Inaugural Frank Budd Games launched in Asbury Park
Friendly mini Olymics brings three districts together
History rose to meet a set of hopeful athletes Thursday in the Asbury Park School District.
“All I kept thinking is that I have to get her,” said 13-year-old Micah Wright [shown at right in feature photo] after overtaking competitors to help her team win the 4×100 yard relay at the Frank Budd Games. “I was concentrating on using my arms and legs to power through.”
The inaugural mini Junior Olympics for the district’s elementary school students took hold before Neptune and Long Branch Middle School students joined the Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School for a friendly meet.
Born Francis Joseph Budd in Long Branch, the Asbury Park High School Alumni went on to compete in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome and set the 100-yard dash world record a year later.
Fifty-five years later the school district’s Thurgood Marshall, Barack Obama, and Bradley Elementary School students launched what will be an annual event.
“Everything we do here is based on our action pillars to Rebuild, Retool and Restore,” Superintendent Lamont Repollet said. “Having this recognition for an Olympian from our school district in an Olympic year brings back the sense of pride and recognizes those who have contributed to our history.”
Asbury Park School District Athletic Director Walter Barrett said the games included everything from 30- to 100-yard dashes as well as 440 relays, long jump, and mixed distance relays.
“We shortened the distances for the younger kids,” Barrett [at far right]said of the K-3rd grade races.
Setting off with an Olympic-like procession and ceremony, all the students were given customized t-shirts with the race logo and received participation medals, said organizer Sonia Velazquez, a bilingual paraprofessional and parent liaison.
“This was created by our children,” said Velazquez [shown second from the left, above right].
When Superintendent Lamont Repollet asked what the students would like to do for fun, the answer was a friendly track meet.
“It’s all things they are doing everyday so that just made it easier for us to create,” Velazquez said.
By midafternoon the Asbury Park v Long Branch v Neptune meet was underway.
“This gives the kids something to emulate, to aspire to, and look forward to,” said Budd’s son Frank Budd Jr [shown at far left above right]. “My father, no matter what he did though of Asbury Park as his home. Long Branch was where he was born and he always wanted the kids to do well. Years ago, we used to have race called the Frank Bud Track Meet and now to have the Frank Budd Games, I know he’s up there smiling and loving the kids participating and trying to achieve better.”
Also lending words of inspiration was Olympian Joetta Clark Diggs, who through her Joetta Clark Diggs Sports Foundation has administered a number of inspirational programs in the school district. Budd’s wife Barbara [shown mid center, above right] was also at the inaugural event.
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