Athletes Show Spirit Without Benefit of a Team

Loudoun Track Stars Make Their Own Way

By Carl Little

Monday, March 31, 2008

By 6 p.m. on a day in January, Natalie Baird had already run speed drills around the track and scaled the 28-foot rock-climbing wall. Nearing the end of her workout, she stood poolside at Claude Moore Recreation Center in Sterling and tucked her long red hair inside a swimming cap. Baird picked out a lane in the Olympic-size pool, swam six laps to get loose and then began the most intense portion of her workout.

But before she could finish the set of hard laps, she developed a cramp in her right foot that spread quickly to her legs. Grimacing, Baird climbed out of the pool, bent at the waist and reached for her toes.

"If I haven't been swimming for a while, then I start to cramp up," she said.

During the spring, Baird gets a workout by spending 3 1/2 hours a day practicing for Park View High School's outdoor track and field team, which opens its season this week. That regimen has earned the senior victories in the discus at the Penn Relays, state titles and All-American honors. But during the winter, she has to find other ways to stay in shape and maintain the form that has earned her a scholarship to the College of William and Mary.

Loudoun County public schools offer five winter sports — hockey, gymnastics, basketball, swimming and wrestling — but not indoor track and field. Since its first high school opened in 1954, the county has never sanctioned the sport. Despite Loudoun's population and economic growth, it is the only county in The Washington Post's readership area whose school system does not offer the sport.

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Practicing Without a Field

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Park View senior Natalie Baird wins a record third discus title. (Toni L. Sandys)

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Natalie Baird, 17, works on her discus throw at Park View High School in Sterling. (Tracy A. Woodward)

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Natalie Baird, 17, and friend Meredith Oare, 15, unload their training gear and some extra winter clothes as they get ready to train outside on Park View's field. (Tracy A. Woodward)

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Natalie Baird, right, and her friend Meredith Oare, 15, walk onto Park View High School's track for winter training. (Tracy A. Woodward)

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Natalie Baird, 17, trains outdoors at Park View High School. She has just finished some warm-up laps on the track and is now changing her shoes, as she gets ready to throw the discus. (Tracy A. Woodward)

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Natalie Baird, 17, warms up on the track at Park View High School before practicing her discus throw. (Tracy A. Woodward)

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Natalie Baird and her friend, Meredith Oare, run some warm-up laps on the track at Park View High School before they practice some discus throws. (Tracy A. Woodward)

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According to Les Cummings, supervisor of athletics for Loudoun schools, interest isn't high enough to warrant spending the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year that would be needed to support indoor track. (Renting an indoor facility costs as much as $8,000 a meet.)

Cummings acknowledged that some coaches have asked their athletic directors about the sport's absence, but he said his office has received no formal requests to add it.

"It has never occurred since I've been in this seat," said Cummings, who is in his fourth year as supervisor.

Briar Woods High School's athletic director, Joe Breinig Sr., who has nearly 40 years of service in Loudoun public schools, cited the lack of a nearby indoor facility as well as no funding for equipment, uniforms and transportation as reasons the school system has never sanctioned the sport.

During the 1970s and early '80s, however, indoor track existed in Loudoun as a sport sponsored by individual schools. Dolph Null, who coached Broad Run's team, made full use of the scant resources. He taught students how to hurdle in the hallways and, along with several other county schools, participated in full meets at Park View. The pole vault was held inside the main gym. Distance races were run on the dusty wood floor of a small auxiliary gymnasium.

Broad Run financed its indoor track team in the beginning but halted funding in the early 1980s, Null said. Several other high schools had lost their programs, but Null tried to keep his team going by digging into his own pockets to pay entry fees and travel costs.

The final blow came soon after Null and his team piled into a bus and drove to a meet at Virginia Military Institute. Afterward, the team came outside to find that everything had been blanketed in snow. With no money for a hotel, Null and his team made the 140-mile trek through poor visibility and wet snow back to the county. They didn't get back to Broad Run until nearly 3 a.m.

"It was becoming sort of a hazard," said Null, now the girls' outdoor track coach at Potomac Falls. "I was forced to drop it."

But despite the lack of indoor track and field in Loudoun, some athletes in the area continue to thrive. Potomac Falls sophomore Christina Lee had a stellar outdoor season last year, and she capped it by placing second in the 1,600-meter run at the Virginia AA championships in a personal-best 5 minutes 1 second. Of the eight girls who scored in that race, Lee was the only one from a school that does not have an indoor track program.

This winter, she competed in a handful of all-comers' meets — sometimes against men — as well as in this month's Nike Indoor Nationals, at which she finished 13th in the 800 and sixth in the mile.

"I haven't been keeping track [of my times], but I'm feeling good after my races," Lee said. "I think my times would be a lot faster if we had indoor track."

Meanwhile, Brian Baird, Natalie's father, has tried giving her every advantage. He enlisted the help of a personal coach and enrolled her in dance classes to improve her balance in the thrower's circle.

He also built a tall shed in the back yard of the family's Sterling home, complete with two space heaters and a back wall covered with carpet and rubber hoses that act as noise and shock absorbers, so that she can practice throwing on the coldest days.

Baird participated in two all-comers' meets this winter and placed fifth in the weight throw at Nike Nationals and 14th in the shot put.

Bill Curran, student activities and athletics director for Fairfax County public schools, said that a plan to build a sportsplex in Lorton, complete with an indoor track, is being discussed by county park authority officials. Despite the possibility of having a facility closer to Loudoun, indoor track and field is not expected to be sanctioned soon, much to the chagrin of Null, who coaches Lee.

"We're at sort of a disadvantage not having it," Null said. "It's important to kids like the Christina Lees because they're scholarship material."

Extra Points

By Paul Tenorio and Matt Brooks