Texan Mosaic

SPC outdoor track: Making a run for it

Jeremiah Quigley from Newswriting COMM 2311-001contributed to this story.
Photos by Jeremiah Quigley

Ready…set…bang! With the sound of a starting gun the SPC spring outdoor track season is back underway.

Head Coach Erik Vance says he’s looking forward to a great season.

“You know I think we got some good things,” he says. “I think we got some areas where we need to get better, but we keep moving forward, and we keep getting better every week. So, when we compete in regular season, we will be pretty competitive.”

In the 2022-23 season, the team had a phenomenal season as the indoor-outdoor men’s track team tied for the championship. The girls’ track team placed third indoor and fourth outdoor.

“Last season went very well,” Vance says. “I don’t know if I would ever see something like that again. We obviously wanted to win them out right, but you know competitive teams can be tough. But you know, as the bar was set we still call that a successful season last year.”

Will there be many strong Athletes returning from the 22-23 outdoor track season? Vance says yes.

For the girls’ team, he names 800 national champion and 1000 indoor national champion Rushana Dwyer and Lilliana Guerrero. From the boys’ side he names Gregory Prince, who’s All-American.

“I think we had about 15 All-Americans come back from last year,” Vance says.

SPC athletes just finished up their spring indoor track season. The Texans and Lady Texans competed at the NJCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in Florida. The Texans took third place as a team while the Lady Texans placed sixth.

Individually, SPC sophomore Harry Crosby earned All-American honors in the heptathlon and placed second nationally at the indoor championships. Lady Texan Amber Simpson earned All-American honors and a third- place finish.

Vance says the men’s and women’s teams are practicing hard and getting 1% percent better each day.

“We go five or six days a week basically,” he says, “when we start school till we’re done in May.”

He says both the men and women probably put more of their work into the off season because when the athletes start competing they need their bodies to be fresh and ready for competition.

Erik Vance, the team’s head coach, describes himself as a “bad pole vaulter” in his own college athlete days.

He earned the head coaching job at SPC some seven years ago. This season there are four assistant track and field coaches: Jim Vanhootegem, Miguel Mendez, and Frank Barker. Each coach, he explains, has his own area of responsibility. Each daily practice may look different depending on the event.

When athletes leave SPC, Vance says, some go all over the country. He says right now he has at least three on the Texas Tech roster, one at LSU, one at Georgia, and two at Texas A & M.

“Our expectation is we go to class,” Vance says, “do our work, and then perform on the track so we can get them to the spot they want to be the next year.”

For now, the athletes are pushing forward at practice every day.

“I just want everybody to work harder,” says athlete Andrew Stone, “and achieve better from what they did last time. And for me, I want to compete in big competitions and represent my country and try to be better each day.”