You’re a high school track & field athlete thinking ahead on where to continue your passion once you graduate. Not an easy decision. It never is for a young adult, especially when there are so many options out there.
What are some things to look for to make that often difficult decision on where to extend your educational/athletic journey? Once there, what’s it like?
Legit questions. Legit concerns.
The folks over Elite Athletics, a RI-based skill development program that offers off-season, high-quality training and coaching to T&F athletes, wants to help. On Saturday, July 12, from 2-3:15 p.m., at the AMP Training Center in East Greenwich, they’ll be hosting a Q&A session titled, Pursuing College Track & Field: What You Need to Know. The Q&A will feature a panel of seven former high school athletes now competing at the collegiate level that have been this route before. They’ll be offering their expertise from what they experienced at the Division 1 and Division 3 levels.
“This is something that is open to the kids and their parents because sometimes they have questions that there kids won’t ask,” said Tony McQueen, who along with Steve Gruenberg, are coaches for the Elite Athletics Club. “It’s for anybody, juniors, sophomores, even freshmen that are interested in running in college and want to know about the whole process before they get there. Even outgoing seniors during the summer before they leave and would kind of like to know what to expect when they get there.”
Both Gruenberg and McQueen competed at the collegiate level. McQueen was a walk-on at the University of Rhode Island where he specialized in the 400-meter hurdles. He felt having a Q&A session like he organized, will be helpful in so many ways for high-schoolers that are making the jump to the collegiate level, be it Div. 1, Div. 2 or Div. 3. A few of the topics that will be discussed by the panel are what they went through in the recruiting process, what they were looking for in schools and, for some, why they decided to go Div. 1, 2 or 3.
“Sometimes when your transition, your training changes and your times aren’t getting better. Then they kind of change as you adjust, as you live an entire new life. It’s stuff like that. A lot of those questions,” McQueen said. “I have quite a few questions that I’ll sprinkle in there to keep everything going. This is a lot for the kids and the parents to ask their questions and we’ll give them plenty of opportunities to do that in that hour. I’m a former Division 1 athlete but I walked on and there’s a lot of information that I wish I had going into it and would have been helpful.”
How about the panel? Who are the seven athletes expected to share their journeys. Well, if you’ve been a fan of high school track over the last several years, you’ll recognize most of the names. Among Rhode Islanders on the panel are former HS standout LJ Raye (West Warwick), Rylee Shunney (East Greenwich), Sierra Thompson (South Kingstown), Jacob Connolly (East Greenwich) and Suzan Adekunle (Classical).
Raye began as a Division 3 sprinter at Thomas College before transferring to URI and its Div. 1 program this year. Last month, he captured the individual title at the NEICAAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships where he broke the meet and school record with a PR of 10.27 seconds. Shunney was a multiple all-stater in cross country and track for the Avengers before honing her talents at UMass-Amherst where she just finished her sophomore year. She earned second-team Atlantic-10 honors for the 5K this spring and took second place at the recent NEICAA Championships where she ran a best of 16:34.32. Thompson was a versatile star athlete for the Rebels where she compete in the hurdles, jumps and sprints. She just concluded her freshman season at Sacred Heart where she achieved bests of 19 feet, 9 inches for the long jump, 5-5.75 for the high jump, 24.12 for the 200m a and 14.38 for 100m hurdles, among other top performances. Connolly was a distance specialist at EG before continuing his collegiate career at Boston University and then Amherst College, a Div. 3 program. He has college bests of 4:15.31 for the mile, 2:32.72 for the 1,000m and 15;10.45 for 5K. Adekunle just completed her frosh campaign at Sacred Heart where she had bests of 55-5 for the weight throw and 158-0 for the hammer. Other athletes on the panel are Alec Pawlowicz, a sophomore thrower for Bates College, and Iyana Braswell, a sophomore sprinter/jumper for Bryant University.
“I did a summer training program with a couple of college athletes and some high school athletes and was lucky enough to know some guys really well at the AMP training center in East Greenwich and they offered to host this event for free, which means I can make it free,” said Thompson, who singled out AMP president Andy Procopio for his gracious offer of his facility. “I found some of my college athletes that do train with me and through a couple of contacts was able to ger a couple of others filled with Division 1 and Division 3 jumpers, sprinters, distance and throwers to have a nice wide array of panelists.”
To register for this FREE Q&A session, clink on the link below or scan the code in the cover photo above.
