Gateway youth track and field athletes heading to AAU Junior Olympic Nationals

Last year in its inaugural season, the Gateway Gators Youth Track and Field club began with 60 athletes ages 7 to 18 before that number tailed off somewhat as the season progressed.

But both the coaches and athletes were able to draw a lot of positives from that first season, coach Brooke Rawls said, and the club came back strong this spring with close to 100 participants.

The successes across the board built since the season’s start in March to recent qualifying performances at the Amateur Athletic Union Region 4 national qualifier in Berea, Ohio.

Now more than three dozen team members are gearing up to test their mettle later this month at the AAU Junior Olympic Nationals from July 27 to Aug. 3 on the campus of North Carolina A&T in Greensboro.

“We’ve grown so much, and it is exciting to see the kids come in and improve a lot in their events and enjoy training and competing,” Rawls said.

“With it being our first year last year, we didn’t do the Junior Olympics. We just went to a national meet in Ohio. This year, we had to cut off the numbers because we had so many. We had a wait list. We wanted to make sure we took on a number all of the coaches could handle.”

Gateway is a member of USA Track and Field. With AAU not having a local district meet, the Gators athletes attended the USATF Three Rivers Association meet at Slippery Rock on June 22.

From Slippery Rock, Gateway declared to go to AAU regionals in Ohio as opposed to USATF regionals in New Jersey. The USATF youth nationals is in Texas.

“It was a nice meet for us at Slippery Rock,” Rawls said. “We performed really well, and it was a boost going into regionals. USATF and AAU are both great programs, and we know we are going to face quality competition. For us, again being a newer program, we wanted to go to a regional and national meet that was closer, and AAU was that for both. It just made the most sense with what we needed to do with raising money and other things related to that.”

Alexis Bansah, a rising sophomore at Gateway, is gearing up to run as part of the 400 relay and also compete in the triple and long jump in the 15-16 age division at nationals.

She placed first in the triple jump at regionals in Ohio, and third in the long jump and with the relay.

With the club practices beginning in March, some of the older athletes in junior high and high school were committed to their school team first.

“Being on the high school team, I wasn’t allowed to participate in club until high school track was over,” Bansah said.

“But as a student coach, it was fun to come to the track and be able to offer help and some advice to others on the team, including the younger ones in the distance, sprints and jumps. It felt good to be able to be there and serve as a coach until I could get out there and train myself.”

Being able to extend her school track season into summer training with the Gateway club team has been, Bansah said, beneficial to her development.

Also earning firsts at regionals were Caliah Mack in the 13U girls javelin, Diallo Harden in the 14U boys javelin, Olivia Jackson in the 14U girls 3,000-meter race walk and Sidney Wooten in the 15-16 girls 3,000 race walk.

Rawls, who attended Penn Hills and ran for the Penn Hills Eagles track and field club, said connecting the younger and older athletes in the program is of great value to all involved.

“We prepare them for it at the beginning,” she said. “Some programs will have workouts for the older athletes one day and the younger athletes another day. We do it all together. The younger athletes really look up to the older ones, and the for the older athletes, it’s a good reminder that someone is always watching you, whether it is a younger teammate or maybe a college recruiter. We always want to get the older ones into that leadership mentality. That is why we started the student coach program.”

The Gateway youth track program was born out of the Gateway Midget Football and Cheerleading Association. GMFCA president Kip Stewart helped spearhead the new spring and summer venture.

The name of the track and field club is Gateway, and Rawls said a majority of the athletes attend the Gateway School District, but there are team members from Penn Hills, Turtle Creek, Plum, Murrysville, New Kensington and Wilkinsburg.

“I think that helped us grow so fast because we came from an organization that was so familiar with youth sports,” Rawls said.

“Kip Stewart and a lot of others knew exactly what needed to be done for us to be successful right away. The school also has been great with their support for the program.”

Rawls said the coaches who give of their time to the program, many of whom are from Monroeville or Pitcairn, have a deep love for the communities.

“Many of us have been coaching or involved with youth sports in Monroeville for several years,” said Rawls, who also coaches youth cheerleading in GMFCA.

“Jacen Smith helps run our FOCUS Beyond the Field which is a free strength, conditioning, speed and agility program most of the athletes participate in from December to January for offseason conditioning. We emphasize ‘family’ and support our athletes all year round in whatever sport or activity they are participating.”