West Track Standout Expects Second Pat Harmon Run to Top First

brought out 672 runners and raised more than $15 thousand for the American Cancer Society. New organizer for the run Mike Catalano, a West senior track standout, said .

“When I started I didn’t expect it to go as well as it did last year since last year was the first one and coach Harmon had recently passed away so everyone wanted to come out,” Catalano said. “This year actually right now we have more money pre-donated than we did last year and there’s 300 people registered already.”

Regisration for the run begins at 8 a.m., and the run starts at 9:30 a.m. The 1K Fun Run begins at 9 a.m.

Catalano said he expects many teams from East and West to participate, although they haven’t pre-registered. Teams expected to participate are the East junior varsity and varsity track teams, East girls volleyball, East and West boys junior varsity volleyball, East and West cheerleading, East and West kick line, and more.

, a former West track star and current student at Marist College, passed the organizer duties off to Catalano for this year’s run, a move he said he’s happy with.

“I knew I was going to be away for a little while and he’s a determined kid and I couldn’t have picked a better person to take over the run, I know he’s been doing a great job and it’s going to be a good run,” Valentino said.

While he didn’t have a chance to run last year, Valentino said he would be on the street this year with the other participants.

Harmon was a coach to the team when Catalano was in ninth and 10th grade, and Catalano said seeing him coach while battling cancer was enough to make him put the effort to make this run a success.

“Every practice I would see him and even what he was going through he’d always have a smile on his face, he rarely missed anything, never missed a meet, always there, always happy, joking around with us,” he said. “It was amazing to see him doing that knowing what he was going through.”

A senior now and already having the duties passed to him due to Valentino graduating, Catalano said he’s working with other track athletes now to ensure next year’s run for Harmon goes well.

“A bunch of the younger kids have been helping me, coming out to town [and] putting a lot of time to collect donations,” he said. “I’m probably going to get together with a group of four or five kids that are going to be juniors and seniors next year and explain to them what I did and have them work together for next year.”