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Nike Outdoor Nationals
June 18-20, 2009 at Greensboro NC
DyeStat on-site coverage

Coach John Padula and the Sheepshead Sharks
Brooklyn Team Sees the World As NON Title Defense Nears

By Marc Bloom


Coach John Padula, shaped like an egg, stands on the 3-lane, 350-meter Sheepshead Bay High School track in Brooklyn with two stopwatches around his neck. It’s a fine spring day as the Sharks swagger out of the locker room and into the sunlight to prepare to defend their Nike Outdoor Nationals 4 x 100 relay crown. All four athletes from the 2008 unit—hurdler and team captain Darryl Bradshaw, 100 man Ayo Isijola, 200/400 runner John Thomas, and sprinter/hurdler Naquan Alexander who anchored as a soph—are back.

“All season, everything’s been geared toward Nike Outdoor,” said Padula. “Nothing matters but Greensboro.”

Last year, in an NON highlight, Alexander held off fast-closing senior Ja-Vell Bullard of Bethel High in Virginia, who’d won the 400 earlier in 46.54, at the tape. Both teams were timed in 41.23.

 
Thomas to Alexander on the final leg of the 2008 NON 4x100. Photo Vic Sailer, photorun.net
The victory in the nation’s marquee sprint relay race was the crowning jewel in a 4-year odyssey for Padula, a P.E. teacher who took over the Sheepshead team in 2004 with no track experience whatsoever. “I’d never run track or seen a track meet,” said Padula, as seven girls in Islamic garb walked the Sheepshead track in a P.E. class. “I didn’t even know what a meter was.” But within a year, the Sharks were making noise within the city’s Public Schools Athletic League ranks, starting to gain notice statewide, and even making the NON finals in the 4 x 400 in 2005.

To learn the sport, Padula, who has degrees in sports medicine and athletic training, studied books and videos, consulted with other coaches like former Sheepshead coach Stu Levine, and took the USATF Level One (3 days) and Level Two (7 days) coaching programs. He applied his weight-training knowledge to develop a core strength program of squats, lunges and medicine ball work. “We don’t stretch. Instead we do double the usual amount of drills,” said Padula. “We work on mobility rather than flexibility.”

“John’s phenomenal,” said Levine. “He’s dedicated, has tremendous knowledge and gives kids the attention they need. He doesn’t do it for the money. He’s a throwback to an earlier time.”

Padula has learned not only training technique, but what you can’t learn from books: how to engage and earn the trust of kids from tough backgrounds who yearn for direction. “The whole team is poor,” said Padula.

"I'll give him a pint of my blood"

Padula uses all of his coaching salary for three seasons, more than $10,000 a year, on the team. He provides running shoes. He stocks up on chicken noodle soup. “They don’t eat well at home. I don’t want anybody coming to practice on an empty stomach,” Padula said. He pays for most meet entries and travel costs. He said the school budgets only a little more than a thousand dollars a year for track.

“John pays for everything. A lot of these kids don’t even have sneakers,” said the principal, Reesa Levy, whose husband was a shot putter on the Sheepshead team in the early ‘60s. “This is the only way kids from these backgrounds come into the middle class—when a middle-class person puts out his hands and pulls them in.”

More than putting a shirt on their backs, Padula teaches youngsters who are vulnerable to the abuses and fast talk of their neighborhoods to straighten up, respect one another and appreciate the steady drip-drip of hard work. “My philosophy is, if you work hard, you deserve these opportunities,” said Padula. “It’s not about medals. If a kid comes every day and works hard, I’ll give him a pint of my blood.”

The lessons have been felt. “A lot of us come in, we don’t have fathers,” said Bradshaw, who has a track scholarship to Bethune-Cookman University in Florida and speaks with the moral authority of a young Obama. “Coach is a good role model, a very cool person. I learned from him that education is the key and that honesty pays off. He didn’t have a silver spoon in his mouth either. He worked his way through school.”

 
 The winning 4x1 team at NON 2008, at the awards. Photo Donna Dye
Then, pausing to take the measure of his four years—how he started running track after breaking a collarbone in football, how he came in as an angry kid, how Padula once threw him off the team, how he’ll do any event including the pentathlon (he’s ’08 city champ), and how he’s used his captain’s role to help newcomers feel like they’re family—Bradshaw said of Padula: “He’s taught us how to be men.”

