HUSSON -- Heading into its inaugural season at Husson University, the women’s track and field team has a lot of promise, but is also facing some obstacles. The Husson campus is without any kind of track, or anywhere where a track and field team can properly practice. Thankfully for Husson, coach Chris Wood has been in some similar situations before.

Coming from coaching at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, Wood is looking to build this new track and field program into something. Twice in Wood’s career, he has gone to a school that had no strength and conditioning program, and twice he has successfully started up a strength and conditioning program. Now, he looks to do it with a track and field program.

Wood certainly does not mind the challenge at all, “I almost feel like in my career, I’m the start-up guy,” Wood says. “I start the program, I set it up, and I move on to a bigger startup project.” Husson will be no exception to that, as the closest thing to a track team at Husson is the cross country team, but even that has only been around for two seasons. “I like challenges, and you can’t run into a more challenging situation than creating something that doesn’t exist,” Wood added.

Wood has served as an associate strength and conditioning coach at Temple and La Salle University, and was most recently the assistant track and field coach at Pacific Lutheran. Wood, along with his girlfriend and dogs, made the 3,000 mile trek over the Summer to move to Maine so that he could coach at Husson. “The ability to have my own track program and start it from scratch was the appeal for coming to Husson,” says Wood. “I gave up every single thing to come try this out.”

Husson will kick of its season on March 31st at Tufts University, which will give them plenty of time to practice. The only problem is that they have no place to practice. Once the weather starts to improve, Wood’s squad will be able to practice at two high schools in Bangor and in Brewer, but neither of those tracks have been cleared off yet. “We have good athletes, but how do you train them?” says Wood.

Getting onto a regulation track & field facility is very important to the athletes themselves. As captain Molly Frankinburger puts it, the team is making the most of what is has to work with. “It is difficult to practice without a field-house, and this may be a disadvantage compared to our competition,” she says. “Our coaches are making the most out of what we have with our turf fields and new equipment.”

There is optimism throughout the team that they will be ready to go when the season starts. Junior captain Diana Kruszewski thinks their is plenty of talent on this team to compete. “By the looks of recent practices, we are becoming a strong team and I'm excited for everyone to compete in their specific events,” she says.

Along with Frankinburger and Kruszewski, sophomore Kristen Lawrence is the third captain chosen by their coach. Back in the fall, Wood held voluntary workouts for athletes who wanted to go out for the team. According to Wood, the captains were chosen based on the excitement that surrounded them, and who could be responsible when he isn’t around. “The captains are there to run the day-to-day practice,” says Wood. “They get in there, they start the warmup process, and they finish the warmup process. I can hand them a workout, and they can start it until I can get there to physically coach.”

Kruszewski is a javelin thrower, Frankinburger is a distance runner, and Lawrence is a sprinter.

The total amount of girls are on the team has exceeded expectations. Wood was expecting to see about 20 girls go out for the team, and he now has 29 on the active roster.

This weekend, the team will go to the University of Maine and use their indoor field house. They will be able to do a lot more running, as well as shot put and long jump, among other events that they are unable to practice for at Husson.

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