Track and Field alumni rally to raise funds for 80 new hurdles — and a new chapter for the program
When McMurry track and field athletes arrived for practice one day this spring, they found 80 brand-new hurdles lined up on the straightaway.
For years, the program had relied on aging equipment, making repairs when possible and borrowing what it couldn’t replace. The new hurdles resulted from a coordinated effort by alums who wanted to invest in the future of McMurry track and field.
A Need 25 Years in the Making
“The hurdles we’ve had here were the original hurdles when we started the program in 1999,” said Michael McCarroll, a 2020 graduate and current volunteer pole vault coach. “So we desperately needed some new ones. You need 80 hurdles to host a track meet, and we had about 63 usable ones. So it’s a big need for the program.”
When McMurry hosted meets last season, the shortcomings became increasingly obvious. “Each time we hosted a meet, we’d have to go borrow hurdles from other local universities,” McCarroll said. “So you’d have a few flights of hurdles that were maroon, and then you’d have some purple thrown in there, and then maroon again.”
It worked. But it wasn’t ideal.
“So when we finished up last season, I came up with the idea that we need some new hurdles,” McCarroll said. “We have a track and field alumni Facebook group. And I just got in there and said, ‘Hey, here’s the story behind the hurdles that we have. We don’t have enough to host a meet. We need more.’”
The plan was straightforward: find 80 alums willing to donate $200 each, enough to cover the cost of one hurdle. It didn’t take long for alums to rally behind the effort.
“People just started coming out of the woodwork with donations,” McCarroll said. “Some of the alumni wanted to match other people’s donations, so we ended up raising all the money to purchase the hurdles.The campaign reached its goal in just two weeks.
“The athletes don’t even know that these hurdles are coming,” McCarroll said before the big reveal. “So they’re going to come out to practice today and see 80 brand new hurdles, and they’re going to be stoked.”
And they were.
Coach Cody Knight admitted he was shocked when the hurdles arrived.
“It’s just pride of the program. In my seven years here at McMurry, I’ve not met an alumnus who has been a part of this track and field program who just doesn’t have a tremendous amount of pride about being on this team in their time here.”
Coach Cody KnightThe donations came from every era of the program.
“We had alumni across all generations,” McCarroll said. “Dating back to when we had track and field in the ’80s, to kids that have just graduated in the last couple of years. It was really cool to get them all involved in the project.”
The message was clear. Once you’re part of McMurry Track & Field, you’re part of it for life.
More Than Equipment
For McCarroll, the project reflected what has always made McMurry track and field special.
“My favorite thing about McMurry is obviously the track team,” McCarroll said. “But I think this is a special place, because we have kids that just get after it, you know, especially on the team, in the classroom.”
He continued, “They don’t come from families that necessarily have parents who went to college, but they want to do better for themselves. So they come to school here and get better on the track, get better in the classroom, leave with degrees, and change the course of their history.”
Sometimes progress doesn’t come in flashy headlines or record-breaking performances.
Sometimes it comes in 80 identical maroon-and-white pieces of equipment lined up on a track, paid for by alums who remembered what it felt like to be there.