Girls Dream of Fast Track to Stardom

It is a long way from the grit and grime of a low-income west Oakland housing complex to the well-manicured campus of UC Irvine, but for two Oakland girls the trip represents the latest challenge in their quest to become future track stars.

The girls, Nakail Sowell, 13, and Reyna Goodwin, 12, are members of the Oakland-based Acorn Track Club, which is competing this weekend in the West Coast Classic at Irvine.

The meet, sponsored by the Athletic Congress, features track teams of young people from all over the West Coast, and Sowell and Goodwin are two of its brightest stars.

Both girls are national and state champions in their events and both hope to compete in the Olympic Games one day.

“To be the next Olympic champion in the triple jump, that’s my goal,” Sowell said. “Also, maybe the 200 meters and the 400 meters. I know I’m gonna make it.”

If the girls do go on to become Olympic champions, a large share of the credit will go to their coach, Darrell Hampton, who formed the Acorn Track club four years ago to provide kids in the drug- and crime-plagued Acorn housing complex an alternative to street life.

“Realistically, many of these kids, because of their circumstances, wouldn’t be able to do the kinds of things that we are able to do in the club,” Hampton said. “And ask any of them and they will tell you they want to go to college. This is a way out for them.”

Hampton’s key goals are to take the boys and girls out of the inner-city environment in which they live as often as possible, and to reinforce the idea that hard work and determination will allow them to succeed.

For Hampton, who is recreation director at the 673-unit Acorn apartment complex, it was not easy to gain their trust.

“They didn’t know me, and I wasn’t from their background, so I had to build rapport with them,” he said. “For the first four or five months, it was really rough.”

Now, many parents support the team and travel with it. And established runners like Reyna and Nikail are role models for younger team members and other children in the housing project.

The team “has really helped me to grow up and develop, and it feels great to have other kids look up to me,” said Goodwin, who specializes in the 4x400 meter relay, the 4x100 meter relay and the 200- and 400-meter runs.

The Acorn team is one of two representing low-income housing projects that belong to the Athletic Congress, the sponsoring organization for all track and field events in the United States.

After the Irvine meet, the team will compete in the California State Games in San Diego in August and then will travel to the Bahamas for an international meet.