With indoor track and field about to get underway, ETSU assistant coach Matt High is excited about a women’s team that features returning stars Rosaline Addo and Jennifer Howard and a stable of talented newcomers.
“I’m looking for them to place real high in the conference,” High said.
Chief among the new faces are sprinter Chantelle Vernon, from Canada, 400-meter runner Nichola Cornish, who was an All American at Dorman High School in Spartanburg, S.C., and Knoxville’s Kim Simmons, a former state champion in the pentathalon and hurdles who joins the team after sitting out last year as a partial qualifier.
“There are several people I’m looking for to get to national,” High said.
Yet if there’s one person being looked upon to lead the charge, it is Addo, last year’s ETSU Female Athlete of the Year.
“Rosaline still will be the war horse, per se,” the coach said.
However, High was quick to place Howard in the same category.
“Jennifer’s just as good as Rosaline,” he said, venturing to add Howard might actually be better. “She’s sort of always been in the shadow.”
Case in point, High said, was a school record that Howard broke in one meet.
Addo simply came back and one-upped Howard later the same day, laying her claim to the record.
In addition to the performances of Addo and Howard, High said the ability of players to stay conditioned over a three-week holiday layoff will be critical to their conference hopes.
“That’s the make it or break it time,” he said.
Meanwhile, on the men’s side, the outlook is not as rosy.
“Hopefully, we’ll finish in the middle of the pack,” High said.
Despite scholarship cutbacks, however, the Bucs can boast of a dominant decathlete in Andrew Whitson. Hailing from Bristol Tenn., Whitson has won the last two conference decathalons.
“I don’t expect anything but the best from him,” High said.
The coach expects the heart of the team, however, to be senior Josh Artau.
“He’s a very caring individual,” High said, and will be looked upon to continue his encouraging style of leadership.
Elsewhere, High hopes to plug a few holes with loaners from the football team. Amongst those who may compete is wide receiver Charvin Clark, who would be making his return to the team after winning a SoCon title in both the long jump and triple jump his freshman year.
While the storylines may not run together for the men and women, one common development is that neither squad will compete in the Pepsi/Walker Invitational, usually a Mini-Dome winter staple. A scheduling conflict with the university, High said, has cancelled the 2002 edition of the meet.

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