by Dakota Antelman
Junior John Rodriguez warmed up alone for much of the now completed indoor track season. Recently, however, Rodriguez shattered a pair of school records. Now, he says that the recognition from his team and from his school that the records have earned him has made him feel a part of the team.
Rodriguez moved to Massachusetts from Puerto Rico two years ago. He loved sports but bounced between basketball and track in his freshman and sophomore seasons. This year was, in fact, his first year running indoor track.
Rodriguez only joined the team after being recruited by head coach Bill Gaudere.
“Word has it that he walked into the school two years ago fresh out of Puerto Rico and looked at the record board and said, ‘I can do that.’ Word got back to me, and I thought, ‘Let’s see what he can do!’” Gaudere said. “This year I was in one of his classes. I went up to him and said, ‘Word has it you think you can break a few of the records. The only way to do that is to join. Actions speak louder than words.’”
Rodriguez joined and started running the 110m hurdles. His season started slowly.
“He was running good times but not breaking any records,” Gaudere said. “He wasn’t working as hard as I thought he could have been.”
But in time, Rodriguez began to endear himself to his team. Though he says he still felt shy at times, he stopped warming up alone and began to develop friendships with members of the team. At the same time, he started staying late after practice to work on his starts to races.
As Rodriguez found his place on the team, incumbent runner of the 55m dash Jacx Cannistraro injured himself ending his season prematurely.
“He was running the 55m dash, and John was running the 55m hurdles and the 4X200 relay,” Gaudere explained. “Now I needed someone to replace Jacx. I thought, ‘Let’s give John a try.’”
Rodriguez was unfamiliar with the 55m race but approached the challenge with optimism.
“[I thought] I’m going to do it. I’m going to try, even if I don’t know how I’m going to do,” Rodriguez said. “At practice, I was really focused; I was doing everything he told me. [I was] listening to him. When he told me I had to run another race I was like, ‘Let’s do it.’”
Nevertheless, the 55m dash was a learning curve for Rodriguez. Rodriguez was disqualified from his first 55m race due to a false start. In his second and third races, he started late and struggled to compete for a top spot; then came the day of his record.
On that day, Rodriguez said he was intimidated by the competition. He said he stood in the corner of the track for several minutes watching his opponents warm up. “I was nervous,” he admitted. “But then I was like, ‘I need to stop. I need to set a goal. I need to be faster than everybody, and I know I can do it because I’ve been practicing. I am ready for it.’”
John Rodriguez remembers setting the 55m Dash school record. | by Dakota Antelman
Upon setting the 55m dash record, Rodriguez’s first reaction was to congratulate his competitors. He briefly saw Coach Gaudere, but he did not speak with him about the record for several minutes after the race.
“The first thing I remember is I was looking at the board, looking at my time,” he said. “My coach looked at me and smiled and said, ‘Good job.’ I said, ‘Good race,’ to everybody and left to find my coach a few minutes later. When I did find him again, he said, ‘Great job, you got a new record.’”
Rodriguez describes the atmosphere on the bus ride home after that meet as “unbelievable.”
“Everybody was screaming, listening to music,” he said. “We were happy because we had won that meet. It was good; it was a really good meet.”
Two days later, Rodriguez returned to the track and promptly broke the 55m hurdles record. The following Tuesday, Rodriguez’s accomplishments were announced on the morning announcements at Hudson High School, a moment Rodriguez cherished.
“A lot of people around the school, students and teachers, congratulated me,” Rodriguez said. “It’s kind of new to me because I didn’t have that position before. I was always quiet. Nobody knew me at school because I’m new. I was always alone, always by myself. But now, from now on, people know me for the records.”
Likewise, the records have helped launch Rodriguez into a leadership position. In the wake of these milestones, he finds himself embracing a community in Indoor Track that he just recently discovered.
“After I set the record my teammates all came up for me looking for advice,” he said. “Now I’m at the point where I’m like their coach. I listen to my coach for what he says to me, and I just look at my other teammates and I see if they’re doing something wrong. They help me too. They tell me, ‘You’re doing this wrong; you should do it this way.’ They help me and I help them.”
Bill Gaudere remarks on how John Rodriguez changed as a runner throughout the season.