The men of Sheepshead continued their startling ascent this March at the two national indoor meets. At the National Scholastics in New York, the Sharks broke the national indoor 4 x 55 hurdles record, running 29.18 while taking 2nd to Fordham Prep (29.15); the next day in Boston, they won the Nike Indoor Nationals 4 x 55, while taking 2nd to New Bern (NC) in the 4 x 200.

In Greensboro, Padula will be honored with this year’s NON “Rising Star Coach of the Year Award.” He credits the kids, never himself.

If Sheepshead finds itself sprinting for the title in Greensboro again, if those stick passes sing and anchorman Alexander “can run good when I’m nervous” as he says he can, Padula may need some meet support to survive the ordeal. “In 2008,” said Padula, “I almost had a heart attack. I was there by myself in the stands. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I just wanted someone to hug.”

At practice, the athletes’ different class schedules dictate an elastic afternoon. Padula coaches from 1:30 to 5:30 Monday through Friday. Just about every Saturday is a meet day, like the previous weekend’s Hartford Invitational in Connecticut, where the team’s sprint and hurdles corps collected two victories and four second-place medals. On Sundays, Padula returns to the school from his home on Staten Island to use the gym for a weight workout.

“I love it here,” he said. “This is my home.”

Padula, 33, grew up in the neighborhood, attending nearby James Madison High, where my early ‘60s Sheepshead team would practice. We didn’t have our own track back then. We didn’t have many good runners either. Teams like today’s Sheepshead— Boys High, Wingate or DeWitt Clinton—would scare us to death with their size, power and confidence. Then, Sheepshead’s nickname was the Skippers. Does that tell you something?

Padula started teaching P.E at the school in 2000 and created a sports medicine program that thrives. He’d never been an athlete himself except for playing a little club hockey. One year, he coached the Sheepshead wrestling team. Padula considered himself a strength and conditioning coach, and when the track position opened up he took the job to learn more about speed. “I had no idea I would fall in love with the sport,” he said.

At that time, in 2004, Padula also got married. Soon after, his wife, Pam, became a guidance counselor at Sheepshead. They have no children of their own and work as a team to nurture the athletes who come from different parts of Brooklyn and live a threadbare existence. Pam helps assure that team members take the right classes while also working on college issues. Every senior Padula has coached has gone to college except for one who went into the military. The current team of about 40 members has an aggregate 2.8 GPA.

Some of the athletes entered Sheepshead among the 400 non-English speaking youngsters in a student body of 2,400. There are Russian, Latino, Asian and Pakistani students. Others are from Africa and the Caribbean. Many travel over an hour by bus and train to get to the school, which was mostly Italian and Jewish when I was a student. My team was all white. I lived across the street.

A different Sheepshead

The Sheepshead melting pot of my day was more idiosyncratic. We had street corner characters that would become the basis of TVs “Seinfeld,” created by Larry David, Sheepshead ’65. When I was in the junior high, next door to Sheepshead, budding songwriter Carole King was living around the corner and writing her signature rock ballad, “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” for the Shirelles.

On Friday nights, the greatest high school basketball player I ever saw, Rico Petrocelli, was weaving his way through tough defenses with Jordan-esque moves to become first-team all-city, and basketball wasn’t even his best sport. As slugger and pitcher, Petrocelli was named city baseball player of the year and was a $50,000 “bonus baby” with the Boston Red Sox, where he would become an All-Star shortstop.

I watched Sheepshead being built in 1958, the year it opened. In the early years, the Skippers had their share of track highlights. There was a 1961 PSAL championship 1200-yard relay (300 a man) under the school’s first coach, Dick Lerer, and some excellent teams in the ‘70s under Levine, known mainly for his distance success but also for Sheepshead’s most accomplished runner ever, Mike Sands of the Bahamas. Sands came to Brooklyn by himself, got by on his wits, and in 1971 captured the Eastern States 440 in 47.2 and placed 4th at Golden West (and also ran a 10.3 100 and 20.8 200). He went on to Penn State and the Bahamas Olympic team and is currently head of the Bahamas track federation and vice-president of the country’s Olympic Association. Three years ago, Sands spoke at Sheepshead graduation ceremonies.

