Many high school athletes join sports in school to be active and to make friends. Imagine not having a person of the same gender on your high school team to socialize with during practices. It could lower the motivation of any athlete.

This is one of the things that had MHCC sprinter Brittany Grizzard so frustrated during her senior year at Marshall High School. She was the only girl on her track team.

“It was a little frustrating being the only girl,” said Grizzard. Because of this she decided not to go to many practices, but still possessed the ability to become an effective athlete for her school.

Since then things have changed a bit. “She has a good work ethic and comes every day; she’s a good person,” says MHCC track coach Tony Baracco. “She’s a humble person, not one of those prima donnas.”

That doesn’t mean that the Mt. Hood track team has had the best luck so far; it also has had its set of problems: lower team unity, as well as other colleges getting to the best athletes first. Things like this have plagued the team thus far, but that doesn’t deter Grizzard. “The unity from last year isn’t here yet, but the sprinters are starting to tighten up.”

Grizzard has had small teams wherever she has gone. An example of this is this year’s womens’ basketball team, which she also played on. Besides the five starters there were two to three subs, which makes for improved playing time but left many of the players tired and unable to finish games. This by itself is a motivation killer. This was a contributing factor to the girls disappointing season. Grizzard learned some lessons from the basketball season that she said will help her in her track season. “ I learned to appreciate it. I had a lot more fun with track,” she said. “While at practice [for basketball] I wasn’t enjoying it. It just sucked.”

With that in mind, Grizzard has come into this track season with aspirations of winning the NWAACC championship, but that has been halted by the low number of people on the Mt. Hood team.

This hasn’t brought down Grizzard’s high expectations though. She has had fairly good times in the 100-meters and 200-meters with 12.71 and 26.34, respectively. She has plans to better those times by season’s end.

“I get out of the blocks slow and then speed up near the end of the race,” she said. “I just need to gain a higher recognition of the gun at the start to get out of the blocks quick.”
She has her coach convinced she is on her way. “She tries to get the others around her to work hard, and she leads by example,” said Baracco.

“Leads by example” is one way to describe her personality and if she has to, she will become a “tattle-tale” to get her peers motivated. The self proclaimed “rat” of the team, nothing slides by Grizzard. “If somebody tries to get out of their workouts, I let the coaches know.”

This type of athlete usually doesn’t bring in many friends but Grizzard is more than happy to oblige. Her leadership role may have been made concrete last year with older, more seasoned track athletes educating the younger athletes. “Last year she learned to really work, with pushes from the people around her,” said Baracco.