by Jazmine Otey
“With track you can never be cocky, someone is always coming for you. It’s 80% mental, you have to train your mind to think ‘what do I gotta do to get to the next level, how do I get to my next best?’”
This message was fervently expressed by Virginia Raptors Track Coach David Cabbler who is incredibly enthused about his team’s success in the ESPN Commonwealth Games held at Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, FL July 7-15.
The team members from the track and field organization “Virginia Raptors” took Cabbler’s leadership and words of wisdom, along with six other coaches and ran with it, literally. During the days of excitement and anticipation that led up to the big day, the team members worked themselves hard and strove for nothing but excellence in preparation for the ESPN meet.
The Virginia Raptors is a track and field organization that has existed for nearly four years. It features kids ages 5-18 and encourages kids from all schools within the Roanoke Valley to participate. Practices are held at Patrick Henry’s track on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays at 6:30, with a total of six coaches push- ing the members towards self-improvement and expansion regarding their athletic skill.
“The good thing about track is that it’s an individual sport, you’re really exposed. It’s not like a team sport where the team might be doing well but you’re not growing,” Cabbler said.
During training, the coaches made it their priority to not only give the members good experiences and try to better their character but push them past their limits. Coach Cabbler believes that if you can run a 400mm during a race you can run any race in track and field. Regardless of what’s expected in a meet, the team members are challenged to practice more than what they need so that when the event comes it’ll come easier.
This realm of thinking is very beneficial, especially for larger competitions like the ESPN Wide World of Sports. If a team member moves onto further rounds such as semi-finals or quarter finals and don’t have enough stamina to run another round it could be detrimental to whether they are awarded.
“We chose the ESPN meet because you get to see that the competition nation-wide is stiff, you might be top dog here but it’s a whole nother ball game in nationals,” Cabbler said.
It wasn’t easy for the non-profit organization to pull everything together. Many coaches and parents had to come together to car- pool the team to Orlando, Florida making the nearly eight-hour drive.
The ESPN event lasted for an entire week and was a big venue for sports such as soccer, basketball, and track. Each day different team members ran and it was broken down based on age groups, starting off with the younger kids and getting onto the older age groups as the week progressed.
But although the members were faced with a multitude of challenges, like at times where some members had to compete with track runners who were older or bigger in size, the Virginia Raptors didn’t let this hold them back. The team had three team members Savion Webb, Micah Jones, and Major Jonemake All-Americans by placing 1-8th place in their category.
“The ones that did well were at that competition before the previous year, it shows you that that experience paid off,” Cabbler stated, referring to Savion Webb and Micah Jones.
“All of our team members have the character to wanna keep going and better themselves,” Cabbler concluded “It’s not just about track, a lot of its about being a better citizen, bettering yourself—even trying to put yourself in a position where maybe you wanna be a coach in the future.”
