Track's top notes, quotes & amp; anecdotes

DAYTON -- Fried, fatigued and filled up from free turkey sandwiches, this lowly reporter hunches down in front of a laptop in the Welcome Stadium media suite (a.k.a., the football locker room), trying to muster my eight remaining brain cells to wrap the track season that was.
An impossible task? I agree. So I'll just recall pointless anecdotes and hand out arbitrary awards.
Enjoy.
Best and worst
Best place to watch a track meet: Austintown Fitch, although East Palestine has the best concession stand and Salem has the best hot chocolate.
Worst place to see a meet: Navarre Fairless High School, site of the Division III regional. The meet is fine. The location stinks. I'm convinced Navarre was founded when someone was fleeing Massillon and ran out of gas.
Favorite athletes to interview: Boardman senior Bridget Beachy; Chaney senior Cameron Widget; Maplewood senior Terry Rush; Warren JFK senior Michelle Rossio; Maplewood sophomore Jen Grayson (who made me promise that I'd write that Maplewood coach Ted Rupe "has a big nose") and West Branch senior Lisa Davies. My favorite moment of the season was watching Davies win the state 3200-meter title.
Best quote I didn't use: Most of my interviews break down into a jokefest after the second question, so I asked Davies if she ever talks trash during a race. (She doesn't.) So I asked her if any girls talk trash. (They don't.) "Girls are too catty," she said. "They do it behind your backs. Guys dish it out to your face, but girls don't."
The reporter next to me was laughing for 10 minutes.
Favorite athletes to watch: Boardman senior Monica Cuevas; Girard sophomore Cachet Murray; Springfield sophomore Nick Panezich; Boardman senior Rich Lepore and Western Reserve senior Anna Marie Ricciardi.
Best hair: Jackson-Milton junior Luke McCluggage. (With apologies to McDonald's Joe Kunkel.)
Weather prediction for next year's Cope Invitational: Since I froze last year and drowned this year, my guess is I'll be pelted with golf ball-sized hail next April. And while I'm lying unconscious on the ground, some area track officials will kick me in the head.
Best T-shirt slogan: "Running won't kill you. You'll pass out first."
Top quotes
Spring quotes I loved the most: Usually in these columns, I pull a few favorites from other stories (by other reporters) in our paper. This is the first time where all the quotes came from my interviews.
UIt's hard to pick a favorite Cuevas quote (I'm going to miss her), but I'll go with one from the state meet. She was talking about getting the handoff from Jessica Moore in the 4x800 relay when she turned to Moore and said, "Your eyes were so big. You looked like you had seen a dead body."
USouth Range sophomore Dan Nemergut started to tire at the end of the 3200 in the Division III regional meet, but held on to place third and make it to the state meet (where he also placed third). When asked what he was thinking over the final 100 meters, he said. "I was just trying to get top four and live."
UAt the East Palestine Invitational, Beachy was watching her teammate, junior Brittany Durkin, run the 800. Durkin was in second place when Beachy made a prediction. "She won't get passed," Beachy said. "I'll cut off my left pinkie finger if she gets passed." (She didn't.) "See? She took second. My pinkie finger is safe."
UI asked McCluggage whether he grew his hair out to look like Steve Prefontaine's. He did. "But this isn't the 'Pre' look right now," he said. "This is the 'Too lazy to get it cut' look."
UBy the end of the state meet, Grayson was tired of track -- and of talking to reporters. "I haven't had junk food in three or four months," she said. "I have five doughnuts waiting for me when I get done and you're keeping me from them."
XJoe Scalzo is a sportswriter for The Vindicator. Write him at scalzo@vindy.com.