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This article ran in the sports section
of the New York Timeson Sunday, July 1, 2001.
BACKTALK
GIRLS' GROUP GIVES RUNNING EQUAL TIME
By Martha Ackmann
On March 8, just days after
a classic northeaster backed over New England, unloading 2 feet
of new snow, 46-year-old Peggy Vezina sat around a wobbly folding
table and tried to convince four girls to join her in running
a road race. It was a hard sell.
For the last four and a half years, Vezina had been building a
sports program at Girls Incorporated, an after-school education
and recreation organization for girls in the faded mill town of
Holyoke in western Massachusetts. As a member of the Girls Inc.
board, I have watched girls transformed by sports. During the
group's first softball season, some novice players innocently
referred to gloves as "mittens." By the next season, outfielders
were confidently whacking the gloves' worn centers before each
play and tearing after line drives. There was also a basketball
team that competitors no longer took for granted, and a respectable
swim team that didn't need to yell for lifeguard assistance anymore.
But there had never been a track squad and these girls weren't
buying Vezina's invitation. To be fair, it was difficult for anyone
to look outside at the mounds of dirty snow and conjure the faintest
thought of spring. It all looked so hopelessly March.
"I run when someone chases me," one of the girls finally said
with a laugh before diving into a pile of warm chicken wings.
Vezina smiled, undaunted, and waited before turning -- casually
-- to 17-year-old Yaraliz Soto, the leader of the group. Would
Yara be interested in training with her as soon as the snow melted?
Not only was she willing to give it a try, but the youngest, Brittany
Williams, also seemed persuaded. In the vibrant language of an
11-year-old, Brittany shrugged and pushed her chair across the
room, looking bored and even a little sorry for Vezina, then replied,
"Well, maybe, sure, it depends, I might."
Gotcha, Vezina thought.
Girls Inc. is located in The Flats, a stark, gritty matrix of
streets that converge on the mills and canals, now vacant, that
once made Holyoke a model of the Industrial Revolution. Every
day a staff of 17 women serves more than 100 girls ages 6-17 --
80 percent of whom are Puerto Rican -- a heaping portion of self-respect,
homework help, positive role models, math and technology training,
sports and spaghetti. Dinner is not just a convivial occasion
at the end of a day. In this city where nearly three-quarters
of the children under 12 live in poverty and where broken banisters
and worn-out mothers show just how hard it is to make ends meet,
the Girls Inc. meal is a blessing.
Helping girls to be "strong, smart and bold" is the motto of this
national organization, and addressing issues of passivity and
low self-esteem is the job day after day. Sports is a small part
of the Girls Inc. mandate, but an important one. Statistics suggest
that girls who participate in sports are less likely to become
teen mothers, are more likely to go to college and are less prone
to adult diseases.
"Physical activity at a young age results in lasting lessons about
life, hard work, health and the power of being a girl," said Virginia
Dillon, executive director of Girls Inc. of Holyoke.
The group's rented three-story building in Holyoke is a humble
spot for such important work. On windy days, chunks of the ceiling
occasionally drop into staff members' cups of coffee; the increasing
number of girls has so stretched the physical confines that middle-schoolers
are shuttled to other locations for satellite programs. Yet Girls
Inc. makes do. When you walk into the building, the sound of boisterous
girls hits you like humidity in August. It envelopes you. "At
Girls Inc.," one youngster said, "I just can't stay shut."
Yara Soto is the shining example of the values the organization
works to instill. Last year she won a $10,000 college scholarship
from the national organization. Having just finished her junior
year in high school, she is looking at Barnard, Columbia or Vassar.
The scholarship was a first for the Holyoke group. When Yara won
the award, girls like Brittany were positively awe-struck and
were quick to follow her lead -- including tagging along for running
practices.
The Girls Inc. 5K Women's Road Race is one of the group's major
fund-raisers, held every Mother's Day for the last 17 years at
the Mountain Park Reservoir just north of Holyoke. While the event
has been successful in pulling in hundreds of women runners, it
has never been able to attract many of the Girls Inc. girls. With
only funds to cover a handful of coaches' salaries, track has
lost out. So Vezina pitched in and with her assistant, 23-year-old
Melissa Mercadante, spent time running four girls through drills
and endurance training. This year they were determined that Girls
Inc. would make a showing at its own race.
Near the end of April, on a windy, cold Saturday morning, Vezina
stood with her hands in her pockets timing Yara as she finished
a lap at the local community college track. She yelled out her
time: 2 minutes 9 seconds for 400 meters. Brittany was sprawled
on the grass; her legs hurt, her muscles ached, she was in no
mood for any inspirational talk about "strong, smart and bold."
But a week later, Brittany had also clocked a lap in 2:09. Vezina
had the girls alternate walking a lap and running one. Brittany
watched as Yara cruised to a third consecutive running lap. "Is
she still going?" Brittany, a sixth grader, asked no one in particular.
Then she took off with long, fluid strides, whipping off her sweatshirt
into the grass.
Race day finally arrived. At the reservoir, Brittany paced, looking
slightly mystified by the No. 295 pinned to her shirt. She tossed
her water bottle back and forth in her hands and averted her eyes,
glancing up only to search for Yara, who had yet to arrive.
She gave her cousin, Angelia Ramirez, a hip check just to knock
her off balance. Brittany had made it known that she wanted to
leave Angelia, a small, confident 11-year-old, in the dust.
The starting signal sounded and Mercadante took off with Brittany,
Angelia and 10-year-old Krishelle Colon, knowing only that they
should follow the crowd of more than 300 runners and try not to
be trampled. Ten minutes later, Yara and her mother arrived. They
decided to do the race together, walking as a mother-daughter
team and entered the pine-shaded course hand in hand.
The first runner across the finish line was Kristin Ciskowski,
20, who clocked a 19:12 for the 3.1-mile race, barely breaking
a sweat. I waited with a clutch of Girls Inc. friends and family
held cameras, looking for one of the girls to emerge from the
woods and head for the finish line. Suddenly they saw a pint-size
sprinter. It was Angelia grinning from ear to ear and gushing,
"I ran the whole way. I ran the whole way."
Brittany was somewhere back in the pack. She ran a mile. Walked
a mile. Ran a half. Walked a half. Then she raced all the way
to the finish line. "I wanted to end up running," she said between
gulps of water and air.
Six weeks after the race, Brittany no longer spends her Saturday
mornings training with Team Girls Inc. Several illnesses among
the staff have left the sports program barely patched together.
Looking at Brittany bounding up the stairs one afternoon in June,
there was no indication that three months of training had made
her more willing to do her homework or more likely to be discussing
college options with Yara.
But she says the race experience taught her one thing: "It taught
me discipline -- big time," she said with a smile, indicating
that she had heard a few talks about the importance of discipline.
But perhaps the impact of Brittany's spring can be measured by
her dreams. "Sometimes," she said, "I dream about the race. I'm
at the finish line and I'm wearing a Girls Inc. T-shirt. My legs
hurt and feel tired, weak. I'm afraid I'm going to fall. But I
keep running. You finish something that you want to do. And when
I finally finish, I see me in first place. I like to run. I think
I was born like that."
Martha Ackmann is a writer and a professor
of women's studies at Mount Holyoke.
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