 
Darryl Bradshaw during the shuttle hurdles relay victory at NIN. Photo Vic Sailer, photorun.net
But a more talked-about Sheepshead figure, in ignominy, is ‘80s track grad Trevor Graham, who would become the disgraced coach of Marion Jones and a central figure in the Balco drug scandal. Oddly enough, another drug notable, Justin Gatlin, once lived in Sheepshead Bay, but before high school.

In the late ‘80s and ‘90s, Sheepshead went through a drought that lasted until Padula took over. He had some top talent right away like Adino Steele, who set a state 100 record of 10.40 in 2004. Padula’s tough love approach was put to an early test. Steele ran that time at another school after Padula kicked him off the team for not going to class.

Walking the school corridors I noticed that my squad’s 1964 U.S. Olympic Committee plaque for a contribution to the American squad for Tokyo was gone, but replaced by current mementos including hotel room keys from away meets with signs urging kids “to join track and see the world.” Whether to Boston or Greensboro, or, this season, to the Arcadia meet in southern California, the Sharks – some making their first plane trips – are earning the pedigree of a classy bunch that knows when to be track-serious and when to bask in the spotlight.

“These kids are traveling the country as outstanding ambassadors, as celebrities everywhere they go,” said Levy. “They are going to college. Some are all-Americans at D-I schools.”

As a trip, Arcadia, so far, has been the peak experience. “I would sell my kidney to go back there,” said Padula. In the national invitation event in April, Sheepshead won the 4 x 110 hurdles relay (59.50) and took 2nd in the 4 x 100 (41.54) and 3rd in the 4 x 200 (1:27.44) while a man short. Padula said the athletes were treated royally by meet director Rich Gonzalez and that sponsoring Nike kicked in some travel funds. To help pay the hefty cost, Sheepshead held a dance that raised over $2,000, and Padula himself covered the balance.

At practice, as the track fills, Padula corrals each athlete with personal instruction. Isijola works in the weight room. Thomas—J.T. to everyone—works the tight curve. Bradshaw and Alexander work the hurdles. Padula corrects Bradshaw’s arm action. “He’s been pressing, trying to break 14-flat,” said Padula. “The key to the hurdles is to run fast without trying to run fast.” Two weeks later Bradshaw would run 13.90 in the PSAL Brooklyn meet.

Barriers to overcome

To challenge for a repeat NON 4 x 100 title, the Sharks will have to overcome a season of adversity and missteps. Arcadia notwithstanding, Sheepshead has been laboring with inconsistency. While other teams nationwide have posted some fast times (Msgr. Pace of Miami leads at 40.54), Sheepshead was not even in the top10.

In Greensboro, the key could be Ayo, a Nigerian, who loves tearing the second leg on the long straightaway. Will he get the chance? At the Penn Relays in April, with no one to race in the 4 x 100 heats, Sheepshead did not qualify for the championship final against the Jamaicans and instead ran the subsidiary large-schools final. As a disciplinary measure, Padula pulled Ayo out of the final and Sheepshead took 2nd in 41.93.

Padula said that Ayo, at the time, had an attitude problem. Ayo’s knee had swelled on the plane back from Arcadia and he didn’t take care of it and missed a number of practices. “We had a long talk about being mature and what’s expected of him,” Padula told me. “He’s turned it around. This has been his best week of practice.”

I asked Ayo about it. “I lost my focus and let the team down,” he said. “After Penn I got my focus back.”

A month after Penn at the PSAL Brooklyn meet, Ayo pulled a hamstring muscle. As a 5’10”, 185-pound all-star football player, Ayo is a heavily-muscled power runner. On the track he’s a bullet. Last year he ran 10.71 to win the PSAL city champs 100. But Ayo had to miss last Sunday’s cities and was uncertain for this weekend’s state meet in Syracuse. He was being treated with electric muscle stimulation and massage and Padula was confident he’d be ready for Greensboro.

