Cheryl Toussaint knows the importance of a mentor in young people’s lives. She was just thirteen when she met running coach Fred Thompson, who insisted that his teenage athletes pursue excellence not only on the track, but in school.
Under his tutelage, she earned a scholarship to New York University and went on to win Olympic silver at the 1972 Games. Today, as Director of the Colgate Women’s Games, she carries on his mission to inspire and empower young women.
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When Cheryl first saw Fred, he was standing in the middle of the field at a track and field event, the first that she had ever been to. “Circled around him were a bunch of young girls of all ages who he was speaking to in a very firm tone, letting them know that what they had just done in the competition that day was great, but now they had to get ready and practice,” she recalls.
“And I, at age thirteen, having never been involved in sports, having never been around an organized team or a coach, not knowing what a coach really was, I found that fascinating. I set back and watched what was going on, and the girls were practicing, and they were doing their drills, and they just seemed to be having a pretty enjoyable time. The camaraderie was there. They were pushing and cheering each other on, encouraging each other.
“And I was watching how he was reacting to each and every one of them. He had a special relationship with the team at large, but he also saw that each individual had their own strengths and weaknesses and he was calling them out. Years later, I learned what that does for a young person, to be seen, to be recognized; for someone who isn’t even related to you to call out instructions that are helpful to you to become more self-aware, for you to eventually become more self-determined because of it.”
Fred Thompson was an attorney and former runner who wanted to give back to his Brooklyn community. “In my neighborhood,” Cheryl recalls, “there weren’t structured programs or much going on at that time. There was a tremendous challenge for girls and teens to complete high school, not be a high school dropout, not get pregnant, finish school. The talk of college education wasn’t even in the conversation. For me, I felt like as a teenager, I was searching for that thing to do that would inspire me and move me.”
She found it when she joined Thompson’s Atoms Track Club. “All the athletes who were on his team, it really started to help you focus on where you wanted to go, what you wanted to do. Was this important enough for you to dedicate your time to? Maybe not hang out and go to parties or do what other teens your age were doing? Because at the end of the day, it was an organized, structured program that required discipline, dedication, and sacrifice, and to be a part of this team, you really had to put in, you had to show that you were willing to do these things. So lots of positive results came out as a result of it. It was an amazing experience for a teenager to see.”
The Atoms Track Club had runners as young as first graders, as the Colgate Women’s Games,which Fred also founded, does now. “It is the best time to catch young athletes, when they’re most impressionable and they’re most willing to accept,” Cheryl says. “These are hard lessons to learn. Sometimes they can’t be taught at home or even in school. Sometimes they’re best learned in the physical sense where you actually have to apply yourself to improve whatever it is. So the self-discipline, the perseverance, dealing with defeat, humiliation, just learning how to pick yourself back up and drive forward, even in the face of embarrassment, learning to just flick it off your shoulder and get on with the next thing. The earlier those skills are learned, the more helpful it is to the individual.
“It’s critical because it is what is going to sustain them throughout their lives to have those qualities that you learn from the sport. Those are without a doubt among the most important qualities, and of course the lessons learned from it are not just for the sport. It’s for every endeavor you pursue in your lifetime afterwards.”
They were lessons that Cheryl put into practice when she competed in the trials of the 4×400 relay at the 1972 Olympic Games. “I was on the third leg.When I turned around to grab the baton from the incoming runner from second leg, and I took one step forward, the runner in front of me fell and I had to navigate how to get around her without falling myself.
“In the pause of trying to just get around her and not create another incident, someone crashed into the back of me, stepped on the heel of my shoe, and so it was stuck halfway on, halfway off. Instinctively, I thought, ‘This is not good. I have to run 400 meters. I can’t run with a shoe halfway on, halfway off.’ So I kind of just jolted it to make it go off all together. I ended up running that third leg with one of my shoes on and the other one completely off. I was barefoot. And I just remember thinking to myself, ‘Wow, I’m all the way in Munich, Germany, running the third leg of the women’s 4×400 with one shoe on and one shoe off. That must really look silly.’
“But I’ll tell you, it took the focus and the tension off. Because in that moment, I just sort of relaxed and thought, ‘But you gotta run this leg and you gotta help Team USA qualify for the finals. So just run, just run. Do what you’ve been trained to do.’ And I thought of all the people in my community, at the Games, on the US team, at home, who were really rooting us on. And I thought, ‘You better figure it out.’
“And all those things you learn when you’re at practice, all those times you fall and you get back up, all those times you have a bad race and you go home and you just want to sink your head in the pillow and not lift it up, I thought about all those times. How I got back up and went back out and realized, ‘You can do this.’ Just run, just run, just do what you were trained to do.
“That got me over and that attitude, that experience has traveled with me in every single thing I do. I mean, it’s always a learning experience, having different challenges that you’re faced with in life because it could be a challenge in sport, at home, on your job, in school, with a friend. But I always reflect back, as long as there’s a solution, you’re good. And the solution then was to just keep running.”
The girls who participate in the Colgate Women’s Games learn the same lessons that carried Cheryl through the Olympics. Since its inception in 1974, it has changed countless lives, not only by producing 26 Olympians and hundreds of national champions and Junior Olympians, but women who excel in all areas of life. In the tradition of Fred Thompson insisting that the members of the Atoms Track Club keep up their grades, the Colgate Women’s Games offers young women an incentive to pursue their studies by awarding supplemental grants and scholarships.
As the Colgate Women’s Games approaches the half century mark, Cheryl says, “I don’t think there’ll ever not be a time when it’s needed because we have big contributions to make as women in society and this is one way we can do it. We can help save lives or help enhance lives one athlete at a time, one race at a time, one season at a time. It’ll always be a need for that.
“So I feel it’s super important and I’m loving being a part of this whole mission to make a difference. And I love the fact that I’m allowed the opportunity to continue my passion in my work with the Colgate Women’s Games. I can’t imagine doing anything else. I know from my own personal experience that it does really make a difference. It seems like fun and games, and it is fun, but it’s serious competition going on and some serious learning going on, serious development going on, and it’s shaping leaders for the future.”
Resources:
Colgate Women’s Games Instagram
Registration and Entry Form for the 2024 Colgate Women’s Games
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