Seems like somebody's getting the axe....What will happen?
http://georgetowntrackandfieldexposed.blogspot.com/
"You're Black Don't be a"
Hi my name is Stefanie Kurgatt. That is me in the middle, on my signing day. And those are my parents. At this very moment, when this picture was taken, I had just put the Georgetown hat on after signing to run Track and Field for them. Right at this moment I knew I had made my parents proud. Those smiles lifted me higher than ever before. This was a day I had been waiting for since I was a little girl.
Two years later I sat in my coaches’ office. My hands were crossed with my ears listening closer than ever before to these very words: “You are disrespecting your family, your teammates and me”.
And just like that I was fighting for my right to be on the track team. But my coach told me that running is a privilege and he can take that privilege away. But I now wonder.. Can it be taken away if you have not done anything wrong? When rules are followed a privilege becomes a right.. and my right was taken away from me.
Below I will tell not only my story, but a story of watching something you love, something you’ve worked hard for be taken away against your will. This is not just my story, but also my teammates.
Seven years of running, and only one goal. To get a scholarship to a Division I school. This meant that I had to sacrifice a lot of things in high school. But I knew it would pay off. Heading into college, with God’s grace I had managed to win 10 state titles, run 2:10 in 800m, 4:49 in 1600m, 10:39 in 3200m and 17:47 in 5K. At this moment schools were recruiting me across the nation and it was all very surreal. But in the end, I took a visit to Georgetown, and fell in love. I fell in love with the culture. A culture that seemed to have the athletes best interest in mind. I fell in love with the values. When I left that campus I knew I could see myself coming back and having the best 4 years of my life. I was looked in the eye by my future coach and was told that I was going to achieve great things at Georgetown.
I was sold. But little did I know, that I was being sold a product that did not have guaranteed warrantee. There was no lifetime value. This product, this program, it was simulated. I had gotten into a business that is competitive and does not hold any prisoners. But I found that I was not competing with fellow runners; I was competing with my coaches. As I was competing to stay on the team, they were contending to get me off.
My freshman year at Georgetown, I was not adjusting to the training. I quickly went from 40 miles a week to 60 miles a week. My cross-country season was mediocre. I went from running 8 miles as a long run to one day running 16 miles. Very quickly I got hurt. This is where the businesses becomes faulty. College athletics revolves around numbers, around who is on top. Competing for a division I school, one with very high regards I knew the goal for me, my teammates, and coaches was to be at the top. Since I started running that was always the goal for me, so it was not anything I was not willing to work for. But how can you be on top when your machine is malfunctioning? Yes, I felt like a machine, with no off button. I would tell my coach that I am feeling pain, the same pain I experienced when I had stress fractures in high school. I was told time couldn’t be wasted, if it does not hurt that bad then we need to train through it. I would take two days off and try to run again; with the same feeling I would complain and would receive the same response. On top of that, I was being told that I did not look like I wanted to be at practice, I was threatened to get kicked off the team by the head coach numerous times and I over heard coaches talking bad about me in the office. Now what is one supposed to do when all these things are attacking you at once? You press too many buttons on a machine at once it may potentially stop working.
Just like that… a year and a half had gone by. I had suffered an injury that could’ve been easily prevented if my coaches had listened. There weren’t any notable performances but a lot of notable comments. Words, when they are harsh are hard to forget. And I will never forget being told by my coach, “ you are negative, you talk bad about the program and Georgetown. You are only here to blame everything else but yourself”. My coach told me to take time off and when I come back there should be time standards I have to meet to remain on the team. But when I asked if I would still receive workouts from him, he sternly said no. Now, this just seemed like he was setting me up for failure. He wanted me to not attend practice, not receive workouts, not give me the amount of time my “break” was supposed to last AND expected me to come back faster. Not to mention when I complained to administration because I knew that “voluntarily withdrawing from the team” meant that I could lose my scholarship; my coach then claimed that he was unable to coach me due to coach athlete-relationship but he would still provide my scholarship.. A scholarship is what is providing for my education at this prestigious institution but if it was money that I was worried about I would have chosen to go to a different division one school that would have provided 4 years of full athletic scholarship as oppose to the 2 years I was receiving. Through all my anger, I could only help but laugh inside at this well thought out plan
But day in and day out, the coach instills negative comments, such as the ones mentioned above in a young athletes brains picking at them until they crack. It seemed like a technique used to get people to quit. Something I quickly noticed through other people’s experiences. In one year, five people including me were not on the team anymore. Conveniently, all five were minorities.
Now this is college, and I know the training changes from high school to college, but when an athlete who has talent is looking for help, wouldn’t you think that the coach would be willing to do whatever it takes and to work together with that athlete?
But unfortunately that was not the case for some. This is where my story becomes our story, my teammates story! A Track and Field Team in which coaches would tell us we are competing to be one of the best programs in the nation. But a track and field team which fell down to 2 female sprinters and one long jumper. Track and Field has over ten sprint and field events, but we do not even have 10 sprinters. How can that be? Well, when I asked why our team lacked diversity and equality I was told that, “we do not have a full size track because we are a distance school”. If anyone really knows what that means please feel free to enlighten me.
OHHH it all makes sense now! Because we don’t have a full size track.. This must mean that the sprinters get their gear last and less of everything. This means that their shoes do not come in on time, and they get used shoes. This means that they are not included in all the team emails. This means that it is okay to tell a black male athlete, “you're black don’t be a”! This means that it’s okay for teammates to be left behind on warm-ups, and to be asked if you speak ebonics by your fellow teammates at dinner. This means that you’re not to be invited to all the team events. This means that your coach, has the right to tell you that you are disrespecting your family.. as if he is part of it. This means that when you accidentally run into a girl during a team activity she is rushed to the emergency room, even though she is 4 inches taller than you, weighs more than you AND you were the one on the ground seeing stars. BUT yet YOU have to spend the next week apologizing to her. This is what it must mean to be a minority....
To be continued..
Posted 12 hours ago by Stefanie Kurgatt
