Glasgow star within reach of four state marks
By KEVIN TRESOLINI
Staff reporter
03/21/2003
Kamilah Salaam
enters her final track season at Glasgow High with 18 career state titles
and one strong wish that has gone unfulfilled.
State outdoor records are the only things that have eluded Salaam in
her stellar career, though they may not be able to keep her at bay much
longer.
"I'd like to break all the records, every single one," said
Salaam, speaking of her four events - the 100- and 200-meter dashes and
100- and 300-meter hurdles.
If anyone is capable, it is the Dragons' senior. And if she doesn't, it
may not be any fault of her own. Her superiority against in-state
competition robs her of the one ingredient often most important for record
times: someone to push you.
It is already quite apparent that Salaam is one of the fastest girls to
ever create a blur on a Delaware track.
She has already twice run times under the state automatic-time record
of 12.04 seconds in the 100 meters. But her 12.02 at the state meet last
spring didn't count because of high winds. She followed that with a
sizzling 11.82 at June's National Scholastic meet in Raleigh, N.C., which
is not sanctioned because it occurs after the high school season.
She also ran a 24.18 in the 200 meters last spring at the state meet on
Polytech's track. That's a mere one-hundredth of a second off the state
mark set in 1998 by Delcastle's Rhondale Jones, whose 27 career state
titles are the all-time Delaware girls standard.
"I don't know if there's anybody pushing her, which will make it
hard to do that," Glasgow coach Art Madric said. "You have to
have that push.
"I'd like to see her go in the 23s in the 200 and break 12 in the
100. She's certainly capable."
Salaam isn't about to give up on two perhaps more difficult record
pursuits, either.
She's posted a 14.76 in the 100 hurdles, in which Glasgow's Shelley
Talbert ran a state-best 14.21 in 1993. The 300-hurdle mark of 42.4 set by
William Penn's Connie Ellerbe in 1987 is also in her range, Salaam feels.
She has run a 43.56, second fastest all-time by a Delaware schoolgirl.
"I'm going to try," Salaam said. "I broke the county
record [in the 300 hurdles] last spring and that gave me a lot of
confidence. Because my times went down indoors, I know they can go down in
outdoor also."
Salaam does hold the state 200 record indoors, 24.72, which she clocked
in 2002.
When Salaam was just 12 years old, she ran the 200 in 25.04 to win her
second national age-group championship. She won in the 400 as a
10-year-old.
As young as she was when she started, she wanted to begin even earlier.
Salaam remembers pestering Madric, then the coach of the Wilmington Track
Club, to let her run when she was 4 years old. Kamilah, who has six
siblings, had watched her older brothers and sister run for Madric, and
she wanted to join them.
"She'd be playing in the sand [at the long-jump pit] at Baynard
Stadium," her mother, Sakeenah, said. "She'd run over to Madric
saying 'Let me run.' He'd say 'Go away.'"
Madric didn't want her to start too soon and, as a result, flame out
too early.
"I remember asking him every year, when I was 4, 5, 6, 7, 'Can I
run on the team?' " she said. "When I was 8 years old, I didn't
ask him. I wanted a uniform like everybody else, so I just entered a
[regional] meet. I ended up getting an outstanding athlete award."
That seems like a long time ago, yet her high school career has flown
by.
"Getting here took forever while it was happening," she said
of her senior spring. "Now that I'm here, it's, like, wait a
minute."
It will be measured, however, in fleeting seconds.
Reach Kevin Tresolini at 324-2807 or ktresolini@delawareonline.com.
 The News Journal/SCOTT NATHAN |
| Glasgow's Kamilah Salaam has already twice run times under the state automatic-time record of 12.04 seconds in the 100-meter dash. |
 News Journal file/FRED COMEGYS |
| "I'd like to break all the records, every single one," Kamilah Salaam said of her four events - the 100- and 200-meter dashes and 100- and 300-meter hurdles. |
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