Weekend of Champions

Long time Track & Field coach Bill Cason wants to bring the fun back to track and field. With help from others, notable the Durham County Memorial Stadium staff, the city of Durham and Coach Frank Davis of the Durham Striders, Cason is helping organize and promote a weekend in April that would bring 2,500 to 3,500 athletes from the high school, college and masters levels to Durham, NC.

Plans are being formed for the simultaneous running of three championship events on one weekend starting Friday afternoon, April 13th (college & HS) and ending Sunday afternoon, April 15th with a Masters Only championship. On April 15th, the 40-and-over set will take over for the Southern Masters Track & Field Championships. A vendor fair, Battle of the Bands competition and a family-friendly carnival will add to the weekend’s atmosphere.

“We will create a Penn Relays-type atmosphere,” Cason said. “It’s an idea we’ve been working on for years. I thought we were going to be able to do it three years ago, but we couldn’t get anybody to rent us the track in the Triad for an amount of money we could afford. We’ve worked it out with Durham County and the city of Durham, and they’ve been very gracious and helpful in getting this large project underway.”

Cason is also inviting Olympians to take part in clinics and to be accessible to participants. Billy Mills, the gold medalist at 10,000 meters at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and the second native American to win a gold, is scheduled to return to NC after visiting in November 2009 at Guilford College. Joining Mr. Mills will be his Olympic Games roommate, former World & American 1500m/Mile record holder, Jim Ryan. Additional U.S. Olympians joining the event are Terrance Herrington, whom Cason coached at Clemson, (national champion at 1,500 meters in 1989 and ’91 and competed in the 1992 Barcelona Games).

Cason said the weekend would honor the memory and accomplishments of the great history of USA track and field while identifying the next great U.S. track and field athletes on the college and high school level. Organizers are continuing to work on a schedule and should have more details and contact information by late November. The most up to date information will be at www.facebook.com/southerntrackandfieldchampionships and www.personalbestsports.net.

“We want it to be a mega-college meet and a really big nationally competitive high school meet,” Cason said. “We’ll have a professional announcer, a lot of music and a family friendly outside Carnival. It’s going to be a fun, exciting atmosphere because there’ll be team scoring, bragging rights and all that stuff.”