Lakeland Mirror

Issue date: 3/1/07 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Brian Moser Head coadch David Brooks talks to his team before practice.

Media Credit: Brian Moser Members of the Lakeland track and field team run around the snow-covered campus during practice.

Media Credit: Brian Moser The track team runs throughout the parking lot bye the Wehr Center. Distance runnin consists of running around the campus and throughout the surrounding countryside.

Two years ago, Lakeland relaunched its track and field program after over a decade of not holding it as a varsity sport.

Without a track, the team faced an uphill battle, but after two years, the track team is progressing, adding participants and reaching the pinnacle of that hill.

"[Former coach] Josh Wolfe took the first step last year where we really competed well at least on the men's side," said athletic director Jane Bouche. "This year we have a better mix of male and female, and I think [new head] coach [David] Brooks has a good view on how to develop more numbers and get kids interested without any real place to practice."

Brooks, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, is the graduate assistant for men's soccer but is no stranger to the world of track and field.

In high school, Brooks was an all-conference track star and made several appearances at the state track meet. Now, he is responsible for continuing the maturation of a fledgling program that must practice inside the field house or outside around campus and the surrounding countryside, which, of course, was the recent recipient of almost a foot of snow.

"It's been challenging," said Brooks about taking over the program. "It's given me the opportunity to see some growth right away. We've been really fortunate in the fact that there's been a lot of people interested in it this year."

The number of student-athletes out for track and field has expanded to 15, five females and ten males, for this season. There are also six freshman on the team, signaling a growing interest among incoming students.

Many of the athletes come over from other sports to stay in shape throughout the offseason. Four of the females on the track team play women's soccer at Lakeland and the other plays on the women's basketball team.

"Some of them just come out to train with us, and then they realize that they're actually enjoying it so they stick around," Brooks said.

The amount of meets the team will be participating in has also doubled, somewhat due to the fact that the Northern Athletics Conference now offers it as a conference sport, something the former Lake Michigan Conference did not do.

Still, Bouche said that other teams in the conference are more advanced than others because of their facilities.

For instance, Benedictine University recently added a multi-million dollar football and track facility that was chosen for the 2006 NCAA Division III National Championship. Wisconsin Lutheran will host the NAC Outdoor Championships having also recently built a combination football field and track.

"In our infancy, I feel that other schools in our conference, because they have a track, are further ahead than us," Bouche said. "We're working on getting participants right now."

However, that doesn't mean the idea of a new facility hasn't been tossed around.

"President [Stephen A.] Gould has talked with me and made it public knowledge we need a new football stadium with a track," Bouche said. "We need to have the facilities just to be competitive in recruiting.

"Right now it's very hard for us to recruit track athletes, saying we're going to run up and down North Drive or run in the field house."

Brooks will agree that recruiting is tough without a track, but he remains optimistic about the program's growing numbers.

"It's interesting trying to get people to come in when we don't actually have a track on site," said Brooks. "But I think the amount of fun the group is having this year will help in recruiting their friends and through word of mouth, and next year we're looking to get even bigger than we are this year."

In the meantime, the team will spend its Mondays and Wednesdays in the field house and Tuesdays and Thursdays outside until the snow melts and they can practice on the Howards Grove High School track.

Brooks is confident that despite the challenges the team faces, they will be prepared for the season.

"The biggest thing we're hoping to accomplish is to establish ourselves as an actual program and not just a group of talented athletes," said Brooks. "We want to identify ourselves as a track team and we definitely have the ground work already taken care of.

"I think we have the ability to come out with less facilities than other schools and kind of a lot of things stacked against us and still do some great things."

The Muskie track team opens its season on Saturday in an indoor meet at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, and the message that coach Brooks wants to send his athletes is clear: "Have fun."

"Maybe we'll be able to make our mark at the conference meets, but I think more than anything we're out there to enjoy ourselves," he said. "I hope that everyone can have fun and meet their own expectations."

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