The Palisades Charter HIgh School track team now practices at West Los Angeles College.
By HENRY KAMER
“How are we going to run track without a track to run on?” That was the question that ran (no pun intended) through my mind as the Palisades Fire destroyed the Palisades on January 7, rendering Palisades High School and the stadium unusable for the foreseeable future.
On top of that, the equipment shed holding starting blocks and the hurdles I use to compete were completely destroyed. Just four days earlier, winter break practices had been running as usual (excuse the pun). The track team was scheduled to have an All-Comers Meet (competition open to all people, not just student athletes) at the Stadium by the Sea January 11, which would have been the first one in years.
However, that was quickly cancelled as Track and Field Head Coach, Claudius Shropshire, and other team members were arriving at the stadium as the fire started, witnessing the start of all the devastation that would come.
Due to the fire, school was delayed from its original starting date of January 14 to a week later on January 21. This postponement also pushed the track season off, as Coach Shropshire and the athletic department raced to find a location that would allow the team to practice.
The location for pre-season Saturday workouts for the top members of the team were at Dewey and 21st and were only meant for up to about 10 people, so it definitely could not have supported the hundreds of athletes on the track team.
Finally, on January 21, after the first day of online classes ended at noon, members of the track team gathered at Kenneth Hahn State Park in Baldwin Hills where practice would be held at 2 p.m. until a better-suited and more permanent location could be found.
I was in West Hollywood at the time, and as everyone knows, getting across Los Angeles at lunchtime on a weekday or any time is not fun. So, after an exhausting day of zoom school, I would quickly eat lunch before being dropped off in Beverly Hills where my mom and other parents worked out a complicated carpool routine. This would be repeated for about three weeks. Although it wasn’t ideal, the other members of the team and myself were so grateful to have a place where we could keep each other and track close in a time of crisis.
After a few weeks of intense searching, Coach Shropshire announced to the team that West Los Angeles College in Culver City offered to be our home for practice. Our first day there was on January 28, with the season officially starting on February 3. Practice was initially set for 2 p.m., but was moved to 1 p.m. to ensure our team could enjoy the track all to ourselves.
The permit made with WLAC was allotted for noon to 4:30 p.m., but other high school teams as well as soccer teams began to appear at 3 p.m. Sometimes, when we showed up at 1 p.m., a soccer team or baseball team would already be there, bringing us back to the memories of having to run practice around a softball game at Pali.
Getting to and from WLAC was still a hassle, as I would have to rush out of the house as before and return late. I was tired, but homework (junior homework, the worst kind) still needed to be done.
The trip became much better once my family, and I moved to Mar Vista and I acquired my license after the second try. I was excited for the new season and the new freedom I had driving to and from practice; I always made sure to snag a fro-yo from Yogurtland or a smoothie from Robecks in the Culver Center on the way back from practice.
The season started to pick up as more and more meets were coming down the line. It was even more difficult to get to them than before because there were no buses to any meets: before we had a school-sponsored bus to weekday meets.
Just as the season was really starting to pick up, I had an injury. It was a small groin pull that occurred during practice as I did not stretch before doing hurdle drills (I’m an adamant hurdler, even if sometimes all I feel like doing is pushing them over).
I ran very well at the weekend meet on February 22, even as I could feel a small pain in the area. Sadly, that would be my last meet for a while, as I was out for almost a month. That injury strangely felt worse than the devastation I experienced in the fire, and when combined with failing my license test and an unknown world after the fire, put me into a month of sadness and despair, as I saw photos and clips of the track team I so yearned to rejoin.
Even as I healed after visiting a physical therapist for the first time and working to get back, I haven’t been the same and constantly regret that so much of my junior year was lost, although I’m back to competing.
WLAC has been our temporary home for three months now and continues to be so as we move back in-person to Pali South in Downtown Santa Monica. Just because we may not be in our normal spot does not mean we haven’t been performing normally.
Many members reached new heights and impressive personal records (PRs). Many groups have been extremely supportive of the team, from WLAC hosting the practices to Alo Yoga and BellaCanvas with their $25,000 donation of sweats for the whole team through the efforts of a dedicated team mom to finally make us look like an actual team instead of a bunch of random kids at a track meet.
For the next month or so, the track team will finish out strong as League Prelims and Finals occur in the next two weeks, then City Prelims and Finals in the two weeks after that, and then State Prelims and Finals the next week.
So, even though Palisades Track and Field may be forced to consider Culver City and WLAC its home for the foreseeable future, that doesn’t mean the team has lost its pride and tradition.
We will stay PaliStrong!
Sports provide invaluable friendships, which helps kids through traumas.
Great