Following her fifth-place finish in the women’s 1,500 at Hayward Field Friday, July 29, U.S. Olympian Emma Coburn’s eyes began to wander toward the scoreboard as she addressed the media.
Coburn did her best to field questions, but when the gun for the women’s 800-meter race went off, she laughed and said, “I’m sorry. I’m gonna go cheer for Team New York in just a second.”
Coburn was one of many athletes who found themselves enamored with the team aspect of the inaugural TrackTown Summer Series meet on Friday. The meet featured four 35-athlete teams representing Portland, San Francisco, New York and Philadelphia, each of which competed for a team title and cash prizes.
The Summer Series offered the first major team-based professional track and field event in recent history. It also broke the mold of a typical professional track meet and provided a loose, carefree environment that pro track athletes rarely experience.
Athletes weren’t as concerned with beating a certain time. “I kept thinking about how close the team score was,” men’s 1,500 meter winner and San Francisco runner Colby Alexander said. “That kind of brought me back to the [University of Oregon] days, the high school days. This is a lot of fun; I was only hearing positive stuff from other athletes.”
San Francisco won the team event with 179 points, largely due to a personal-best effort from Alexander and a first place finish from high jumper Erik Kynard. The winner of each event earned a $4,000 prize, and Team San Francisco received a $36,000 check as a team following the award ceremony. Non-profit TrackTown USA announced before the meet that up to $500,000 would be distributed to athletes.
TrackTown USA President Vin Lananna spearheaded the event, which was squeezed into a two and a half hour time window in order to air on ESPN, partially to draw attention to the American track scene and spark fan interest. However, the event is also intended to give U.S. track and field athletes a chance to compete on a large stage — and earn a living — without having to travel overseas. Lananna hopes to expand the series to three meets next year and five meets the following year.
Amid the success, there was also a bit of mystery to the process. While a draft was held on June 25, it was never made clear who was pulling the strings on draft day. Numerous athletes from all four teams said that there was no head coach and no general manager for any of the teams. Triple jump runner-up and San Francisco athlete Omar Craddock didn’t know he had been drafted until fans started bombarding his notifications on Twitter.
“I don’t know half the people on my team; or didn’t know them until now,” Craddock said in an interview during the meet. “It’s so much fun […] I really hope it catches on, I hope it gets more sponsors and I just really hope the ratings on ESPN are going up right now.”
TrackTown USA went above and beyond to make the meet as athlete-friendly and fan-friendly as possible. Younger fans were allowed to sit by the triple jump pit and high-five competitors between attempts. Every fan in the stadium was invited to move down to the rail along the track in order to get a close-up view of the co-ed 4×400 realy, the final event of the night. Athletes also passed out their race bibs to fans after their races.
“I love the community feel of it,” Team New York runner Jessica Tebo said. “It was funny racing and hearing people yell ‘Go New York!’ at me. It’s easy to be kind of jaded with track and field in this day and age, and it was really refreshing to see a group of people who have their hearts in the right places and are doing really positive things to better the sport.”
Follow Jarrid Denney on Twitter @jarrid_denney