Junior Steven Sweet runs hurdles and pole vaults for the track team. A typical practice for him consists of two hours perfecting his technique of hurdling, then he works on his form for pole vaulting.
“I usually start with hurdling and I do a one step drill just on the trail leg. I go on vault for an hour and I start with a three step to warm up,” Sweet said.
Practice and hard work is what makes an athlete succeed in a sport. Sweet is self-motivated and self-disciplined.
Sweet believes that the repetition of practicing his events is what has helped him improve this season.
Recently, Sweet attended a big meet at Saline. Before the meet, he wasn’t able to practice vaulting, which caused his performance in the meet to be less than his best.
“I didn’t clear very well in the pole vault because I hadn’t done it in 5 days,” Sweet said.
In the end, the athletes that don’t put the effort in at practice are the ones who aren’t going to see improvement or learn any valuable lessons that come from being on a team.
During practices, athletes tend to watch Sweet and follow his footsteps. He is a natural born leader and his skills are clearly shown when he does what he is told and other kids want to practice with him.
The track team has 100 athletes on the team and it is fairly easy to get away with not practicing and goofing off.
“There are a lot of kids that aren’t respectful and they don’t practice as hard as they should. It doesn’t pay off because you see that in every meet when there are kids that try really hard and they kick butt and everyone else gets left in the dust,” Sweet said.
He worked in the offseason with coach Chip Aymer to get his technique down to only take three steps in between the hurdles. Sweet isn’t lagging in time compared to last year because he put in the work to improve.
Sweet’s effort and work has paid off and is recognized by coach Aymer.
“Now he is able to run through the hurdles and not have [them] be an issue. He is clean and not hitting hurdles,” Aymer said.