Between the starting blocks and the finish line, Terrence McGaughy could almost hear the words “national champions.”
McGaughy could see teammate Quinton Dodson rounding the turn, running shoelace-to-shoelace with the best high school competition in the nation during the first leg of the 400-meter relay at the Simplot Games.
McGaughy, Dodson and the rest of George Washington’s relay team had posted one of the fastest times in the preliminary rounds, and now McGaughy crouched down, ready for his turn on the track. Things looked good, until …
“I looked back for the baton and I thought I had it before I actually had it,” McGaughy said of the indoor race last year in Pocatello, Idaho. “There went the baton. And we were ranked nationally!”
Mathematicians have analyzed it. Grown men have lost sleep thinking about it and sprinters of all ages have anguished the mere thought of it. Hours have been spent practicing it. State records can be set when it is done right, and championships can be lost when it’s wrong.
The relay baton exchange. Don’t mention the words in certain company.
“That’s not a good topic,” said Richard Nye, boys track coach at George Washington since 1994. “I don’t want to get into it. I don’t want to jinx anything.”
There are three times during a 400-, 800- and 1,600-meter relay for the blind exchange. Smooth exchanges give the team a fast track to victory. But when it doesn’t, the raised disqualification flag lets everyone know if the gasps from the crowd don’t do it first.
“We’ve had our fair share of problems with baton passing,” Don Gatewood said.
Gatewood coached Manual track from 1972-79 and Montbello from 1980 to 2006 before retiring after last season. His Montbello boys teams hold standing state records in the 400, 800 and 1,600 relays, and the Warriors claimed more relay titles than any other school in Colorado during that time.
Gatewood coached nine teams to overall state titles during his 34 years, including seven between 1987 and 1996 at Montbello. That number would be 10, or more, if not for the perilous baton exchange.
“We hadn’t lost a race in the (400 or 800 relays) all year in 1994,” Gatewood said. “And then at the state meet, the same kid got nervous and took off too soon in both races. We messed up the exchanges and that was 20 points we didn’t get.”
Montbello narrowly lost the team title to Arvada West, interrupting what would have been a four-year run at the top.
To that unnamed, anxious sprinter: Don’t worry about it. It’s happened to the best on the biggest stage, and U.S. Olympic teams have a particularly rocky history with exchanges in the 400-meter relay.
At the 2004 Olympics, Coby Miller, the third leg on the U.S. men’s team in Athens, had to slow to a jog waiting for the handoff from Justin Gatlin. The previous exchange also had been less than perfect, and the U.S. team lost the gold medal to Great Britain by the narrowest of margins, .01 of a second.
Worse, Marion Jones and Lauryn Williams botched their exchange in Athens and disqualified the women’s team from an event the U.S. had won in four of the previous five Games.
Wilma Rudolph legendarily picked up a fumbled baton off the track and made up a sizable deficit on the anchor leg to nip the Germans at the finish line for gold in the 1960 Olympics.
“It happens all the time,” Nye said. “We’ve had a bunch of great teams at George Washington that didn’t win a race because of the handoff. And it goes the other way, too. We’ve been running alongside Montbello and, boom, there goes the baton.”
Nye’s Patriots won a state title in the 400-meter relay last season, clocking a time of 42.26 seconds, 1.02 off the state record set by Montbello in 2004.
George Washington’s current 400 and 800 relay teams, featuring McGaughy and Dodson, are chasing state titles and state records this time.
But it all hinges on carrying that baton safely and smoothly around the track and across the finish line. That can be tricky even between the exchange zones.
David Williams, part of the Patriots’ top 800 relay squad, remembered a meet during his sophomore season when he took an early lead and the baton felt truly weightless in his hand.
“I just dropped the baton halfway into the turn,” Williams said. “I had to stop, go running back and pick it up, and then go back and pass everybody up again. We actually finished second.”
