BYU-Idaho Radio · Doug Stutz Interview
Rexburg Track Club is a youth track club that was started nine years ago as a way to promote track activities to children and to also get kids outside for the summer.
Doug Stutz is the president and founder of Rexburg Track Club. He’s also a former track and field coach for Ricks College. He started the program initially for his kids who didn’t have any track activities to do over the summer, but they wanted something to do.
“I was encouraging the high school coaches to do some summer programs with our youth and they felt like they were already extended during the whole school year, and they wanted the summers for their families,” Stutz said. “So after several years of not being able to successfully persuade them to do it I decided that I would do it myself and get it started.”
The track program in the summer is offered to youth ages 7-14 and the cross country program in the fall is offered for students in grades 3-6.
“We initially also offered it to high school students and we found that high school students weren’t that interested,” Stutz said. “But the junior high students have a shorter season and we found that they were eager to do some more track, even if they had already competed, and then those who are younger than junior high obviously hadn’t competed in school and were more than happy to participate in events.”
Rexburg Track Club offers a lot of the events you would see in a normal track and field meet with some slight changes to accommodate the ages of the kids competing.
“We have made homemade, mini hurdles for the younger age group so that they are able to learn the event without having to jump over the big official high school hurdles,” Stutz said.
The first track meet for Rexburg Track Club is on June 9 at Madison High School. The track club trains and participates throughout the month of June and the final meet is on June 30.
You can register your child for Rexburg Track Club here.
There are also other area summer track clubs including Shelley’s, Pocatello’s, and Rigby’s.