This pasted Sunday we had our Annual Awards Program.  As I said in my last post, this has been an interesting season to say the least.   Our season began with our winter indoor conditioning program ended abruptly after only 2 weeks when the roof collapsed at the SportsDome and ended on a cold and rainy day that seemed more like late autumn than the 3^rd week of August.

Every season the selection for our team awards gets harder and harder.  But the kids voted and I think they got it right.  We had several athletes score over 100 individual points, with Tiffany Strayer being this season high point athlete with 170, followed by Katrina Rettburg’s 124, JaSmyn Martin 104 and Robyn Umbles with 102.  We had 2 athletes make honorable mention All-American, Tiffany Strayer in the hepthalon and long jump and Andy Moore in the 400 Intermediate hurdles. We had 2 national qualifiers, Andy Moore(400 IH) and Gabe Sciarretti in the 3000 meter run – keeping our string of national qualifiers at 19 out of 21 years we’ve been coaching.  Overall 2007 was another fine season for the Flight101 Jets Track and Field Club.

Based on the voting by their fellow athletes, this years team awards went to:

• Rookie of the Year            Katrina Rettburg and Luther Anderson
• Most Improved                 Robyn Umbles and Anthony Rienhard
• Most Valuable Athlete     JaSmyn Martin and Andy Moore

The great thing about most of our award winners is that they are all at the bottom of their age group and we look forward to them having and even better season next year.    Our older kids are already starting to get noticed by college recruiters and we’re sure that all of our kids are going to have a great school year and spring track season.

Last but not least, we also recognized those athletes on the team that did well in the classroom last school year.   Our 2007 High Flying Scholars, with a grade point average of 3.0 or better were, Zaria Jones, Taylor Thompkins, JaSmyn Martin, Michael Sommers, Gabe Sciarretti, Jazmine Sommers, Anthony Rienhard, Justin Trawick and Andy Moore. 

Finally, we have to mention our littlest Jet and diva, Serena Sommers, she was dressed to impress at the awards program – You go girl!

Again, a special thank you to my wife Tiwatha and Mrs. Connie Williams for putting together this years program, to Coach Trawick for helping us out again this year and to you parents for supporting your youngsters and allowing us to work with them.

Look forward to seeing you guys next Spring!

From the Flight Deck

Coach M