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Show High school track team is bucking the odds by Dave Adler Whatever success the Park City High School track team enjoys this season will have to be viewed in light ' of the tremendous disadvantages it faces. An appropriate theme for this i team, to steal a movie title, might well be: "Against All Odds." The Miners have no track on which to practice; they have only six hurdles, and they are without pole vault facilities. In addition, they lack ! much of the equipment a high school track program ought to have. And so they run on the streets and practice in the high school gymnasium and hallways. But Bill Kahn, in his second year as coach of the track team, is not complaining. In fact, he has a sense of humor about it. He laughs when told that these are the conditions that launched Jim Thnrpe to national and Olympian fame about 75 years ago. "I'm basically rebuilding the program," said Kahn, who enjoyed the facilities of a quality track program for 14 years in Urbana, i Illinois. "But I expect that we'll do pretty well we have some talented and hard-working kids on the team," which numbers about 60 athletes altogether. In the season-opener at Morgan, against both Morgan and Dugway, the Miners came out on top. The girls earned 82 points, while Morgan scored 73 and Dugway six. The boys racked up 84 points to capture first while their rivals each earned 45 points. The Miners featured several triple winners. Scott Tatum, whom Kahn says "usually wins the events he enters," scored a triple victory, Tatum took firsts in the long jump as well as in both the high and low hurdles. Mark Knudsen swept victories in the high jump and the shot put, and Mike Richards captured both the mile and two-mile events. The boys' 400-yard relay team, composed of Matt Mapstone, Eric Simpson, Bruce Buckner and Eric Hales, was also victorious. For the girls' team, freshman Ena Eakins led the way with victories in the mile, one-half mile and two-mile runs. Katherine Willard added wins in the long jump and the 300-meter hurdles, and Holly Elkins won the 100-yard dash. Also victorious was the 400-yard relay team of Brigitte Price, Tracy Stottem, Elkins and Willard. A week ago (April 10), at an invitational hotH hv East High - 4 School, the girls finished second behind Judge Memorial, and the boys took third, behind West and Judge. Perhaps the biggest surprise of that meet was Bruce Buckner's first-place victory in the shot put. It was the first time Buckner had ever thrown the shot in a meet. Ena Elkins again paced the girls, with wins in the mile and two-mile events. Teammates Shelley Barnes and Wendy Smith captured the discus throw and high jump events respectively. The Miners traveled to Union on Tuesday to challenge Union and South Summit, after this issue went to press. "They have an advantage," advan-tage," said Kahn. "They both have tracks." So it goes: Against All Odds. |