With a different track and field record being broken seemingly every week this season, it may leave some people asking why the track and field record board displayed outside Spaulding Gymnasium is so out of order.
The current state of the record board has missing names, numbers, dates, and in some cases, even full events.
“It’s really important that we pay attention to how we celebrate our success,” said Keene State College Athletic Director Phil Racicot. “[The track and field record board] is something we do have to start paying a little bit more attention to.”
At the time of this article being written, the men’s outdoor section had 11 accurate records out of the 22 records displayed and the men’s indoor section had 10 accurate records out of the 20 records displayed. The women’s outdoor section had one accurate record out of the 20 events displayed and the women’s indoor section had five accurate records out of the 21 records displayed.
The board is also missing several events with records that are shown in the online record book, including men’s outdoor 4×800-meter relay, men’s indoor 1500-meter run, men’s indoor pentathlon, women’s outdoor steeplechase, women’s outdoor 4×800-meter relay, women’s indoor 55-meter high hurdles, women’s indoor 1-mile run and both the women’s indoor 4×200-meter relay and 4×220-yard relay.
“It’s absolutely a priority of mine to get our record board up-to-date,” said head coach of the track and field team Paige Mills. “Coming in here and seeing that it was still so out of date, you know, it happens; it’s easy to kind of forget those little things, but it means a lot, especially to the people who earned those records and they deserve to be on there.”
The most up-to-date and accurate records represented on the board are the records set in 2019 by the men’s indoor track and field team. Those records include the 400-meter dash set by Clinton Mungeta and the 4×200-meter relay set by the team of Angel Ramirez, Jared Hannon, Anthony Jennings and Mungeta. The two school records that the 2019 men’s indoor team tied are also represented with Ramirez’s name next to the 60-meter dash and Mungeta’s name next to the 200-meter dash.
However, all records broken by the women’s indoor and outdoor team in 2019 have not been updated, aside from the 100-meter high hurdle, which is held by Alexis Gauthier.
While Racicot said he was unsure why some of the men’s records would be updated but none of the women’s, he explained a future plan that would allow every record board to be constantly up-to-date.
“We are actually looking at doing a video display for the hall of fame and records, you know, anything Keene State athletics, and it would be a touch screen video display so that if you wanted to go and see all the track and field records it would be archived in there,” explained Racicot.
Mills, a Keene State and track and field team alumna, is also not represented on the record board in the cross country and track and field All-American sections along the bottom of the board.
“It would be nice to see my name on there too,” laughed Mills. “Lots of miles put into earning that.”
Gauthier, who was previously mentioned, commented over email on the state of her own record on the board outside the Gym. Her record, which is for the 100-meter hurdles, has her name as “Alexis G” with no time or year.
“The board is in the corner and we don’t update it that often, so I don’t mind. All our records are online,” explained Gauthier.
Racicot also took the time to explain that it wouldn’t be long before Kyle Shadeck, whose lack of record representation was covered in an Equinox article last semester, would have his own record put up on the record board in the pool area.
“Apparently Chris [the head coach of the swim and dive team] had put in a couple of work orders and it just never happened,” explained Racicot. “But we’re actually doing construction in the pool area this spring, in April, so there will be some major work done on the roof, so everything that is in there has to come down.”
Racicot explained that once the record board is taken down for construction, Shadeck’s record will replace the old one.
As for the track and field record board:
“We have a great history of success and we do have to start thinking about ways to honor that and obviously be respectful of how the current programs are built on the success of the past, so we have to do a little better at how we honor that,” said Racicot.
Claire Boughton can be contacted
at cboughton@kscequinox.com
