Cardinal Classic High School Girls Invite, 3.5.15

There will always be obstacles — in track, in life. Hurdlers may appear to have it easy because they can see them coming right in front of them.

But hurdlers, too, have obstacles they don’t see coming. Ones they can’t control. Injury, illness, bad weather, poor facilities. We have these regularly in track, in life.

More Minooka school records were broken tonight at North Central College’s field house. More personal bests were set, and more improvement was made. But there were obstacles to overcome.

Some relatively new triple jumpers were not allowed take off from the distance they were accustomed to. In fact, they had to take off from a distance that one of them had never jumped before and another had barely met. They were upset with this unexpected, uncontrollable obstacle.

There were doubts, and at one point there were tears. After two attempts each, neither had reached the long jump pit. But they persevered. And on the third jump, one of them made the pit. The other one did it on the fourth jump.

Those jumps did not break records or score points, but they were victories. They beat the obstacle.

As a team, Minooka was seventh, with six obstacles ahead of them. One of them was conference rival Oswego, an extremely talented team that beat Minooka in eight out of the 15 events. They won three events in a tough 11-team field, and finished second in another. They are good, and they are united, as evidenced by their tremendous team support of their 4x400m relay.

No one on Minooka’s team can control how fast Oswego runs or how far they jump or throw. They are an uncontrollable obstacle.

But the Indians can control how they respond to that obstacle. With focus, with work, with perseverance. And learning how to respond to an obstacle is something that can yield great success — in track, in life.

Go Indians.