By Andrew Candio

Although we are in a tough time with quarantine and the canceling of several potentially historic sports seasons with our amazing Elmont athletes, it’s important to recognize our amazing scholar sportsmen and women who are paving and setting the for many future Elmont starsnt stars. I wish I could interview and thank all of our senior athletes for all they’ve done. From our track star Jean Desir, to our basketball star Jevon Santos and our two amazing soccer stars Nyla and Mayella. But nonetheless, I’m here to honor and show the incredible leadership, talent, and growth of our beloved athletes. I’m here to show how Jeremiah Omeike and Nadege Jean have changed throughout their years in track and have grown in their love and passion for track and field. But, most importantly, though these interviews I aim to show how these athletes were able to persevere through what many will say is the most difficult sport in Elmont that really tests one's mental state. Through several track meets and several memorable nights and moments they had with the team, their journey is truly incredible, they were able to achieve something many athletes try to achieve. Through motivation and perseverance they made it happen. I am so fortunate to have had the opportunity to ask both of these two incredible athletes some questions about their time spent running as members of the track team:

When looking at any sport - or just life in general - it’s important to understand how you’ve grown from the start to either the end or a few years within that sport or position. Growth itself is a motivating factor; it’s important that we each strive to improve. But with that being the case, I was able to ask Mr. Omeike and Ms. Jean about how they’ve grown from the start of their high school track career. According to Jeremiah Omeike, “Running track really forces you to accept small improvements. I feel like many young people, myself included, think that you can only celebrate huge gains, but being a runner made me realize that the small things are just as worthy of praise.” For Nadege Jean, she described how she’s grown physically, both becoming stronger and faster: “This sport definitely made me more disciplined and that’s one of the biggest things anyone can take away from it.”

With any sport, just as growth and recognition of growth is important, it's important that we’re able to balance the stresses of school and other activities. So, I asked these track stars how they have been able to balance academics and extracurriculars keeping in mind the effect track has on them. Jeremiah Omeike responded stating: “Balancing academics and my other extracurriculars has definitely been the hardest part of high school. It's challenging ending my school day only to have practice, then Men of Elmont, then Jazz Choir, but having extracurriculars that you genuinely enjoy doing makes balancing them easier.” For Nadege Jean, although there were challenges like when she came back from a meet at midnight and still had more homework to do, she shares: “ My days seemed very long and I was just tired, but I always try to make time to do other activities that don’t involve running. I like to get involved in extracurriculars that expose me to new experiences.” For example, Nadege was a key member of this Olympian Yearbook Club, being one of the handful of seniors to help compile the 200-page book.

I can honestly say looking at track, it seems hard to stay motivated especially when your only job is to run, but I asked our scholar athletes how they have been able to stay motivated and find that motivating factor in Track and Field... especially when your body may not feel like running. Jeremiah Omeike says: “The easiest way to stay motivated on track is by looking back and seeing how far you've come. It's easy to get consumed by your future goals, especially in a sport like track where either your times are getting faster or they aren't, but taking the time to reflect is oftentimes more than enough to keep me going through the workout.” Nadege Jean acknowledges that her teammates are the reason she stays motivated: “ No doubt in my mind about it. When I’m tired or I feel like quitting (and trust me that’ll happen to every trackie), my teammates lift me up and motivate me to keep putting in the work. When it comes to relays, knowing that they’re depending on me to do well makes me push myself harder.”

There is always a motivating factor in sports, but there is also always something that increases curiosity and attraction for something you love, so I asked Jeremiah and Nadege what attracted them to this sport and why did they decide to continue through senior year? Jeremiah Omeike was attracted to track because of its simplicity: “The low barrier of entry made it attractive compared to other sports like football or soccer where I felt like I'd already be ‘behind’ compared to people who've been playing since elementary school. I continued track because I came to love running and the mental discipline it came along with.” While on the other hand, for Nadege Jean running track at Elmont for Coach Graham seems to be a pastime of her family history, so she felt like she needed to continue that tradition.

I wanted to know more about understanding their attitude and emotion when they are on that track. So I proceeded to ask both of them different questions to truly get a better understanding of the amazing athletes I’m talking to. I asked Nadege, what emotions do you have when competing and how does it affect your ability to run? I understand that each athlete displays a variety of emotions which can either increase performance or negatively alter it. Nadege said: “I get nervous before every race and it doesn't matter what event. It has gotten better over the years, but I still get anxious. It doesn’t always interfere with the way I run. However, I’ll get mad at myself because I do really well in a race and it’s like I was nervous for no reason.” And with such emotions and competitive spirit, I also asked her to consider her track career and what goals she set and how she accomplished these goals? Nadege noted her track career has been filled with ups and downs: “I’ve hurt my hamstring and torn ligaments in my ankle, but I pulled through and came back faster. I hit times I didn’t expect, became an All-County Champ, etc.. I surprised myself multiple times and I don’t want to let that momentum die down.” This is truly inspirational; she is relentless and determined, wanting to succeed and not giving up in most situations when many would quit. My final question for Nadege was about how leaders within her team have allowed her to succeed? For Nadege, she “couldn’t imagine being on the team without Jeremiah. He’s such a great captain and his energy is a big part of the track team. Regarding Coach, he is my best motivator. He pushes me and he’s always there for every race yelling at me to swing my arms or to catch the other person. At the end of a race, he’ll give me advice on what I can improve on or compliment how well I ran. To sum it up, he’s the best coach, and when I graduate, I’m going to miss him the most.” This proves that leadership is impactful and is powerful. With people to support you and help you through your journey, you can overcome anything.

As I move on to Jeremiah Omeike, he is truly an amazing athlete capable of doing anything he see’s worthy of his attention;he is both smart and capable. It was truly a pleasure to know him since 7^th grade and interview him. I wanted to know more about his competitive spirit, so I asked him about the best part about competing. Jeremiah loves the excitement of it all: “The thrill of warming-up and seeing your competitors. The nerves while you're in the clerk-in area. The way those nerves disappear when the official says ‘set’ and your mind goes blank. It's all of those aspects of competing that make track enjoyable.” I never really thought about that aspect of competitiveness and attitude - something which many athletes differ in when being competitive. I asked Jeremiah if his attitude has been a factor for him and the team when it comes to winning and he said he tries “to stress that while winning is always the goal at meets and in races, improvement is just as important. Taking the positives from your races, even if few, is what matters.” Jeremiah is one of the Captains on the team and he proves to be an effective leader, being a role model for his whole team. The leadership role of being Captain impacted him and the success of the team, because, as Jeremiah shares, it “definitely exposed me to a lot of my strengths and flaws as a leader, along with teaching me how to properly communicate with both adults and fellow athletes alike.” My final question for Jeremiah was regarding what he is going to miss most about Elmont track and ? he said it’s going to be “the team I've been training with... the same people for three years. Having to let go of that, especially on such short notice, is really difficult to do.”

Although this is an emotional end of the year for seniors and many athletes, I wish all of them success with their future goals. This was an amazing class to know, talk to, and play sports with. With Jeremiah Omeike going to Princeton and planning to continue track and Nadege Jean going to Queens College, I wish them both success as they deserve it. They have really paved the path for many future Elmont track athletes. I wish the Class of 2020 an amazing start to their freshman year of college because there are truly many leaders within that class which can drive and change the future of our country.