Project on Oak Park’s new all-weather track underway

By Kyle Jorrey jorrey@theacorn.com

Put into racing terms, the project to install an all-weather track surface at Oak Park High School is making its final turn and heading for home.

Four years after longtime head track coach Kevin Smith and a group of concerned parents got together to form the Oak Park High School Athletic Booster Club Track Improvement Committee, ground will break this week on a project that board members hope will be a testament to what a community can accomplish with the right amount of energy, incentive and generosity.

"We were hopeful it would come in this year," said OPHS principal Lynn McCormack. "We were just waiting for the last donor to step forward and help us and they have. We signed the contract last week and now things are all set to go. It’s a classic example of a community coming together to make something happen that benefits not only the students at the school but the community at large as well."

The project, which will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $450,000 when all is said and done, is expected to take about three months to complete—in time for a graduation unveiling but not in time for this year’s track season.

"That would be a stretch for us," McCormack said about finishing the new surface in time for the team‘s last meet on May 5. "It’s a very complex process."

Obviously, none are happier with the news than Smith, who’s coached Oak Park into a championship track program over the past decade on an unforgiving and often uneven dirt surface.

He said though his team will to have to train around the construction, it’s a sacrifice the group is willing to make for a greater good.

"If this is a hindrance, it’s the nicest hindrance I’ve had in my career," Smith said.

Belinda Tucker, who chaired the track committee, said though most of the children of board members have moved on from OPHS, seeing the project finally come to fruition still has great meaning.

"We showed what a small community can do when it pulls together for a common goal," Tucker said. "We always just kept a positive attitude and said ‘We’re going to do this.’ Now that its finally happening it almost doesn’t seem real. A lot of energy went into this project and its something all of Oak Park can call their own, because really, they paid for it."