By Anthony Bosco
Some 14 years ago, George Taylor saw two children running in a school yard at PS 30 in Rochdale Village, where the Jamaica native works as a physical education teacher. Taylor took the two boys aside and told them to put their energy to good use.
And so the Novas Track Club was born.
“I got them into running and it basically took off from there,” said Taylor, 38.
That first year Taylor had only 12 runners in his new club, which competed in various meets across the metropolitan area, sponsored by a number of organizations such as the Police Athletic League and the New York Road Runners Club, against other local organizations such as the College Point Road Runners Club, the Alley Pond Striders and neighborhood rivals the Metro Eagles Track Club.
Since that first season the club has grown by leaps and bounds, but it took time, breaking through nationally just five years ago by finally sending club athletes to the USATF Junior Olympics after nine years of being stopped at the regional level.
“We’ve always done well locally,” said Taylor, who ran track at both Brooklyn Tech and SUNY at Stony Brook.
Just last year the club sent 24 athletes and brought home its first national gold medal when 12-year-old Chia Hudson took the top spot in the 11- and 12-year-old Midget Division long jump competition. In all, Novas brought home four medals from the annual event held in Sacramento, Calif. in 2001.
“She was the only person from the entire metropolitan area to win a medal last year,” Taylor said.
With that success last year Taylor set some lofty goals for his club, hoping to double the Novas’ medal count from the USATF Junior Olympics, held this year from July 23 through July 28 in Omaha, Neb.
More than 2,000 athletes from every state in the country competed at the meet, Taylor said, and Novas did better than its founder expected, qualifying 40 athletes and grabbing 13 medals, including the second gold in the history of the club.
The Bantam Division 4 x 100-meter relay team of Corrine Williams, Cecelia Dixon, Aichatou Kamate and Brie Roller earned first place on Day 6 of the meet in the finals with a time of 55.015 seconds.
The same relay team competed in the Bantam finals a year ago, but was disqualified. This time though, Dixon got the team off to a good start with the opening leg, handing off to Williams, who maintained the edge and then Kamate, who widened the gap considerably and giving Roller just enough to hold off the Los Angeles Jets, South Carolina Eagles, Texas Alex Van Dykes, Arizona Cheetahs and United Stars from Philadelphia.
The relay team also took fourth in the 4 x 400-meter relay with a time of 4 minutes, 42.83 seconds.
“The kids work very hard,” Taylor said. “It’s basically a year-round organization.”
Also earning medals on Day 6 were Lance Roller, who finished second in the Midget Boys 80-meter hurdles with a time of 12.62, and Hudson, who took third in the Youth Girls 100-meter hurdles with a time of 14.86.
Gregory Hinds also competed in the finals on Day 6, taking eighth place in the 1,500-meter Bantam Boys run with a time of 5:17.94. On Day 1 of the meet, Hinds grabbed sixth place in the Bantam Boys Triathalon, finishing with 554 points.
Also earlier in the competition, Novas’ Soroya Hudson finished eighth in the Bantam Girls 1,500-meter Race Walk with a time of 9:36.36, Keva Ramsay finished fifth in the Youth Girls Pentathlon, posting 2,871 points, Asley Ramsey finished eighth in the Midget Girls Pentathlon with 2,550 points and Denisha Hudson, who will attend Norfolk University on a full scholarship in the fall, finished sixth in the 3,000-meter Young Women finals.
One of the factors contributing to Novas’ success at the national meet, Taylor said, was that the regional competition was held on Long Island, which enabled all of the club members who qualified for the meet to compete. And of the 40 athletes who qualified nationally, 34 made the trip to Omaha.
“That was one of the reasons we were able to bring all kids who qualified in the local meet to regionals,” he said. The regional competition features athletes from every state from New York to Maine and was held the last weekend in June.
Taylor said he is hoping his team will continue to grow and succeed. Next up for Novas is the cross country season, which begins next month.
“We have our sites set on making it to nationals.”
Reach Sports Editor Anthony Bosco by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext 130. sw
