Upward mobility. Those two words describe Co-Captains Diana Tchadi ’14, Jonathan Arone ’14 and Matthew Fischetti ’14, who each worked their way up from JV to leaders of the Indoor Track team.
“Our captains are the soul of the program,” said Coach Corbin Lang. “I’m sure each and everyone of them can remember a captain that helped or inspired them at some point in their athletic career. My hope is that they are that person for our team.”
The distinctive leadership styles of each captain create a strong team environment.
“Tchadi gets us all fired up and ready to run fast and support each other. Fischetti is all business and teaches others that to be good at this sport you have to put in deep practice. Arone is our glue. His love of the sport and devotion to the idea that the collective can achieve more than a bunch of individuals is evident in everything he does,” said Lang.
Indoor Track practices begin with the captains leading a chant, a two-lap warm up, pushups and sit-ups. The captains offer advice to runners during event-specific practices, and lead the cool down at the end of practice.
“During practice, I make sure nobody develops poor habits during drills, and I try to offer those who are able to handle it ideas for exercises that might be more advanced than what beginners might do,” said Fischetti.
With a host of new young talent this year, the captains are working on instilling the fundamentals and skills the team will need to excel in the coming seasons.
“We are focusing more on just getting [the team] sprinting faster earlier in the season so that they are used to moving at top speed. Instead of using up time inefficiently on tedious drills, we are more concerned with building speed and power,” said Fischetti.
Andover has a strong indoor track program; the team rarely loses a meet during the season. The captains have specific ideas for the team to maintain success.
“I’m hoping to create a greater sense of community and a lesser sense of smaller groups within the larger team. I can’t wait to get to know everyone better and of course improve my times to contribute to the team’s success,” said Tchadi.
“I want every person on the team to show improvement consistently through each competition. My second goal is that each member of the team learns respect and gives maximum effort during training,” said Fischetti.
“I’m going to help the other runners in creating goals and planning to meet those goals instead of just going into competitions without much direction,” said Arone.
Andover is preparing for its second meet this Saturday for Boys Track and Wednesday for Girls Track against Haverhill High and Wilbraham after a strong performance in a trial meet in December.
“The first meet gave us good benchmark times to improve upon, and this meet will be about being ourselves—as in beating the PRs we set in the first meet. If we can all put forward our best effort, the results will come naturally,” said Tchadi.
With these goals in mind, the captains will work tirelessly throughout the season in preparing the team for the main event: avenging its loss against Exeter.
“It’s been a while since we’ve beat them. That’s what us captains and most of the veteran team members are looking for,” said Arone.
