As the bell rings to let school out, a massive flock of Oak Park High School students make their way to the field for Oak Park High School’s most popular sport: track and field. With a roster consisting of close to 300 students for the 2026 season, the team is ready to begin preparing athletes for success at league meets and beyond.
Last year saw the team make massive strides in competitive success, in part due to the large group of students willing to participate in a diverse selection of events.
“The biggest accomplishment that came out of last season would be that we are much more competitive in league than we had been in the past, in part because we’re more balanced,” head coach Steven White said. “We had athletes in all the events, and we did a great job balancing it out with the distance, with the sprints, with the throws and the jumps.”
The 2025 season also saw multiple school records broken, on both the distance and sprint teams.
“There were a lot of returning athletes who came back, and because of their experience from year one or year two, made huge jumps in year two or year three,” White said. “And just like we broke school records last year in the 200 [meters], we also broke school records in the distance relay and the 4 x 1600 [meters].”
In entering the new season, coaches are ready to put athletes, both new and returning, to work in their specific events.
“The team is huge, and having this many kids is super fun because it shows that the program is expanding because of the success of the kids who are working,” White said. “It’s a reflection of what they’re doing and the hard work that they’re going through. And I think we can find those unknown kids that didn’t know that they could do track as successfully as they can.”
One of these “unknown kids” last season was junior Christiana Berger, who, after joining track from soccer, found massive success running the 400 meter. While she went into her first meet somewhat unprepared, it proved the catalyst to a season of strategic improvement.
“Especially the first meet, I hadn’t practiced for a while because I was still finishing up the soccer season. So I’d never actually fully run a 400,” Berger said. “It was really hard and I didn’t know what I was in for. I started sprinting the first 200 [meters] and then the last hundred, I was out of breath. But then I ended up getting first. I just needed to learn how to pace out my breathing more and my energy to conserve it. It was all about the technique, because I already had the speed I just needed to learn how to and when to use it.”
This season, Berger is working towards a goal of improving her last season’s personal record, PR, in the 400, which was 1:03 minutes.
“The first day of track on Monday, coach White, he was like, you’re getting 58 seconds,” Berger said. “So, yeah, I’m going to try to get under a minute.”
Another hardworking athlete is junior Isabella McDonald, who competes in shot put, pole vault, discus and triple jump. McDonald earned a shotput PR of 29 feet last season, a seven foot improvement, and this year she wants to employ different forms of training to go even further.
“Numerically, I’d like to achieve above 33, so that would be like around a four foot improvement, and I want to go to the gym more, so I can start lifting.” McDonald said. “That way, I’ll not only be stronger for shot put, but I’ll just be stronger overall.”
McDonald is also looking forward to this season’s track meets, which are known to be fun events for the team.
“Track meets have always been fun because with such a big team, it’s almost like a party going to the meets and a party coming back, so that I really enjoy that sense of togetherness,” McDonald said. “I haven’t really felt that with any other sports team I’ve been on in my life.”
On a team so large, each athlete embarks on an individual journey over the course of a season. For White, developing a sense of personal accomplishment within each student is what’s most important.
“Really, the most important thing for me from an individual athlete standpoint is that they’re all progressing, working toward a goal and getting faster,” White said. “No matter if they are the fastest kid on the team or the slowest kid on the team, if they’re working hard to get better, that’s super satisfying for me.”
Of course, competitive success is still a priority; this year, the coaches are looking to capitalize on the growth from last year and make a league comeback.
“I want us to be as competitive as we can be with the different teams in the league,” White said. Camarillo’s girls have won league four or five years in a row. And I want to see if we can come close to that or disrupt their record.”
