Saint Louis School has been known to be home to amazing athletes, whether that be football, basketball, soccer, track and field, or even air riflery. In the past couple years, the Track and Field program hasn’t been putting out results like it used to. The Track Program here at Saint Louis School has been undermined the past couple of years, with minimal to no titles to show for it.

The past few years Sacred Hearts and Saint Louis have had joined practices. Runners and throwers alike compete against each other to get better. The coaches for these two teams primarily came from Sacred Hearts. This posed a few problems for the Saint Louis team. Some SLS players felt as if they were not getting as much attention or coaching as the SHA players were getting. This trend and attitude during track season lasted 3 years, but this year, Saint Louis has revamped the track program in hopes of bringing it back to its glory days.

The first step was to separate the two teams. Instead of having them practice together, Saint Louis now practices first, from 3-4:30, following that Sacred Hearts comes on to the track from 4:30-6. This allowed both teams to practice against teammates similar to runners that they would compete against during their track meets. After this change, Saint Louis had to hire new coaches. Saint Louis turned to Alika Fonseca, Robie Fukuhara, and Keith Vegas, to turn our track program around. Coach Fonseca is in charge of the jumpers, while Coach Vegas the assistant coach for all events. Head coach Rob oversees all of the events as well. The 3 of them are working hard to shape these athletes into champions. On the other side of the track, the field throwers were also in need of a coach. This time, Coach James Hal stepped up. He is an O-Line coach for the football team with a background in field throwing. Coach Hal already has a few football players out and throwing for practice. Coach Hal is determined to get our throwers to States this year, putting Saint Louis back to where it once was several years ago. With this new coaching staff, Saint Louis turned the possibility of participating in a State Tournament into a reality.

When asked about his thoughts on the new coaching staff, Mitchell Quinn responded with: “Just be ready for another banner”.

I also got the chance to speak with Coach Fonseca, asking him how he felt taking up the role of Jumper Coach for the young track team: “I feel like it’s an opportunity to see more students and athletes grow from a young age, into their high school years. We are really focused on the older students who have potential to take a state championship this year, but a lot rests in the younger athletes who we are trying to grow and develop to maintain a strong presence in ILH Track.”