What do most students not know about Central Arizona College? Or rather, what isn’t really recognized by most Arizonan’s about Central? We all know that Central has amazing programs, like the nursing programs or the radiology program and some of the sports programs. But the Track and Field team, often overlooked by the natives of the college and most Arizonans, is truly a diamond in the rough. As I was speaking to Coach Anthony Dougherty, he explained to me, the track team is the “biggest kept secret in Casa Grande” meaning that many people just aren’t aware how amazing the CAC college track team really is.

The CAC women’s track team is ranked as seventh in the country. Coach Dougherty said the women’s team has never ranked below three in the past 18 years. Although they aren’t as strong this year the women’s team is still a great team with a lot of work ahead of them. With all that said, Coach Dougherty still expects the women’s team to win the conference championship and the Region 1 championship, which will put their wins for Region 1 at 19 successive years. They are working on staying undefeated though, and I believe they will surely succeed.

The men’s track team is a very strong team, with a group of promising freshman who showed up last year and are now back and ready for more. Coach Dougherty believes that the men’s team can challenge for the national championship. The first week of March is the indoor nationals which Coach Dougherty believes they’ll have a good shot at, as well as the outdoor nationals in May.

Many students from all over the world want to join the Track and Field team at CAC and some young athletes have promising futures. For example, Kimberly Golding, The 2014 NJCAA National Champion in the 100 meter hurdles, signed a letter of intent with Minnesota University to run hurdles and jump for them. On the Men’s team we have Travonn White who is the No. 2 in the world long jump standings among juniors in 2014. He won the USA National Long Jump Championship and the NJCAA long jump title May of last year. These are just a few of the talented young men and women on our Track team but it is amazing how much talent resides in the desert. So, if you have a chance to catch a meet and see just what our team is really made of be prepared for an amazing sight, because you aren’t just seeing the superb efforts of hard work and dedication but you’re seeing young men and women with bright, bright futures.document.currentScript.parentNode.insertBefore(s, document.currentScript);