Puddles Be Gone; Wharton Cuts A Ribbon For New Track Facility

By Matt Wiley

Gone are the days of standing water and weathering asphalt under the feet of runners on the track at Paul R. Wharton High, as the school recently cut a ribbon and held the first track meet on its new and improved track & field facility.

For years, the asphalt track at Wharton had been a less-than-ideal place for meets, as rainwater could still sometimes be standing almost a week after a shower, said principal Bradley Woods at the ribbon-cutting ceremony on February 11, just in time for the Spring 2014 outdoor track season.

“(Wharton) now has a premiere track facility to host meets for years to come,” Woods said. The new, $150,000 track was installed by Amherst, OH-based All American Tracks and features eight lanes of TopTrax — a mixture of rubber that is bonded with polyurethane and latex—which sits atop the resurfaced original asphalt. According to the All American Track website, the TopTrax material is made to be weather-resistant and also helps to reduce knee shock in runners.

The parents of track and field athletes, as well as the Wharton Boosters, PTSA, administration, athletes and alumni, raised half of the money, which was matched by the Hillsborough County School District (HCSD).

Wharton track coach Wes Newton said that the track hadn’t been resurfaced since it was built when the school opened in 1997. In recent years, Newton said, training sometimes had to be held on the field on the inside of the track to prevent athletes from getting injured on the aging asphalt.

“The new track will provide greater cushioning and protection from injury, will be extremely durable and great for all weather conditions, as it drains faster than most regular latex rubberized tracks,” Newton said.

The drainage around the football field itself also was upgraded as part of the project, Woods said.

Fundraising for the new track began in December 2011 with “Project S.O.S.: Save Our Shins,” in hopes of raising $100,000 for the much-needed upgrades. Newton himself is lucky to have the opportunity to be able to test the new track, after a fall from a ladder in July 2012 left him with two broken vertebrae in his neck. However, thanks to an emergency medical surgery and months of physical therapy at Tampa General Hospital (TGH), Newton is back to coaching less than two years after his accident and can now put the track that he envisioned for his athletes to good use.

Wharton will host rival Freedom High on the new track in a District 4A-6 dual meet on Friday, April 11.