An Inside Interview with a Track Athlete

Ja'Cey Simmons, Staff Reporter

What’s your name?

Kayla Crump

What is it about track and field that interests you?

Track makes her happy and she’s always excited about the season coming up and making memories all over again. She loves having the ability to run, like being able to pass people, hearing her coach  loud voice in the crowd, and also like how a lot of people expect so much from her and motivates her to go above and beyond.

When did you start liking this sport?

She has always liked to run ever since young age but I her passion grew more while in the 6th grade.

How do you prepare before meet days?

She usually gets herself in “mode” to the point where she’s in a completely focused zone. She hype herself up and stay in a positive mood by listening to music or just giving herself a mental pep talk.

What do you do to get yourself focused before getting in you lane?

Mainly she does all the same things making sure she’s focused, give herself a mental pep talk, visualizing the track of what she’s going to do. Also as being a senior leader, she goes and talks to her other hurdle teammates and make sure they have a positive attitude towards their race.

How do you attack running with your competition?

When the gun pops, her start is mainly her target to coming out strong and attacking everything in front of her as they have their different positions “stagger”, she uses the combination of the faster your arms pump, the faster your legs go and breathes heavily to let the competition ahead of her know that she’s coming.

What do you do in the off-season?

During the off season, she decides to workout just to keep in shape but however this year will be her first year doing AAU so she’ll be doing that to prepare herself for her first year of college.

Since it’s senior year, what will you miss about high school/ high school sports?

Kayla will be missing her friends who motivated her to keep pushing, supported her along the way, and missing some teachers who gave her a little more knowledge along her four years of high school.

Who’s your inspiration/ role model? Why?

She doesn’t have a specific role model or someone that inspires me, although she has a lot of people that root for her and so therefore they encourage her to do better because they believe she  can reach every limit and it helps a lot because sometimes she may think that she can meet the expectations they want her to meet.

Where are you attending for college?

Bemidji state in Minnesota

What are some of main goals going into college?

Her mains goals consist of her becoming a better runner and fixing all of the minor tweaks she has as well as having a great transition from high school to college.

Memories and Experiences throughout the four years of sports?

She has many memories that were created, she had ones where she fell, her freshman year. She fell going up the bleachers and got an “concussion”, She stated, “My coach still makes fun of me today and says I faked it”. Sophomore year, she fell on her face at sectionals for the 100 hurdles. Everybody said she had the best/worse fall and nobody can compare. Another great memory is where the team was all watching the races, getting excited about the 4by4 and being amazed by the times and how fast they run. Those are the best ones.  

Any setbacks?

One set back would be her form she has “two trail legs” as teammates and coach calls it. She thinks that if she was to have a normal form, it would help her over the hurdle faster, do less work and would also help with 3 stepping in between the hurdles.

Any records?

300m hurdle (44.84 seconds)