As the beginning of track season is nearing, teacher and coach, Ms. Jessica Johnson, shares the new regulations that her runners are facing. Ms. Johnson’s background at North Augusta spans many years. “I ran track in high school here at NAHS”, she stated, “however my coaching specialty is girls’ basketball. I stumbled across coaching track and this will be my first full coaching season.” She is very excited about the new opportunity and feels she is prepared to face the unique challenges that go along with starting track in a year changed by the pandemic.
Pictured here, is Mrs. Johnson, who is one of the two Track coaches at NAHS. The other Track coach is Mr. Gore.
Photo Credit: https://www.acpsd.net/nahs
Even though the pandemic is a major factor for many sports teams, track will be less affected than most. With track being an individual sport, there is no equipment to pass around or clean. Also, with track being an outdoor sport, the runners can properly social distance and not have strict mask enforcement. Ms. Johnson states, “the athletes are adjusting well with new regulations mainly because of the practices that are followed during school hours, they are used to all of it.” As an individual sport, anyone that shows up at conditioning is part of track. With that being said, it brings up a struggle with proper social distancing. However, Ms. Johnson briefly explained that runners are split up into groups and social distance within the groups and are rarely with all the runners at once.
Although track seems to have the new regulations under control, there is bound to be some negative change. Ms. Johnson says, “The main difference for this season compared to others would be the way information is distributed. With so many kids being quarantined it is difficult to get information out to all the athletes.” With obstacles being thrown at all sports left and right, track is planning to make the most of the season. Ms. Johnson says “schedules are no different than previous seasons, we have two meets in Aiken and the rest of the meets are in Augusta. The season actually appears to be longer because of COVID.” With discussion about starting school back full time, the community hopes track and other spring sports experience the full length of their season.
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