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New River Field Guide

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The Rector Field House at Virginia Tech is a little cozier than I imagined.

My youngest son and I recently attended the Virginia Tech Challenge indoor track and field meet there. We found ourselves right in the middle of the action, perched on the very edge of the track and, at one point, part of a women's team huddle.

Most of the building is taken up by the track. The athletes, the spectators and the many people with jobs to do are all squeezed into the space leftover. Actually, a lot of people seemed to spill over onto the track -- sitting in or warming up in the lanes that aren't being used.

Inside the track, there are even more athletes warming up -- some doing crazy dance-like exercises, some sprinting down a straightaway in the middle of the floor. Pole vaulters and jumpers are also doing their thing in there. It's all close enough that sand from the jumpers' pit winds up on the track.

The effect to a first-timer such as myself is chaos, but there was some sort of logic underneath it all, I imagine.

The stands were pretty crowded with people and their stuff, but I found a box at one end of the track. My son could stand on this and peek over the edge of the raised, banked track that was about three feet off the floor.

We stood and watched as runners would come hurtling past, close enough to read the expressions on their faces -- determination, resignation, pain. Unfortunately, we were some distance from the finish line, but we did have a good view of the triple jump and the pole vault.

What we really needed was a little bit better understanding of what we were looking at. Were these heats or finals? What happened to that one guy?

Bottom line: At Rector Field House, you can get a really close look at Hokie athletes in action.