Congrats Brooke!
Just about anyone that’s been in our gym knows that I have a small group of young high jumpers that I work with. There are three freshmen and a sophomore, all very talented, all with huge potential as jumpers. As I’ve written before, my son, one of those jumpers, has already had a lot of success and is the “experienced” one of the group with his two years of school and AAU/USATF experience. The rest have no more than two years experience and are working hard to improve their jumping skills with me and their leaping ability with our strength coach, J.R. Papernik. I like to tell them that I’ll get them to the bar, JR will get them over the bar…
Anyway, this weekend we had another one of our jumpers move up the ranks as Brooke Sassman (South Brunswick freshman) finished tied for second place in the Central Group IV Sectional in Toms River. Brooke has worked with us now for almost a year and I can’t even begin to express the transformation this young woman has had as a jumper in that short period of time. By finishing second in the Sectional meet she qualified for the Group IV State meet this weekend, again in Toms River, and I think she’s got a great shot at finishing in the top six there which would send her to the Meet of Champions.
As I told Brooke yesterday, the months of hard work will all be worthwhile when she steps on the track on Saturday to compete. So was seeing her name on the Jumbotron at the Bennett Center!
Speaking of the Bennett Center, if you have any interest in track, you have to see this place. Toms River Regional Schools built a bubbled track complex between and Elementary School and a Middle School that is just unbelievable. I’m trying to comprehend how and why they built it since it doesn’t look like they’ll be able to use it for winter workouts for baseball, softball, etc., but I could be wrong (I’m not guessing they are going to let baseballs fly around in there with that Jumbotron positioned where it is…). It had to have cost a small fortune to build it and to keep the bubble up and heat the place can’t be cheap. It’s amazing and I’m glad they have it, I just hope it’s successful.