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By 1997 I had retired from coaching the boys' team, Christopher Perron taking over the helm. Jesse Austin was at the top of his form. Meets of 190' were common place and he was one of only a couple of athletes capable of winning the State Finals. The week before at Reading he had captured the State Class B meet convincingly. I drove the girls' team up to Schrewsbury while Chris put Jesse and Chris Schlick into his car. The ride up for the girls was uneventful except for the fact that the directions sent by the state were wrong. I noticed the problem so we took the next exit and circled back to the track. As the competition in the javelin got closer it was obvious the boys weren't around. I kept going back to the area to make sure they didn't finish the event without him. I warned the official that the directions sent out were wrong and made sure the javelin certification official stayed around so Jesse's javelin could be checked in. Later on I was to find out the whole story. They were having so much fun talking on the way up that they didn't notice the exit instructions were wrong. As time went on they realized something might be wrong - I guess it was the exit sign for Amebury Mass. Seeing their problem (being about 45 minutes past the Schrewsbury exit) they proceeded to break the first of two records. The first record was "shortest time from Amesbury to Schrewsbury". They were absolutely wired when they got there. But the second record, and the positive part of the story, was that Jesse threw a school record becoming the only NA athlete to win a state finals javelin competition.

Lenny Harmon is one of the best track athletes in North Attleboro history. It almost didn't happen. Lenny tried out for baseball as a freshman but didn't make the freshman team. I'll keep names out of this to save the coach the embarrasment of being known for cutting one of the most intense athletes ever. So Lenny does track instead. As a novice he does OK as a frosh - nothing special. But he's interested enough to go watch the New England Championships. He sits up in the stands with Coach Ayotte. After the 800M race he turns to Coach Ayotte and says "I'm going to win this race someday!". Any sane person would see the naiveness of making such a statement. But apparently Lenny knew more than anyone - including the baseball coach. Cause what Lenny knew was how much inner drive he had to be the best. And history records that a brash freshman in his first year of track was to return to the New England Championships as a junior and indeed win the championship.