Unofficial Men’s Track and Field Team Makes Debut

There were some new faces competing at the PLNU Collegiate Invitational on March 24.

Jonny “Life of Pi” Macedo, freshman nursing major, Trent “The Anchor” Sarver, senior biology-chemistry major, Seth “The Ringer” Wilkie, sophomore biology-chemistry major and Cole “Showtime” Wofford, sophomore applied health science major, competed as an unattached, unofficial Men’s Track and Field team, coming in fourth in the 4 x 100 relay.

The Point: Why did you enter the meet?

Trent: It was actually Seth’s idea about eight months ago, and then I was sitting at lunch and realized that you could enter as an independent team, because we were sitting with track girls. Then I walked out of the caf and saw Jonny and Cole, and said, ‘You guys want to do it?’

Jonny: When Trent asked me, I thought it was hilarious. When I told some of the girls on the track team, they just made fun of me, so that motivated me more.

TP: Did you need matching T-shirts?

All: Not technically, but we just wanted to look more official in representing the PLNU Men’s Track team. If you’re not going to wear track spikes, you at least need to have matching T-shirts.

Cole: None of us had spikes, we all had tennis shoes on, so we wanted to make a lasting impact.

Trent: The shirts were donated by ASB. I made an unofficial declaration of four T-shirts.

TP: Can you tell me about the track meet?

All: There were like 14 schools, about 700 athletes. Point Loma just had women [competing], but there were a lot of guys there, too.

Jonny: We honestly had the biggest student section to come out and watch—they had signs for us, they were laughing the whole time, but we just wanted to show them that we’re actually fast. We had to prove them wrong, it’s a personal thing.

Trent: When we went to our first training, we walked on the track and the women’s team was like, ‘Hey, track athletes only,’ and we’re like, ‘Yeah, that’s us.’

TP: So you went to trainings?

Seth: Yeah, two. One of the girls on the team who does relays helped us to do handoffs and learn the zones. We practiced for a total of maybe 50 minutes.

TP: Can you tell me about the day of the meet?

Jonny: We were warming up on the track with all these other schools and they were just looking at us, and you could tell that they didn’t really like us.

Cole: We weren’t doing the right stuff—these guys had stretches and routines, and we were just doing some hammies and lunges and these guys were looking at us like we were crazy.

Seth: They were doing sprint warm-ups and we were doing football and soccer warm-ups.

Trent: One of the best parts is being able to drink the Gatorade for the athletes.

Jonny: There’s something special in that Gatorade—it made me faster to be honest.

TP: Do you think you’ll do this again?

Jonny: Yes, we’ve got to hold down the team. We’ll probably have tryouts, because it’s not just about if you can run, it’s about personality and your heart—you’ve got to be dedicated to the team.