Case Study (Updated): Track Surface Tension in Tennessee

Further Analysis:

Bigger is not always better, however. It depends on which county you live in. Here is the breakdown of Division I Large Schools in the Top 10 most populous counties in the state:

County No. of "Large" High Schools No. of Rubber Tracks Asphalt Nothing
Shelby 12 7 1 4
Davidson 11 11 0 0
Knox 11 11 0 0
Hamilton 7 6 1 0
Rutherford 9 8 0 1
Williamson 9 9 0 0
Montgomery 6 3 0 3
Sumner  6 2 4 0
Sullivan 3 3 0 0
Wilson 3 3 0 0


As a composite average, if you are at a large school in a large county there is an 82% chance you have at track at your campus while the overall average of large schools is 68%. But as you can see, while 7 of the 10 counties have close to a 1:1 ratio of schools to tracks, three clearly do not.

Shelby County

Shelby County is the largest county in the state and in turn has the largest school in Tennessee without a track; White Station High School with 1986 students. In fact, they have nothing at their campus. There's a longer drawn out history regarding schools under the city charter leveraging city park facilities. It's my understanding however they play their home football games at Arthur Halle Stadium (owned by the city) which also has an 8 lane track which I assume they leverage for track as well. Beyond the largest schools in Shelby County, there are many smaller schools with seemingly no facilities at their campus for any sport. 

Montgomery County

Montgomery County has 6 large high schools. Three have tracks (West Creek, Rossview, Kenwood) while three have nothing (Clarksville, North East, North West). However, there is an established sharing component for this county. Coach Webb of North East explains:

"Each of the new schools have tracks and to create equal footing, the old schools are able to come to the new schools during season to train every day. We are also provided buses to transport students to the school that don't have cars for safety. Those sharing schools work out how they share. NE shares with WC and we go to their track every day. We have created a schedule of who uses the track at what time that allows for maximum opportunity on the track."

And as most of you know, though the Northeast girls do not have their own track, they do have two TSSAA State Team Titles in this decade.

Sumner County

Sumner County also has 6 large high schools. Gallatin High School, is one and is also the cover photo of this article. It may also be the only school I know of to fund their own rubber surface. As you can see though, it is very worn out and not suitable for competition anymore. The other is Hendersonville High School whose surface was paid for through county funding. Beech, Station Camp, White House, and Portland all have asphalt. There are two small schools in the county with nothing: Westmoreland and Merrol Hyde. The one track is to be "shared" by the seven other schools when Hendersonville is not using it.