If you arrive at the Hoover High School track between three and five in the afternoon, you would probably catch junior Joey Roach sprinting down the straight away. He finds it to be relaxing as he jogs off the field after a mile warm up. Roach heads toward the water fountain to a get a sip of water before a long workout. Roach has played many sports for Hoover High School. He played basketball his sophomore year and football and track for the past two years. “Sports keep me healthy and physically fit,” Roach said. “I also enjoy the rush of the competition and meeting new people on the team.” Although Roach said he has enjoyed playing these sports, he has decided to stick with track and field, which he has been excelling at during his high school career. He admits that track has become his favorite sport, but it was not his first choice of a sport. “My football coach, Coach Bamm, recommended me to try out for the track team. He was also the track coach and said that I was a fast runner and the track team was in need of sprinters, so I decided to give it a try,” Roach said. He is now a sprinter and a hurdler. His head coach, Jack Sallakian, describes Roach as “The top hurdler of our team and one of the best hurdlers Hoover has seen. He is hard working, dedicated, a great leader and role model for his team.” Roach’s favorite event is the 400m sprint because he likes the adrenaline rush and the “booty lock,” where your muscles tense up, you can’t go any faster and you have to push yourself even harder at the end of the race. Although the 400m is his favorite event, his best event is the 300m hurdles, which he runs now in 42 seconds, a two-second improvement from last year. This outstanding time led him to qualify for league finals last season, where he came in seventh place. Even though he didn’t make it to CIF, he is still the seventh best runner in the entire league. Roach describes how the tough training for 10-12 hours per week under the scorching sun allows him do better in his races. “Training is a lot harder than the race itself but the hard work pays off,” he said. He has big ambitions for this season; he hopes to make CIF, because most of the people ahead of him last year were seniors who have graduated. Roach enjoys the fact that his performance depends on his efforts alone. “I like track because it is an individual sport,” Roach said, “I don’t have to rely on others, I work by myself. If I do badly it’s my fault, not the team’s. If I get better, it’s all from my hard work and efforts, so when I do well in a race, it’s all my accomplishment.”