Butler indoor track athletes chase ever-better numbers
BUTLER TWP — One runner.
That's how the Butler Area High School indoor track and field program got started nearly 20 years ago.
It's flourishing now more than ever.
“The daughter of a school board member drove to Fitzgerald Field House (University of Pittsburgh) because she wanted to compete in an indoor meet there that winter,” Mike Seybert, one of Butler's longtime track coaches, said in recalling the program's origin. “It snowed that day, and she had a hard time getting back home.
“The board member wondered why we didn't have an indoor team, why she had to make that trip alone. The following year, Butler had an indoor track program,” he said
It began as a club program with about 30 kids. It's since mushroomed into a varsity sport and has 80 athletes competing today.
Butler's outdoor track and field program has won numerous WPIAL team championships, but the team practices wherever it can find the room.
The runners run through the empty halls of the Intermediate High School after school. The throwers practice in the upper room of the high school gym. The jumpers practice with a makeshift approach and pit in the football locker room in the Annex building.
This is an excerpt from a story that appears in Sunday's Butler Eagle.
