Last month Chicago’s Olympic planners announced that they were going to ask Barack Obama and Michael Jordan to court the International Olympic Committee on behalf of the city’s bid to host the 2016 summer games. I have a better idea for our town’s biggest celebrities: forget the Olympics and give Conrad Worrill a call.
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So most kids show up for high school without a clue about the finer aspects of the sport. They don’t know how to use starting blocks or hand off batons. They can’t run the hurdles or do the high jump or long jump. As a result there are a lot of kids who don’t even try the sport and never realize how good they could be at it. “The city has a large pool of talent it’s not developing,” says Worrill. “Many of these kids wind up on the street.”
Even the city’s track powerhouses—Lane Tech, Whitney Young, Morgan Park, and Mather—are at a huge disadvantage, because though the winter season runs from January through March, there’s not a single public indoor track facility anywhere in the city. High school runners and hurdlers are forced to train in school hallways, while other athletes fight for practice time in overcrowded gyms. When the CPS holds its one and only winter track meet, it rents the facility at Proviso West in Hillside ($9,000) or at the University of Chicago ($7,000). “That they want to stage the Olympics here and then they don’t have one goddamn indoor stadium for these kids is outrageous,” says Worrill. “This is a goddamn contradiction.”
Last year Worrill and Higginbottom formed Friends of Track and Field. Their purpose is to shame, schmooze, or do whatever it takes to convince city leaders to build indoor facilities, reinstitute a Park District or elementary feeder program, and start a summer program.
“Ironically, Mayor Daley’s father was a big supporter of track, so let’s get on it,’ says Worrill. “What we need is a movement. How many more generations are we going to waste?”v
Sat 4/19, 9 AM
Hanson Stadium
5501 W. Fullerton, 773-592-2598
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