Time at Track is Nesbitt Family Time Too
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
April 19, 2017
Conversations in the Nesbitt house always seem to come back to track and field.
The fact that the father, Michael, is the cross country and boys track coach at Bay City Western, and his two children, Brendan and Sydney, are MHSAA Finals qualifiers in both sports is only part of the reason.
“Having my dad as a coach is different because he’s with you like every second of basically every day,” Brendan Nesbitt said. “When you’re at practice when he tells you something, he’s not telling you as your dad, he’s telling you as your coach. Then at home, he’ll switch gears. Even when we come home, we talk a lot about track or cross country, but that’s just because we’re really big track nerds.”
Time at the track is time with family for the Nesbitts.
Brendan is a senior at Western who finished seventh in the Lower Peninsula Division 1 meet a year ago in the 800 meters. Sydney is a sophomore who qualified in the same event her freshman year.
Michael has been coaching at Western for 19 years, and while recently his children have been a big part of that, they’ve never really been that far away.
“It wasn’t just my wife and myself raising the kids,” Michael said. “The athletes would babysit them on some nights, and they were teaching them to run hurdles and things like that.”
Running runs in the family, as both Michael and his wife, Deanna, were collegiate runners. Michael’s father, Jim, was his coach at Saginaw Valley State University.
During Michael’s childhood, while his dad was a high school coach, he spent time carrying athletes’ sweats, or anything else that would put him near the team and his dad.
Two decades later, Brendan – who also will run at Saginaw Valley – was doing the same thing.
“I’m the oldest sibling, so I didn’t have other siblings to look up to, I guess,” Brendan said. “I was always at the team dinners the day before the meets, and I had fun and looked up to them. They treated me like a little brother.”
Sydney, meanwhile, has had a unique experience. Not only did she grow up around the track and cross country teams, she also has had a brother on those teams – and at home – that she has admired and followed.
“During the summers I’ve been training with my dad and the high school team since like sixth grade,” she said. “I knew what Brendan was like, and how hard he trained, and I wanted to be like him.”
Brendan said he’s passed some knowledge onto his sister, for instance, like the importance of getting up each weekend and going for a run even when she’d rather not. But he said her teammates and her talent are doing the bulk of the work.
“Coming out of middle school, we knew she was going to be pretty good. We just didn’t know how good,” he said. “Since I’ve been on the team, she’s been around the high school team more, and she saw me and how I adjusted to high school races. When she came in, our girls team had a bunch of good older girls. My class is big on the girls side, and she knew a lot of them, so they taught her most of the stuff.”
They couldn’t give her what Michael did on the day of the 2016 MHSAA Finals, however. In her first time running at the meet – she had been there several times as a spectator – Sydney was too excited to be overwhelmed after watching her brother come from the middle of the pack in the boys 800 to run a personal best time of 1 minute, 54.85 seconds and earn an all-state medal.
While Sydney didn’t place among the top eight, she ran her own personal best of 2:18.14 to finish 17th in Division 1.
“It was always amazing to be at the state meet – the atmosphere was so cool – and I always wanted to be part of that,” Sydney said. “My brother ran before me and he got seventh in the state, so that was a huge motivating factor.”
It was, of course, a big moment for Brendan, too. He remembers making his final kick after hearing his dad and grandfather giving encouragement and guidance with about 250 meters to go. After he crossed the finish line, he looked back and the first face he saw was his father’s.
“I turned and looked at my dad right away,” Brendan said. “He’s standing at the 50-yard line and he’s holding up the numbers on his hand that he had on the hand timer. Basically, I walked over to him and gave him a hug, then gave my teammates a hug.”
Being the first person to greet a runner at the finish line is both a duty and a perk of being a coach. Being the first to greet your son after an all-state performance? That’s something else altogether.
“I try to internalize most of the dad part when I’m coaching,” Michael said. “I know it’s my son out there, but he’s also a runner for Western high school. He’s a runner for me on the track. But it was a pretty emotional moment when he earned his medal at the state meet. That’s a proud dad moment. That’s when it comes to reality – after the race.”
While he gets them in the fall and spring, Michael isn’t always coaching his children. Technically, he’s not the girls track coach, either. That job belongs to Rich Syring, although Michael is the distance coach, so he does oversee most of Sydney’s workouts.
During basketball season, however, he’s just dad.
“It was nice when they got into middle school and high school, I got to take the dad seat in the stands,” Michael said. “To be coached by someone else, that’s a good experience. You have to know it’s not dad out there, and that somebody else is going to yell at them. I like the basketball, just the idea of them getting exposure in a different sport. I think it helps them become not just a better runner, but a better athlete.”
Just because he’s not the coach, however, doesn’t mean his presence isn’t felt.
“For basketball, he doesn’t coach, but he’s definitely the loudest in the stands,” Sydney said with a laugh. “If something goes wrong, he’ll give me a look. I know what he’s saying just with that look.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) From left, Brendan, Michael, Sydney and Deanna Nesbitt at the 2016 Division 1 Finals. (Middle) Brendan Nesbitt, in yellow, works to move up from the middle of the pack during the 800. (Top photo courtesy of the Nesbitt family, middle by Carter Sherline/RunMichigan.com.)
