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East 4x100 team motivated to show flair
By charles grove
YOUNGSTOWN
The East High School track team may not have the flash and flair of other large schools, but flair isn’t necessary when the Panthers are faster than you.
Wednesday, members of the East 4x100 relay team had their final practice at Chaney High School before today’s state competition. The track featured one lonely bleacher used back in Chaney’s football days, a few old goalposts and not much else.
But for Mike Lawrence and Michael Ramey, the first and second legs of the Panther 4x100 relay, it just adds to their motivation.
“We’re Division I but we don’t have the Division I equipment and stuff like that,” Ramey said. “But this is what we have to work with so it doesn’t really matter to us.
“It’s the person that matters,” Ramey said. “If you’ve got the equipment but don’t work hard then that’s all we need.”
Also representing East will be Jahniya Bowers in the 100 and Khiara Price in the long jump.
The relay team qualified for state by finishing third in their regional competition with a time of 43.02, just beating out Bedford by 0.11 seconds and Glenville by 0.16 seconds.
“To tell you the truth, I didn’t think we were going to make it because I didn’t think I met the standards of my teammates,” Lawrence said. “But once I gave it off, I felt great. My teammates are pretty dependable.”
After the first leg, Lawrence gave the baton to Ramey who saw Massillon Washington runners drop theirs. Ramey said that at that point he knew the Panthers were well on their way to Columbus.
“Once I saw Massillon drop the baton I thought, ‘Oh yeah, we’ve got this. We’re going to state.’ And I just started running harder.
After a year of persuasion, East head coach Jerron Jenkins finally convinced Ramey to join the track team. It’s Ramey’s first year participating at any level in track and the results speak for themselves.
“Coach Jenks told us, ‘This is the best program [at East]. You go to state every year.’ We don’t do that in football.”
Lawrence said he gets a big sense of pride knowing he gets to represent his school at the state level.
“This really gives us a bigger sort of pride because we know as a track team if we’re going to do good that can push our other sports to do better to try to get them as far as we did,” Lawrence said.
Preliminaries for the Division I track events will take place today at 4:45 p.m. and finals will be Saturday at 4:30 p.m. at Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium.
The Ohio State complex is a bit more upscale than the old Chaney football facility, and nerves will be high as the Panthers take the track.
“Nerves are pretty bad right now,” Lawrence said. “I don’t know what to expect. They told me it’s pretty crazy down there.”