With little money, Inlet Grove track coach Anton Pastuszak pushes big dreams

Monday, April 26, 2010
by Cristina Ledra

Photo by Brandon Kruse / The Palm Beach Post

(Clockwise from left) Hurdles crafted from pvc pipe are one of the many handmade items used by the Inlet Grove track and field team during practice; coach Anton Pastusak; a weathered sign.

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There are times when Inlet Grove coach Anton Pastuszak looks around at the mish-mash of home improvement materials his team uses to make track and field equipment, and he can't stop feeling helpless.

He knows the charter school of 700 students in the low-income area of Riviera Beach has a tight budget, so making due is part of the deal, but still ...

"I'm not going to lie, it's frustrating because sometimes I go home and say to myself 'How am I supposed to pull this off?'

"But I'm not going to let it break me," Pastuszak says, "and these kids are not going to let it break them."

It's that determination that Pastuszak has been using since arriving at the school in 2006 to start the track and field program. A former high school drop-out, he uses his hard-scrabble story to inspire his students to want more out of life, use what they have, and not complain about what they don't.

Now, despite not having a sports budget, Inlet Grove is producing track and field athletes who are excelling, qualifying 16 athletes for last week's regional meet, the most in the program's history.

And junior Tyrico McGriff will compete in the long jump at the 2A state track competition on Saturday in Winter Park.

Also this season, the boys' team won the Non-Conference county qualifier meet, earning the program's first-ever trophy, and the boys' and girls' teams took runner-up at the 13-2A district meet.

The track team has produced four athletes who have earned track scholarships to college.

Amazing accomplishments when you consider their training gear.

Walk around the back of Inlet Grove, where the track team calls home, and one thing immediately comes to mind - there is no track, just a set of tires lining the football field.

Then you notice:

• The hurdles are made from PVC pipe and fence pickets.

• The shot put ring is old parking-spot barriers, marked "STAFF" in faded letters.

• The pole vault bar is rubber tubing tied to each post. And the posts are plastic pipes held stationary by barbell weights.

• The starting "gun" is two blocks of wood held together by a metal hinge.

• The shot-put cage's netting is from a golf driving range destroyed by a hurricane.

The track team built everything with saws, hammers, pick axes and shovels. Pastuszak handles the welding and collects whatever materials he can find. And none of his athletes rolls an eye.

"When I was at John I. Leonard, everything was handed to you on a silver platter," said senior JuaQuinn Timmons, who switched to Inlet Grove this year. "Here, (coach) makes you work for it more so it's better. It's like you have to bury yourself in it."

"When you look at it, it looks like equipment and material that comes from the manufacturer. He's just that good," Inlet Grove athletic director Jack Crumity said of Pastuszak.

Pastuszak wishes he had the equipment that other schools have, but it would cost $35,000. The Inlet Grove track team has received two donations for a total of $2,000 this season and they do fund-raising that helps with their minimal budget. Inlet Grove athletic director Jack Crumity sees the struggles but adds, "our sports program doesn't generate a lot of revenue right now."

Pastuszak also wishes he had coaching help for the 40-member team, but various assistants through the years have left, some not wanting to deal with the lack of resources. Pastuszak doesn't blame them and admits the thought has crossed his mind at times. But he also knows that if he quit, the track team likely would fold, and that's just not an option.

"The kids could go somewhere else and they know that," Pastuszak said. "If you detect the anguish and frustration sometimes that I go through, it's not because of (my athletes). "It's just that it's not fair."

But the kids keep moving ahead.

When faced with a lack of resources, Pastuszak said he and his team gets together to figure out "how can we make this happen?" then they move on.

During an early season meet, the team didn't yet have enough money for uniforms and had to compete in white T-shirts and blue gym shorts.

"When we went out there everyone was laughing at us," senior Takita Thomas said. "But when the meet started and we were winning, they couldn't say anything."

Before Royal Palm Beach High and Dwyer High donated their old high jump mattresses, Inlet Grove had to make mattresses out of garbage bags stuffed with foam covered in tarps.

"Every time we fell in it, it would spread out and then there would be a big hole there," junior Mark Metellus said. "We'd have to keep adjusting it when we jumped. And all the foam would absorb rain so we'd fall in and come out soaking wet. And frogs would be in there.

"But we did what had to be done."

Pastuszak, 37, constantly preaches to his team the importance of discipline, working hard, and using sports as a way to get into college.

He sees that now, but not when he dropped out of Palm Beach Lakes High in 1989. He graduated from Gold Coast Community School in 1992 then earned his degree in communications at Lynn University.

He began teaching math and Crumity, who coached him at Gold Coast, brought him in to run the track program.

"I'm not a kid anymore, but if I was in their shoes, if I could do it all over again, I would," Pastuszak said of his athletes. "I can see the big picture now. But it's frustrating sometimes because I can see it all slipping away (from them at times) ... I want them to see. 'Do you see what you guys can get?'"?

In the end, after all of Pastuszak's lengthy speeches and hours of dedication, it appears his athletes do, in fact, get it.

"People think Coach P is crazy," senior thrower Ruben Vincent said. "But "everything he says is true and we do what he tells us and that's how we keep going.

"When people say he's crazy I say that's not true because you're not part of the team ... we have a good coach and we appreciate what he does."

Photo by Brandon Kruse / The Palm Beach Post

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