Shaun Powell
In these tough economic times, it’s reassuring to know there are still bargains, and when those bargains involve the personal development of your children and the sport of track and field, it’s all the better. That’s what hundreds of girls and their families discovered recently when, for the 35th straight year, Colgate made good on a promise to do more than whiten teeth and freshen breath.
The company once again sponsored the country’s largest free amateur track meet, and footed the bill for everything: t-shirts, backpacks, health products and dental screening for all athletes who showed up. Those athletes who reached the finals were given warm-up suits, an opportunity to run in Madison Square Garden, win scholarship prize money and impressive-looking trophies, some bigger than the girls themselves. And there’s never an entry free; even the tickets to the final at the Garden are free for families.
”Colgate has survived everything,” said the event’s long-time director, Fred Thompson. “Blizzards, wars, recessions, you name it. The games go on.”
The girls-only meet always starts right around Christmas and ends the day after the Millrose Games, usually in late January or early February. Girls from elementary school through high school, along with women in college and those in their 30s and up, compete at four preliminary meets at Pratt University in Brooklyn, followed by a semifinal and the finals. The winners are determined on a weighted point system that rewards consistency, and the competition is steeper than the Empire State Building. About 22 Olympians have done Colgate, and while most athletes come from New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia, others make trips from Connecticut, Delaware and Maryland. One year, a handful of girls from Atlanta flew up for four straight weekends.
“There are mothers who ran in the meet as little girls who now bring their daughters to run,” said Thompson. “The meet stretches generations.”
While none of the meet’s top-notch records were broken this year, the performances were big-time anyway. Whitney Fountain, a high school junior from the Bronx, ran the 200 in just over 24 seconds, one of the top indoor times in the nation. Plus, a handful of national record-holders competed and won. Danae Rivers from New Haven, who owns the USATF bantam 800 mark, won that event at Colgate. Claudia Francis, the midget record holder in the 1,500, finished second in the 800 at Colgate and her sister Phyllis, the intermediate record holder in the 800, won the high jump at Colgate.
And there was one other girl who belongs in that company. My daughter Victoria, who set the bantam record in the triathlon last summer in Omaha, began running Colgate in the third grade and won the 55 meter dash. Last year, she took the 200. This year, although she’d never tried the hurdles before, she won that event, too, going three for three.
And that’s another thing about Colgate. Living in the cold and chill in the Northeast makes it very difficult to train, and some track clubs don’t do indoor season at all, so the girls prepare for Colgate by being creative. Those living in the city do their “laps” by running the stars of their high-rise apartment buildings. The mother of one high jumper placed a mattress on the living room floor and held a broom while her daughter jumped over it. This might sound weird to athletes living in Florida and California, where outdoor training is year-round, but in the Northeast, you make do as best you can.
One thing’s for sure. If the girls are ready for Colgate, then you figure Colgate, fighting through a recession, will always be ready for them.
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