Track Gaining Speed Toward Future with Electronic Starting Devices
By
Steve Vedder
Special for MHSAA.com
May 23, 2023
Aubrey Greenfield thinks it might be the perfect time to reevaluate 130 years of tradition.
For a number of reasons, from technical to personal, the Oxford senior sprinter believes it makes sense for the crack of a starting pistol to be eliminated from high school track meets.
Because track meets would benefit in various ways from lowering costs to easier setup at meets to the human factor of competitors not having to flinch at the crack of a pistol shot, Greenfield believes the sport has a chance to embrace new technology – electronic starting devices (ESD).
In essence, an ESD replaces the starting pistol with a light flash, tone sound or both to begin a race.
"High school sports should put the athlete first," Greenfield said. "We should promote sports, and eliminating starting pistols promotes health in terms of PTSD or trauma for athletes and spectators and that would be good. I would like to think people would say that's a good idea."
In fact, Greenfield would go as far as to say if there was not an implementation of electronic starting devices, many of her teammates would have considered giving up the sport.
"If it's something that helps us compete safely, we're all for it," she said.
Greenfield's opinion apparently is spreading. Michigan High School Athletic Association senior assistant director Cody Inglis said the use of ESD makes it both affordable for meet starters and sensible for athletes and fans to rethink the use of starting pistols. While the MHSAA is not mandating electronic starting devices, it does promote the use of what Inglis calls "emerging technology." He notes that ESD are becoming the norm for organizations such as USA Track & Field, the NCAA and an increasing number of high schools.
"I think we have to embrace new technology, and we think this will be something that takes hold," Inglis said.
A key part of embracing ESD is the human element. The tragic Oxford High School shooting Nov. 30, 2021, that took the lives of four students while injuring seven others should not be relived even for a fleeting instance at a high school sporting event. Oxford athletic director Tony DeMare said the school began using ESD at every meet, including the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 1 Finals last June. He said that decision was embraced by virtually all schools Oxford encountered.
"We were very convinced that the alternative (of ESD) would promote a healthy attitude," DeMare said. "We were overwhelmed with the positive response. If a school was on the fence about it or might not be for it, I think we've started to see the tide turn in favor of people willing to listen and learn about electronic starting devices."
Inglis said the MHSAA is acutely aware of what the crack of a starting pistol can mean to athletes and fans.
"It's unimaginable what Oxford went through, and this is a small way we can help," he said. "We look at a (starting pistol) and think, ‘Could we do something else?’ It's a way of helping to solve a problem."
Over the last several years, the MHSAA has embraced finding an alternative to starting pistols. Inglis noted the discussion started with the cost and diminishing availability of 32-caliber ammunition that meet starters use. A box of ammunition, if it can be found, is around $75 a box.
In addition to cost, there is potential damage from excessive exposure to 150-plus decibels of sound generated by the traditional 32-caliber blanks. Medical studies show damage to ears caused by decibel levels above 120 dB.
The tragedy at Oxford accelerated the conversation.
Inglis said the cost of ESD can be likened to a school sinking money into artificial surfaces at football fields. Yes, there is a great cost at first, but over time money is ultimately saved. An ESD system itself ranges between $200 and $500. Speakers also may need to be purchased, but with ESD starting events like the 800 and 1,600-meter relays positioned near the outside lanes 8, 7, 6 and 5 would result in improved hearing by athletes at the start of a race.
There is one challenge with ESD that track administrators are working to overcome – lighting conditions that lessen the ability to see the ESD’s LED light or strobe when the button is pressed by a starter to begin a race. But that vision difficulty resulting from clear blue skies and backgrounds of setting suns can be substantially improved by incorporating a black background with an ESD – something as simple as a starter holding up black cardboard behind the lighting mechanism at the start of an event.
Inglis said when all factors are considered, the use of ESD makes sense.
"With the climate we live in nowadays, no lookalike guns is good," he said. "We're not mandating this. But people are saying this is affordable."
While switching to ESD would break 130 years of tradition, the timing could be a step forward, said Jeff Hollobaugh, co-author of the book "The Fleet Feet of Spring: Michigan's High School State Championships in Track & Field." He said while no definitive answer is possible, it's likely starting pistols were used at the inaugural state meet at the Jackson Fairgounds in 1895. The meet, which included events like tossing a 16-pound shot put, bike races and a 100-meter sprint, was sponsored by the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Association (a predecessor to the MHSAA) and comprised mostly of the state's larger schools.
Hollobaugh's sentiments echo what many involved in today's high school track & field believe in terms of making a transition from starting pistols to electronic starting devices.
"It's a change, not necessarily good or bad, just different," he said. "It's not a drastic change, but it will take some getting used to. But it is the future. In the end, we'll all be fine."
DeMare believes the future of high school track will definitely include ESD.
"Our desire is that the practicality and sensibility of this will overcome the alternative," he said. "I think we'll see the automation and electronics taking hold of certain elements in track, and people will embrace it."
PHOTOS (Top) Runners watch official Bertha Smiley as they prepare to begin a race during last season's Lower Peninsula Division 1 Finals at Rockford. (Middle) An electronic starting device provided by VS Athletics was used to start those races. (Below) Smiley sets to begin an event. (Photos provided by David Kuderka/VS Athletics.)