The Best Kind of Chaos: A Weekend at the OHSAA Track and Field State Championships

Harry Zaye | The Ohio Athletic

There’s a certain point every year when Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium stops feeling like a sports venue and starts feeling like an entire temporary city built around track and field.

It starts long before you ever see the track.

The walk from the parking lots feels endless in the best way possible. Athletes carrying spikes over their shoulders. Coaches balancing clipboards and backpacks. Families dragging coolers through the June heat while trying not to lose younger siblings in the crowd. School buses lined up outside the stadium with windows painted in giant letters: “STATE BOUND,” “RUN FAST,” and “ONE LAST RIDE.”

And then you finally reach the entrance.

Immediately, everything hits you at once.

Announcer calls echo from inside the stadium. The smell of sunscreen and concession stand popcorn mixes with the heat bouncing off concrete. Athletes jog warmup strides through crowds that barely move fast enough to clear space. Team tents stretch across the grass outside the gates while food trucks and merchandise stands create traffic jams of parents searching for shade and athletes searching for state meet hoodies they’ll probably wear for the next five years.

For four days, the OHSAA Track and Field State Championships completely take over Columbus. And somehow, every year, the meet feels both impossibly chaotic and perfectly organized at the exact same time.

This year also marked the first state meet under Ohio’s new five-division format, adding even more athletes, races, storylines, and movement across Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium. But the state meet has never really been about just results.It’s about atmosphere. It’s about experience. It’s about spending 11 straight hours at a track stadium and somehow still not wanting to leave.

Near the entrance sits one of the coolest traditions of the weekend: the Jesse Owens statue. At almost every moment, families crowded around it taking photos. Medalists posed with podium awards. Parents straightened uniforms for “one more picture.” Teammates packed together shoulder-to-shoulder trying to fit everybody into frame.

That area almost felt like a pause button in the middle of all the madness. Because everywhere else, the state meet moves fast. One second you’re squeezed into a packed concourse trying to navigate through athletes heading to check-in, and the next you’re leaning over a railing watching a state title get decided by fractions of a second.

The athlete check-in tent may have been the most intense place in the entire venue. Headphones on. Eyes locked forward. Coaches delivering final instructions. Athletes pacing in circles trying to stay loose while officials organized heats. Then twenty minutes later, those same athletes came jogging back through the crowd smiling like they were floating or completely exhausted from leaving everything they had on the track.

That emotional swing is what makes the state meet feel different from almost every other high school sporting event. For every celebration on the podium, somebody else nearby is processing the end of their season. Or their career.

And somehow all of those emotions exist within the same stadium all weekend long.

Division IV delivered plenty of unforgettable moments early in the week. Nathan Lennon’s sprint triple became one of the standout accomplishments of the meet, while Beachwood dominated the sprint events and powered its way toward a girls team state championship through pure speed and depth.

But as the weekend rolled on, the performances across Divisions I, II, and III kept the energy somehow getting even louder. In Division III, Glenville’s Jay’vier “Simba” Kerr lit up the track in the boys 400-meter final, running a blazing 46.92 to capture a state championship in a nationally elite time.

Division II brought more huge moments throughout the afternoon as athletes bounced between finals, podium ceremonies, and victory laps while packed grandstands tried to keep up with everything happening at once. Across the stadium, every event seemed to produce another crowd reaction: hurdle finals, relay anchors, dramatic finishes in distance races, and field event celebrations happening simultaneously. Big Walnut showed it’s track and field prowess as the girls squad finished 2nd in the team standings and the boys took home the team state title. Big Walnut junior, Jamier Brown dominated the sprints ultimately winning the triple and topping it off with a Division 2 State record in the 200m with a time of 20.91.

Then by the time Division I finals rolled around, the atmosphere inside Jesse Owens somehow felt even bigger. The stands were packed nearly top to bottom. Fans crowded fences three and four rows deep. Every relay exchange felt deafening. Every finalist introduction sounded like a college championship meet instead of a high school event. Fans witnessed Hilliard Davidson senior Anna Wile set not one but two OHSAA records in the 100m and 300m hurdle events producing the number 3 and 5 times in the nation! Wile certainly set the tone for the meet as it seemed each following races exhibited season bests or personal records.

And through all of it, Ohio weather still found a way to become part of the story.

No OHSAA state meet feels complete without heat, humidity, and storm delays interrupting the flow of the day. Athletes stretched underneath bleachers while coaches refreshed radar apps every 30 seconds. Fans packed underneath concourses waiting for updates while volunteers and officials tried to reorganize timelines on the fly.

Then suddenly the delay lifts and thousands of people flood back into the stadium all at once like nothing ever happened. Track people are built differently.

The throw events across the street somehow turning into a full expedition every time you walked over there. Photographers sprinting between hurdles and podium ceremonies trying not to miss anything. The constant sound of spikes clicking against concrete. Kids carrying giant souvenir bags from the merchandise stands. Relay teams rehearsing handoffs in random patches of open space outside the stadium.

Even finding a seat became its own competition by Saturday evening.

And somehow, despite the crowds and noise and chaos, there were still quiet moments everywhere if you looked hard enough. An athlete sitting alone underneath the bleachers after finishing their final high school race. A coach hugging a relay team after missing the podium by one spot. Parents watching their kid stand on the podium while trying not to cry.

That podium remained one of the coolest places in the stadium all weekend long. Every few minutes another group of athletes climbed those steps after accomplishing something they’ll remember forever. Some smiled for every camera they saw. Others looked completely stunned just to be standing there.

Either way, for a brief moment, the chaos paused.

That’s what makes the OHSAA state meet special. Not just the times. Not just the medals. Not just the championships. It’s the fact that for one weekend, thousands of athletes from every corner of Ohio all end up in the same place carrying completely different stories. Small schools. Big schools. Favorites. Underdogs. Seniors finishing their final race. Freshmen just happy to survive the moment. Everybody belongs there.

And by Sunday night, Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium slowly empties out. Team tents disappear. Painted buses pull out of parking lots. Athletes walk away carrying medals, backpacks, exhaustion, and probably sunburns. But for four days every June, that stadium becomes the center of Ohio sports.

Hot. Loud. Emotional. Crowded. Chaotic. Perfect.