A break for Olympic athletes competing in the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials will equal a day of entertainment and activities for local children at Hayward Field today.
Both the field and the surrounding Eugene 08 Festival will shift their main focus toward youth activities by hosting an All-Comers Meet for kids 12 and under, and giving lessons in track and field techniques.
Beginning at 4 p.m., the Festival will kick off a five-hour series of music and dance performances, said Cindy Ingram, the Youth Day Festival stage manager.
Ingram said the Festival is about both celebrating youth and bringing the community members together to support their hard work in the same way they are supporting the hard work of the Olympic Trials athletes.
“We’re really excited to have a day to showcase the incredible talent of the youth in our community,” Ingram said. “All these kids who will be performing obviously have put a lot of work into what they will be showcasing.”
The Portland chapter of the Paul Green School of Rock Music is taking a trip down from Portland to perform at 7:50 p.m.
“This is something that is ideally suited for us,” said Carl Hinds, the band’s music director. “It is a youth day, we are a youth program. Our program is team-oriented. It teaches the kids to be accountable to the team members and to the fans to make all the songs as good as possible.”
The School of Rock’s band is made up of “the hardest working students from the music school and gives them the opportunity to play at a lot of different events,” Hinds said.
Hinds said the band is very impressive on stage.
“When people think of kids playing music, they think of elementary school recitals, but these kids sound like they are a real rock band and look like a real rock show,” he said.
At 4 p.m., the first group to hit the Festival stage in Track Town Plaza will be a group of Chinese exchange students that will be performing traditional Chinese songs. Following will be a performance by local youth hip-hop dancers at 4:50 p.m.
Ingram said that a group of Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics medalists, or ACT-SO, will be singing at 6:20 p.m. According to the Web site, it is “a major youth initiative of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP. ACT-SO participants compete in 25 different categories in academic, artistic or scientific areas at the local state level. Local winners then go on to compete at the National level.”
“This event sounds like it will give the local gold medalists the opportunity to perform on stage before going to Nationals,” said Tommie Wilson, the Omaha NAACP branch president.
The two-day All-Comers Meet will begin today at 4 p.m. in tandem with the opening of the Youth Festival, according to the Eugene 08 Web site. Today’s events are for children ages 12 and under. Wednesday will have events for youth ages 13 and up.
In addition to the meet, Eugene 08 will be hosting the Hershey Track & Field Youth Clinics in which Olympians Carl Lewis, Bruce Jenner and Rafer Johnson will give lessons in events including sprints, hurdles, long jump, high jump, turbo javelin, shot put and adapted shot put, according to the Web site of Oregon Track Club, which is a co-organizer of the meet.
Lewis, Jenner and Rafer will also sign autographs today from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.
The 2Rivers Track Club, another co-host, has a miniature track and field area set up on the lawn at the corner of 15th Avenue and Agate Street where children can race out of a pair of starting blocks and jump as high or far as they can.
“It’s a lot of fun,” said nine-year-old Emily Liu, exploring the Festival with her friends last week. “It’s our rec time right now, so we’ve just been wandering around.”
Trent Davis, a 2River’s Track Club member and recent high school graduate, volunteered to spend the day at the event with the children measuring their jumps and offering word of encouragement.
“I’m having a blast – it’s hot,” Davis said. “I like track and I like coaching and helping out the kids and getting them involved in track at an early age.”
Additionally, the Pacific Tree Climbing Institute has set up ropes on a nearby tree for children to climb to the top.
Both the 2River’s Track Club and the Tree Climbing Institute will be there for the entire 12-day festival.
The Olympic Trial events are scheduled to begin again on July 3.
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