook is bright. At the recent Liberty League Championships, the team’s showing was impressive.

“We can’t put five runners in every race like some of the other schools can,” said Esherick. “I think that when we got [to Liberty Leagues], when we ran, we were just so surprised. We blew each other away. I think a lot of other teams were really surprised to see what a strong showing we had.”

Sanders, who is also an All-American cross country runner, was one Brewer who saw success in the Championship meet, earning All-Liberty League honors with second-place in the 5000-meter race. This past weekend freshmen runners Jon Erickson and Brittany Davis helped lead the team, as well, with first-place finishes at the Hamilton Invitational in the 800-meter race and steeplechase, respectively.

McCowan takes the enthusiastic spirit of this year’s team as a good sign for the future.

“I just want to keep making sure that we’re providing a real quality experience for people, that people are having fun,” he explained. “And I think if we keep building a team off of that, off of that effort and that spirit, then…we’re only going to be getting stronger and stronger.”