By Cassie Silkoff ’25
The Derby High School Indoor Track & Field teams competed at a variety of different facilities this season, including the track of Floyd Little Athletic Center, famously known as “The track at the F.L.A.C,” Wesleyan University’s Bacon Field house track, Southern Connecticut State University’s Moore Field House track, and Yale Universiy’s track at Cox Cage Fieldhouse. An indoor track is a facility that houses a 200-meter track where athletes compete during the winter seasons.
Each track is unique in its own way, some more than others. For example, Yale University’s track is banked. This means the surface of the track rests on a raised structure, which serves to incline the curves and balances the centrifugal force generated by the athletes. Essentially they are faster tracks than flat tracks because they have what track fanatics call a hill, which takes little to no energy out of you on the way up and gives you a little more momentum on the way down. Banked tracks “steal” a little less energy from distance runners, but the big effect is in the sprints – banked tracks allow for higher top speeds in the curves of the 300m and 500m, and especially the 4x200m.
The facility at Yale is a part of the athletics facilities for all university athletics. Location-wise, it is about a fifteen-minute drive from Derby High School. When you enter the building, the ceiling is low because there are bleachers above your head. The bathrooms are downstairs in what looks like a basement, but they are easily accessible. The track’s warm up area is a little tight, but for competing athletes only so you do not have random fans and parents taking up space. The 55-meter dash and hurdle runway is in the middle of the facility and serves as a warmup/stride area as well. The four-lane track is in great condition. The seating is a bit cramped and crowded, but gives you a great view of the whole facility. Matthew Nicolari, Head Track Coach exclaimed, “ It’s a high-profile college track so it’s really a great experience for high school kids to get to experience that.”
The experience was extremely positive. The officials were kind, the building was loud, and the races went well. Our 4×200 and 4×800 meter relays medaled and both ran personal best times. The only downfall of the track is the spacing. By far, Yale is the best track for racing and viewing races, if you get there on time to grab a seat!
Next up is “the track at the F.L.A.C.” This is the second best out of the four.
The Derby High School team spends the majority of their season there so it gets a little repetitive, however, the facility itself has plenty of seating. The track is flat but the set-up and spacing between events is very even. The ceiling is also very high and it’s located in New Haven as well, about twenty minutes from DHS. The track lanes were recently repainted, but some areas on the track need to be fully redone due to damage from spikes. In simple terms, track spikes create traction by penetrating the track surface, allowing athletes to run faster races. Some tracks do not allow pin spikes and limit the length of pyramid spikes to minimize damage to the track. The rail surrounding the inside of the track sometimes falls into lane one of the track causing some issues with races. The throwing area has a large outfield, the pole vault has its own runway, long jump has its own runway, and the track has 6 lanes all the way around so meets go a little bit faster. The 55 meter dash and 55-meter hurdle lanes are on the straightaway of the track so the running events and sprinting events cannot happen simultaneously. The seating is up on a balcony so depending on where you are sitting, you may miss some areas, however, there are more than enough areas to spectate from if you arrive to a meet early enough. You are not allowed to hang out on the infield because there are basketball courts, but there are other spaces that can be utilized to warm up.
The F.L.A.C hosts all league and state meets so chances are if you run indoor track in Connecticut you have competed there. Nicolari explains, “The air is stuffy, and kind of gross and the kids always feel like they get sick after competing there, but for such a complete indoor track this close to us we are very lucky.” Many kids have labeled the cough that you obtain after racing there as the “hillhouse hack,” however it doesn’t last very long. The facility provides cleaning services so the bathrooms always have paper towels and toilet paper, however, half of the bathroom stalls do not close. Overall, the track is definitely better than Wesleyan and Southern Connecticut State University’s tracks.
This is the longest drive that the Red Raiders made to compete so far this year. The building itself is very spacious, however, the setup inside the indoor track facility is poor. You are not allowed to bring in bags; they made us place them in the hockey rink which was very cold. The bathrooms were very nice and clean, however, there were only five stalls. The facility itself is very new but the set-up appears to be just for a training facility, not to host big meets. Nicolari rants, “I really liked the surface of the track; it was in pristine condition but there was no room to spectate. You were either standing on either side of the track or in the doorway.” There is no seating at all and the whole facility is flat, making it difficult to watch whole races, but the room itself is very spacious. You can utilize the whole infield aside from where the shot put sectors are located. The section is kind of odd because it is located on what appears to be a court of some kind and the lines for the sector are taped on. You cannot really tell where the outfield is, but many of our athletes threw very well. The long jump pit runway is located on the outer lane of the track so both events cannot occur at the same time. The 55 meter dash and hurdle lanes are on the straightaway, so multiple events cannot happen at the same time, either. The track itself is fast and many athletes competed well. Overall the track is not bad, but it has some flaws that make it lower on the list.
Lastly, we have Southern Connecticut State University’s track. This track is, to put it nicely, awful.
The track is located at Moore Fieldhouse on the campus of Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU). The campus is about 20- 25 minutes away from DHS depending on traffic. There is plenty of seating and restrooms, but the track itself is terrible. It feels like a carpet material rather than a normal rubber track. The long jump runway utilizes the outer lanes of the track, and the pole vault runway does the same. If you are running the 55 meter dash or hurdles, you will run directly into the pole vault pit; however, pole vault is simultaneously happening at the same time, so the SCSU track athletes stand at the end of the finish line and direct the finishing athletes away from pole vault which many times ends in collisions. There is a basketball court, a gymnastics arena, and the high jump area in the infield of the track which leaves little room for warm-up. The seating is raised above the track. When you run you kind of feel like you are running through a cave. When you are seated in the stands you cannot watch the full race of any event because of the positioning of the track being directly below. Nicolari remarks “Southern is really cool because they have a lot of our previous athletes there so we get to see some of them and Southern never runs a full meet line-up so the meets run faster.” When asked which he ranked last Nicolari responded “I rank Southern last, the track surface is not the best, it is probably the worst, out of all the ones we go to. I think Hillhouse needs to upgrade some things, however Hillhouse is significantly better than Southern.” The building itself is very old, the track is easily accessible but the flow of it and set-up need some work. All of these flaws land Southern at the bottom of the list.
Overall the indoor facility at Yale University is the most prestigious and spacious. The set up lacks flaws for viewers and the track itself is super speedy. This facility is definitely up to standards and can accommodate many. Ranking second is the F.L.A.C. The F.L.A.C is a complete indoor track facility that has plenty of space and little crossover between events. While the track itself can use some updates and gets a bad rep because of the constant meet schedule it is overall an amazing facility. Unsurprisingly, it ranks second as its strengths outweigh the flaws. Ranking third is Wesleyan. It is a beautiful facility but the lack of space and spectating areas as well as interference between events pushes it down the list. Coming in last is SCSU. While it is nice to have a facility like that close by, there are others who rank higher that are equally close indoor tracks that are better. Southern’s track feels like carpet and the interference between events is too critical to ignore. That is the most prominent reason for its placement at the bottom of the list. All in all, if you can convince your coach to attend a meet at Yale University, you will not regret it.
The Raider Press 