2000 AZTRACK Alumni Annual Excursion

USATF Olympic Trials

Sacramento State College (Spanos Athletic Complex)

Sacramento, CA (July 14 - 23, 2000)

What a GREAT trip!  What a great MEMORY!

Thanks goes out to all that made it happen.

This year's trip included 3 nights on a river house boat that was docked at the pier in Old Sacramento! Andy Sythe, Mark Sanders, Rich Fox, Paul Greer, Rich Kreitzer, Matt Clayton,  and others camped out on the house boat, while former AZTRACK members Jennifer Nanista, Dan Gauthier, and Jason Tweed stopped by for a beer or 2 or 3.  Let us not forget kicking Mark "Gubba" Sanders out of the house boat and into the speed boat to sleep for our newly voted in Honorary AZTRACK member, Maribeth.  And meeting another Honorary couple, Jen Koczan and Pat Henningan, sleeping on the roof in a tent.  What a wonderful introduction.

We mostly stayed camped out at the houseboat in the evenings, as there was plenty to reminisce about and the cocktails were never in short supply. Saturday night was our most festive night by far. Thanks to Matt Farmer (son of former Aztec Coach Dixon Farmer) our Reebok contact, we were able to obtain invites to the annual Reebok Bash! What a night. Reebok foot the bill for food and drink, while The band played late into the night. The AZTRACK gang (on Andy's suggestion) thought it would be fun to do a lap around the (heavily guarded) Olympic Trials Track! After rendezvousing at the pre determined entrance.  At Andy's direction, we went to the backside practice track where there would be no one around.  We proceeded to jump the fence one at a time until about 5 or 6 of us were over. At that time, we realized we weren't alone trackside. Noticing one of several police officers talking into a radio, we promptly (and with great agility for our ages) went back over the fence the way we came (only about twice as fast). Several of us made a break for the cars, (bringing back memories of high school, and trying to run from the police) While the rest of the group chose to walk non-chalantly as if nothing had gone on. The smart group (those of us that ran) made it to the cars just before 2 police cars rolled to the scene and interrogated the rest of the group (the slow group) for nearly 1/2 an hour. 

This made for some great story telling the rest of the night back at the house boat, as well as the next day at the track.

We mixed in a little water skiing on the river, and a trip up to Andy's house at Trinity Lake for the night on the break day in competition. The competition was fantastic, the company was great, and everyone seemed to get along. It was good to see everyone after such a long time! Hopefully we can see more of us old-timers at future events.

This was the trip that spawned the idea for the next year's plan to hook-up in Eugene for the 2001 National Meet.

Aztrack Attendees:  

Andy Sythe

Mark (Gubba) Sanders

Rich Fox

Paul Greer

Rich Kreitzer

Jennifer Nanista

Dan Gauthier

Jason Tweed

Matt Clayton

HONORARY AZTRACK Members

Jennifer Koczan (Voted in Unanimously)

Patrick Hennigan (Voted in Unanimously)

Maribeth, the future Mrs. "Sythe" (Voted in Unanimously)

AZTEC ATHLETES COMPETING:

Aja Frary - Heptathlon

Aimee Crabtree - Pole Vault, 12th place

Alexa Harz - Pole Vault, 5th place

Miesha McKelvy - 100 Hurdles