Because of the injury, Ayo had also missed the Reebok Grand Prix high school 4 x 100 on May 30 at New York’s Icahn Stadium, where Sheepshead sought a shot at the Jamaicans and a fast time for a confidence boost. Hurdler Richmond Ahadzi, a soph who came to the U.S. from Ghana at age 9, subbed for Ayo, running a terrific second-leg. The first two passes were perfect and Thomas blistered the far curve, putting Sheepshead in 2nd at the final pass behind thundering Calabar, the Penn Relays winner in 41.18.

But then, in an instant, as Alexander grabbed the baton—and Sheepshead was headed for a sub-41 performance—he seemed to graze his torso with the stick, dropped it, and that was it, a DNF. Calabar ran 40.21 for the victory, and with its seamless execution showed again the breathtaking beauty of a 4 x 1, a testament to teamwork, a reflection of character, an event often bumbled by U.S. pros but handled with panache by the majority of high school kids.

 
 Celebrating the SHR victory at Arcadia.  Photo John Nepolitan
“We’ve had nothing but bad luck,” said a frustrated Bradshaw in the mixed zone.

As Bradshaw walked back to his teammates, I asked him how, as captain, he would handle the situation. “I’m going to focus on the positive,” he said. “We ran some great legs.”

Padula was resolute. “I’m not even upset,” he said. “They ran well. We’ll be ready for nationals.” What about Alexander, could anchor nerves get to him? Padula dismissed that. “Naquan has been clutch his whole life,” he said.

"The team is your family"

Alexander, 18, lives in Coney Island with his mother. He’s 5’10”, 180 pounds and, like Ayo, a football player. He’s been taking Padula’s sports medicine courses and hopes to pursue that subject in college. When he was given anchor duty as a soph, he was nervous. “After my first race, I felt, yeah, this fits me,” he said. After the nationals win last year, he was so wound up he couldn’t stop shaking. He’s been training to remain strong at the finish and avoid tightening up, arching his back and losing precious fractions.

Isajola, 18, lived in Lagos, the Nigerian capital, with an aunt before coming to Brooklyn with an older brother in 2002. His parents were already in the States. He lives in the Flatbush section with his mother. He’s going to play football and run track at the University of Rhode Island. Padula has been teaching him to lead out Bradshaw at full tilt, and be confident in a precise hand-off. He’s become more confident off the track too. “I’ve grown a lot,” he said. “Coach has helped me learn what life’s all about. Be a good student. Grades come first.”

Thomas, 17, ran 48.14 for 2nd in the Hartford 400 and hoped to break Sands’ school record, if not this year then next. Last Sunday, he swept the PSAL 200 (21.68) and 400 (48.57) as Sheepshead again took 2nd in the team standings to Transit Tech. Originally from Jamaica, J.T. came to Brooklyn in December 2007 and lives in East Flatbush with two siblings while two others remain in Kingston. Thomas had run in Jamaica and tries to emulate the curve running, and worldliness, of the Jamaican greats. “When I was in Jamaica, my dream was to travel,” he said. “Now I’m accomplishing that.”

Bradshaw, 18, is 6’3” and 190 pounds, built like Terrence Trammell. He lives in Brownsville with his mother, an out-of-work book-keeper. “Today she has a job interview,” Bradshaw said at practice. “My fingers are crossed.”

Bradshaw is a beacon for young kids joining the team. “They come in arrogant, aggressive, negative... It’s the adversity of the neighborhood, the necessities of living,” he said. “I let them know you can use the team as a comfort zone. No one is here to pick on you, or make fun of what you wear or how you talk. You don’t have to defend yourself from anything. The team is your family.”

In Greensboro, Sheepshead hopes that comfort zone will be felt in the relay zone. Bradshaw said the athletes are so much faster this year that they have to avoid running up on each other. “We’re like brothers,” he said. “We’ll adjust.”

Padula’s not worried. He’s cool. He’s Brooklyn, like Paul Simon sang, out on the stoop, yeah. For him, it’s all music, win or lose. The Sharks will depart for North Carolina at 5 A.M. on Thursday, June 18. They’ll listen to reggae, arrive in early evening and go to the track to loosen up for the next day’s 4 x 100 heats.

“Car rides are the funniest thing in the world,” said Padula.

You can laugh all you want when you’re coaching men.
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