Southfield Mustangs race into AAU Junior Olympic Games meet
July 31st, 2008
Originally posted at www.hometownlife.com on July 31, 2008
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By Mike Rosenbaum
DETROIT — The Southfield Mustangs AAU track and field club is wrapping up another season with, as usual, a large contingent of athletes participating in the AAU Junior Olympic Games. This year’s event is particularly special, however, because it’s being held in Ypsilanti, at Eastern Michigan University’s track and field facilities. That means more local athletes, ages 7-18, are competing in the national event, and more of their friends and family will be on hand to cheer on the young competitors.
Of the approximately 150 athletes on the Mustangs, 130 competed in the AAU state meet held at Southfield High and 101 of those qualified for the AAU Junior Olympic Games. Normally, those athletes would advance to a regional competition, but athletes from the host state get a bye into the AAU Junior Olympic Games.
Of the 101 qualifiers, Mustangs head coach William Hooks said 94 would participate in the AAU Junior Olympic Games, which began Saturday and runs through this Saturday (see accompanying story for early-week results. Updated results will appear online each day at hometownlife.com).
The AAU Junior Olympic Games is the largest youth multi-sport event in the world. More than 13,000 athletes from all 50 states are competing in eight age groups. Track and field is one of 22 sports which are part of the Games.
“We usually have pretty good representation in the Junior Olympics,” said Hooks, adding that the Mustangs sent about 60-65 athletes in 2007.
“It will probably be the most exciting athletic event that any of these kids will ever be involved in,” Hooks added, “because it’s meant to be kind of a mock-up of the regular Olympics. Not many of these kids are going to go to the regular Olympics, so this is pretty good for them.
“And I’ve told the kids that, most of them probably won’t get medals the top eight (in each event) get medals but I told them they’ve already won by the fact that they have advanced to the AAU Junior Olympic Games. And if they finish 48th, 45th, 30th, I want them to remember that that’s 48 or 45 or 30 in the nation, not in Southfield, not in the state, but in the nation, so that’s something to be proud of.”
The Mustangs began their season in the spring, with about 100 athletes younger than high school age. The high school athletes joined the Mustangs after the school season ended. The team has competitors from across the Metro area and as far away as Ann Arbor.
While the Mustangs will likely have some strong finishers this week, Hooks said the team’s goal is to support each individual, regardless of ability.
“A lot of track teams’ philosophies are, they want to win at all costs, medals and all that stuff, otherwise they won’t pay any attention to you. Our philosophy is to find something that the kid feels good about, to build their self-confidence. We also encourage them to look at their own times, to look at the time they get at the beginning of the season and compare it at the end. Because theoretically, if you improve your time every time you compete, then you’ll break a world record theoretically. But if you get close to it, then you’ve got a successful season. And that’s our goal, because at the beginning of the season we get a lot of kids that come out that are new to track, and some of them can hardly walk around the track, as opposed to run. But their parents want them to get involved in something. And we try to be as patient as we can to get them to build self-confidence. And some of the kids end up being proteges. We have molded some kids into something you would’ve never thought they’d become when they first started out.”
