'Isn't this going to be fantastic?' Reborn from rubble, Memorial Field track hosts meet

Eleven-year-old Gavin Tobey left the Memorial Field track in Mount Vernon Thursday night wearing two bronze medals for his efforts in the 100-meter dash and 400-meter run.

The first of four Thursday Memorial Field Twilight Series meets had been memorable for the Peekskill Middle Schooler. He’d started doing track just two weeks earlier and this was his first meet.

Noting he’d probably hang his initial medal haul on his wall that night, he said he’d be back.

That sentiment was common, as was general awe about the athletic complex, completed last year but only recently opened in full to replace what had once been an ages-old, go-to regional sports mecca.

After the crumbling stadium was torn down and the site sat vacant for more than a decade of political finger-pointing, scandals (including a middle-of-the-night dumping of truckloads of polluted fill), there was widespread skepticism the complex would ever have a second life.

But one, smaller track meet was held in June and before that the stadium hosted rugby games and even a little high school football. It's also community-centered, open to the general public from 6-10 a.m. and 5-8 p.m. for running/jogging/walking use.

Of course, walking is a word open to interpretation.

Chances are few residents will walk the Memorial Field track like Arlington High rising senior Rachel Lee did Thursday.

That would be to say at a rapid pace.

She’s a racewalker and while some events included multiple heats with about 200 athletes overall competing, despite 90-plus-degree temperatures and a forecast for possible severe thunderstorms, Lee, whose event kicked off the series, was the lone racewalker.

She finished her 1,500 meters in 8:32.7, then considered her surroundings.

“I love it here,” she said, explaining she'd never experienced a venue like it.

“This is a huge upgrade. This is state of the art,” said Kamau Ptah, who recalled playing Pop Warner football at Memorial Field in the early1980s with the Mid-Westchester Warriors.

Thursday, he was there in the role of supportive parent with his 10-year-old daughter, Tseday, competing in the 800-meter run.

Similarly, Dr. Rajesh Bisnauth, an Eastchester pediatrician and Ossining resident, was on hand for his daughter, Kiera, 14, who’ll be a freshman this fall at Ossining High and who won a bronze medal Thursday running the 800.

The Guyana-born Bisnauth never played at Memorial Field. But, living in Brooklyn in the mid-1980s, he’d gone to the complex to watch an exhibition cricket match involving former high-level international players, among them the world-renowned Sir Garfield Sobers and Rohan Kanhai.

Bisnauth, who displayed some poorly-illuminated but much-cherished photos from that night on his phone, is a cricket player, calling the game "my passion in life."

He knows that now that the stadium's field is covered in artificial turf, its past hosting cricket won't be repeated. But that didn't seem to bother him.

“It’s beautiful. … It’s definitely nice for the community,” Bisnauth said of the complex.

David Johnson, a teacher and dean at Mount Vernon High in the early 2000s, who's the current Nyack Middle School principal, envisions a "return to past glory" for the complex, which now includes an adjoining skate park that was in good use during the meet.

Memorial Field was the go-to venue for thousands of high school football fans for many decades.

“Saturday and Friday night here were special,” recalled Johnson, whose daughter, Jayda, 14, was running Thursday.

Complimenting Westchester County's and the City of Mount Vernon's work restoring the site, Johnson, whose eighth-grade daughter had the fifth fastest 400-meter time in the spring among all Section 1 girls, said the complex filled a need as a “positive, safe places to go.”

Tuckahoe resident Charlotte Rizzo, who attended the meet with her husband, Peter, cheered local track club teammates Jay Foote and Nick Mitchell, the Stepinac High coach, as they ran the 800.

A high-level masters runner, the 61-year-old recently won silver in the 1,500 in her age division at the U.S. Track and Field nationals in North Carolina, expressed hope the Mount Vernon venue will host masters track meets.

Rizzo, whose four children ran for Bronxville High (daughter, Meredith, and sons Alex and Matt also running in college and Alex and Matt both breaking four minutes in the mile), noted the closest venue to Westchester for adult races is Icahn Stadium on Randall’s Island in New York City. She recently drove two hours to find a 1,500 race in Connecticut as a tune-up race for nationals.

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Her teammate Mitchell, who also competed in 400, was primarily at the track in his role as coach. The Hawthorn resident, who grew up in Yonkers, founded and oversee the Wings Like Eagles track club team.

One member is pint-sized Christopher Patterson, 5, from the Bronx. He ran the 100 and 400 and also reached seven feet, Mitchell proudly noted, in the long jump. That was good for a silver medal in his age group.

Patterson was one of the youngest competitors at the meet, which also included multiple former area high school stars, now running, jumping, throwing or vaulting in college.

Among them was former Fordham Prep/now Bucknell pole vaulter and jumper Miguel Negrete, whose sister, Prizila, a recently-graduated Ursuline thrower, reached 39 feet in the shot put Thursday. (She'll soon join her brother at Bucknell.)

Former Ossining star Noah Jefferson, who recently graduated from Manhattan College but will return for a grad year and will captain the track team there, ran the 100.

His college had a good turnout from near and far. Aiden McMahon, who learned about the meet during Manhattan's recent freshman orientation, was there with his dad, Tim, after they drove down from their home in Vermont for him to compete. Aunt Sue McMahon, who lives in Mount Vernon, and was in the stands, rooting, was hosting them.

Aiden left with a silver in long jump.

While years ago, Rio Olympian Deajah Stevens, now 28, recalled running on the Memorial Field track as a small child, it’s unclear exactly when the last actual track meet was held at the old facility.

Charles Winslow, a former Mount Vernon High coach, who graduated from the high school in 1986 and whose son Charles III is the current Mount Vernon High girls track coach, recalled when he competed, the track was cinder and a problem when it rained.

“There were a lot of puddles,” he said, remembering chalk being used to create lanes.

He also recalled the stadium’s “crumbling bricks” and, like, Ptah, the then-grass football field containing many rocks.

“You got some great scrapes and stuff in there,” he said.

But now, everything has changed.

“I think it will bring a lot more people together. It's definitely (provides) a lot more things for the young kids to do,” he said of the facility, noting, in part, that unlike many other sports, track is inexpensive with times, distances and heights known nationally and no need for parents to spend thousands on showcases and camps to help secure college scholarships.

“You don’t need a lot to participate and it can get you a long way,” Winslow said.

Rick Wright, Mount Vernon’s director of athletics, programs and services, described most of Thursday's feedback as "pleased and excited.'

He believes the summer series, which is sponsored by Montefiore Einstein Hospital, will only get more popular.

And the same seems likely for the entire facility.

Glancing down at the track from the stands, Peter Rizzo, who played football at Fordham Prep (Class of 1978) and vividly recalled watching an Iona Prep and New Rochelle High football game at Memorial Field back then with “just a buzz all around,” considered the complex’s future.

“Isn’t this going to be fantastic?” he asked.

Nancy Haggerty covers cross-country, track & field, field hockey, skiing, girls basketball, girls lacrosse and other sporting events for The Journal News/lohud. Follow her on Twitter at both @HaggertyNancy .

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Twilight track series kicks off at Mt. Vernon's reborn-from-rubble Memorial Field