Long after the high school season, Panther track will still be hard at work.
Through the last four years they’ve been one of the state’s best programs, earning 12 top-5 finishes at state meets between winter and spring. Having consistently punched above their weight, Franklin will try to level the playing field this summer.
“If you look at how the state championships shake out, I think 12 of the 16 indoor teams that brought home a trophy from the state meet, whether that be first or second place, were all from Charlotte,” said head coach Matt Harlfinger. “I told the kids that over your four-year career, if you did exactly what was expected of you, you'd compete and train from August through May. And that would be perfectly awesome, and we'd appreciate that. But these kids in Charlotte are training three more months every year, so by the time you graduate they've put in a full year’s worth of work ahead of you – four years times three months. Then they go to the state meets their senior year, and kids from Charlotte are breaking state records.”
More than an hour from the nearest metropolitan area, Franklin teams in every sport have long been at a disadvantage. While they’ll never have the same opportunities as teams from urban hubs, the Panthers hope to begin to bridge the gap.
“We're probably a year or two away from having a full-fledged youth summer track program, but I'm spearheading the MoveMore Elite track and field team this summer. We made uniforms, and we're working on a meet schedule and finding some track meets for the kids to continue going to,” said Harlfinger. “The major advantage that kids from the bigger cities have is access to year-round facilities, year-round training, year-round coaching. These kids that just wrapped up at the state championships, if you're from Charlotte it's like, ‘Well, which summer team are you going to run for?’ They've got three or four summer programs that have 200-plus athletes, and you just kind of choose your alliance and continue on until basically the end of August.”
Based out of Harlfinger’s Franklin gym, MoveMore Elite should help athletes continue their training under the watchful eyes of his state title-winning staff. As part of a first-draft summer schedule, some athletes are training for an even bigger stage.
“We have a couple of kids that are going to train for nationals, and that'll be in mid-June,” Harlfinger said of the Adidas Track Nationals in Greensboro June 18-21, to which Franklin has sent athletes for the past few years. “And then we found a couple other little track meets here and there over the next couple weeks that some of the kids had expressed some interest in. UNC Asheville is hosting a track meet June 5 and 6, so that could be a little tune-up meet.”
“[Nationals] garners a lot of interest from the kids in our program, because they've got a couple different divisions. You've got your Freshmen Division, which I don't believe has an entry standard, so if you're a freshman in high school you can just go compete at a national championship, whether you're fast, slow, good, bad, whatever,” he continued. “Then there's the National Elite Division, where if you qualify for the state championships, you've qualified for the National Elite Division. … And then if you want to compete in the Championship Division and earn All-American status, there are qualifying standards for that. … The kids are kind of finding out we can compete at the national level, so that's pretty cool – there's a lot of pride that goes along with that.”
Between one-off local meets and prestigious national competitions, Panther athletes should stay in shape this offseason. With plenty of talent from across WNC, Harlfinger hopes to one day expand the team regionwide.
“Right now we're kind of testing the waters starting this program up through MoveMore, but we have talked with some of the other local coaches about, ‘Well, why don't we put some elite relays together?” he said. “‘[Combine] your fastest kid and my fastest kid and that kid from over there, and we'll go see if we can win a national championship.’ Those conversations are being had, and we've got good relationships with some of the surrounding coaches. Maybe not this year, but down the road I think we'll be able to put together some really solid relays with a kind of Western North Carolina all-star team.”
Will Woolever can be reached at sports@thefranklinpress.com