By Lindsey Boyd (@lindsboyd3):
Since its re-establishment in 2014, the women’s track and field team at San Jose State has been track and field-less.
Instead of a traditional practice field, the team runs around on dried piles of yellowing vomit left rotting from the previous weekend. Athletes have to jump over shattered beer bottle remnants atop the rocks and pebbles lining the unpaved lot at Bud Winter Field.
The field is better known as the tailgate and additional parking area for SJSU sports teams and the San Jose Giants. The field gets its name from Bud Winter, the 1960 head coach of the well-documented “Speed City” teams featuring Olympians Tommie Smith and John Carlos, but don’t be fooled. It’s not a field.
“Our first year we were in the old tennis courts with just the black strips rolled out,” said long jump Mountain West Champion Kelsey Johnson-Upshaw. “Then we came out here when they tore it down for the golf course.”
Yes, the same San Jose State track and field program that sent four players to the NCAA West Regional Preliminaries in 2017 and was honored nationally for maintaining a 3.135 grade point average does not have a practice facility.
“People are like ‘where is the track?’ and we have to explain ‘oh you know… it’s not really a track, but we practice here,’” Johnson-Upshaw said.
According to the San Jose State Athletic South Campus master plan, $5 million would be needed to build a permanent practice facility for the women’s team. But the plans to build a track and field facility have been delayed, again.
The facility was supposed to be built by 2018 but that date was canceled. The players have stopped getting their hopes up and say they don’t buy into SJSU Athletics’ visions anymore.
“Because I am a senior and I’ve dealt with this for four years, I’m at the point where I expect nothing,” Johnson-Upshaw said.
Athletes got their hopes up in 2017 when private donors like Rich and Cindy Thawley contributed over $5 million to construct the Spartan golf complex — the same complex that tore down the tennis courts where the track team used to run. Naturally, the track team thought there was hope for them as well.
“He (coach Jeff Petersmeyer) basically told us that they (SJSU Athletics) chose to put in a parking lot instead of fix our track,” said senior distance runner Cambree Harbaugh. “They said that they want to put, once the parking lot is built, that they are going to give us a six-lane on top of the parking garage…”
Athletic Director Marie Tuite did not comment on the parking facility or on if the track will be built on top of a parking garage, but said that a permanent practice facility is still in the works.
“We are currently discussing the location and the plan for a permanent track facility that must be privately funded,” Tuite said. “In the meantime, we are exploring possible temporary solutions under the funding that can be secured.”
SJSU Athletics has partnered with the SJSU Student Union to fund a field that both intramural and Division I teams can use. According to Catherine A. Busalacchi, Executive Director of Student Union, Inc., $2-2.5 million was initially committed by the Student Union for a track and field facility. It has now committed $3 million for a field — not a track.
“Just the field right now,” Busalacchi said. “Some of that money may go to the softball field.”
$500,000 of the $3 million might go to the softball field, Busalacchi added.
Track and field head coach Jeff Petersmeyer recently told his team it would not get a practice facility in 2018 and is having an official follow up meeting today, Nov. 14 to talk about the parking garage.
“Everyone was upset. We had a lot to say,” said No. 12 long jumper in the country, Destiny Longmire of the first meeting. “There is times where I’m more frustrated than others. People stealing things from our facilities… we have some things broken and we don’t have money to fix it or someone stole it.”
But when the team gets demoted to two and a half hours of long jump, triple jump, sprinting and running time, combined, in a parking lot four days a week, a sense of unwantedness on the SJSU campus arises. The men’s team, which is being re-established in 2018, will also have to practice without a facility.
“They promised to have a new track team by 2018-2019 when they are about to have a men’s team,” said track and field athlete Brittany Brown. “How are you going to get more recruiting if you don’t have a facility?”
Brown said the reason she committed to SJSU was because of the new facility and Johnson-Upshaw said the poor conditions make her feel like track and field is not respected by SJSU Athletics.
Revenue from the SJSU football team also helps fund the athletic department but the primary sources of funding for the track and field facility are private gifts and SJSU Student Union funding, according to SJSU Newsroom’s website.
“Yes, yes, yes. You know football is our big money maker at the school which is obviously very helpful to get recognition and our name out there but… we have lots of other sports that are doing very well this year,” said sophomore water polo player Ben Hauschild.
Hauschild and the No. 11 men’s water polo team practice at West Valley because they too have no facility/pool on campus. Players spends up to five hours per day on water polo because of travel, warm ups, practice and traffic driving back to SJSU.
The team was shutout in its last regular season game, and two of the starters hit traffic on their way to West Valley which gave them little to no time for warms ups. The school’s plans for a pool, however, are still on pace to be completed.
The cheer team says it can relate to the nine, mostly women’s teams, that have to drive off campus to practice, even though cheer’s training facility is on campus.
“We don’t have an official facility, so when we do have a practice space, we do have to like it takes time because we have to show up early to set up our mats,” said cheerleader Madyson Montoya. “[Water polo] probably struggles because they are competing against schools that do have that facility access all the time.”
Despite the lack of quality facilities, the women’s track team continues to excel in state and national championships. In fact, teams such as women’s softball and tennis won its conference title and women’s soccer won its regular season title. All three had been displaced with no facilities.
“Not ideal,” Johnson-Upshaw said on the lack of facilities. “I guess you get used to it.”