LYNNWOOD — Head track coach Duane Lewis has been a fixture at Lynnwood High School since the Royals held their first workout in the spring of 1971.
The 37-year veteran has won both boys and girls state championships and has coached — by his own estimation — 25-30 individual state champions and roughly that many state runners-up.
But in 1996, Edmonds-Woodway High School began offering the International Baccalaureate program, prompting some of the district’s high-achieving students to attend E-W for that opportunity, Lewis said. That in turn had an effect on the Lynnwood track program — particularly the distance runners, he said.
“(We) lose the top academic students and quite frequently they’re your distance kids,” Lewis said. “You have to be dedicated to go out and pound yourself for miles like these distance kids do … You have to be well-organized. I’ve always found that kids who are more dedicated in sports are more dedicated in the classroom.”
So for the past decade or so, Lewis has grown accustomed to scouring hallways, classrooms, janitor’s closets — anywhere, really, for students to round out his squad.
And that’s when a tall, skinny girl came running out of the periphery and into Lewis’ life.
She was supposed to lift some weights to make up a physical education class, but by her own admission, she can’t lift weights, and that’s why she was out running laps around the Lynnwood High School track one day in April of last year.
Her smooth stride and long, lean build captured the attention of Lewis and assistant track coach Ryan Bartell.
“Usually when you see kids running to make up P.E. classes, they’re stumbling around,” said Bartell, who coaches the Lynnwood distance runners and the Lynnwood cross country team in the fall. “We (asked ourselves) ‘Why is she not on the track team?’ Duane’s the ultimate recruiter so he went up and talked to her.”
The girl was Mawa Ali, then a freshman. Ali had never considered running track, but her quick smile, scholastic aptitude and natural ability have made her one of the bright spots on Lynnwood’s 2008 track team.
“The last thing in my head was that I was going to be a good athlete,” said Ali, now a sophomore who takes several advanced placement classes. “I thought, ‘That sounds cool, but there’s no way that’s going to happen for me.’”
She proved a quick study. Lewis said Ali got a little better every week last spring before “she ran out of weeks.” Then, last fall, she surprised a lot of people by finishing third in the Class 3A District 1 cross country meet to qualify for state, where she placed 15th.
“I don’t see myself as a super athlete who is going to wipe the competition or anything,” Ali said, “but everyone else is like, ‘Yeah you are’ … I just don’t see myself that way.”
This Wednesday and Friday she’ll run at the 3A District 1 meet, where she’ll try to qualify for state in the 3200- and 1600-meter races. She’s within striking distance of the top runners out of the Northwest Conference, but still faces an uphill battle, Lewis said.
“Unfortunately, she would be in a much stronger position as far as getting to state if we had more depth,” he said. “She’s just got nobody to run with and we just don’t have the depth in the distance program for her to have somebody to compete with.”
How Ali came to be the Royals’ top girls distance runner is a story in itself, but it only scratches the surface. Look a little deeper and it’s clear why high school track wasn’t foremost on her mind.
One of seven children, Ali was born in Somalia in 1992, when famine and civil war gripped the East African nation. She left soon after with her mother and older sisters. “I was pretty lucky,” she said. “We got out pretty fast.”
The Ali family settled first in Washington, D.C., and lived in Virginia, West Virginia and Ohio before landing in Lynnwood in 2004.
While many of her classmates fret over a lack of cell-phone coverage or how they can’t afford that Hollister shirt from nearby Alderwood Mall, Ali has larger responsibilities. When not at school, she’s usually at home helping supervise her younger siblings. That was the main reason her mother hesitated to let her turn out for track last spring.
“In my culture, family is a big deal,” said Ali, who is Muslim. “(Her mom says) ‘Focus on the family and school work,’ but she sees I can balance it out.”
As a Muslim, Ali covers her head with a scarf when she’s in public, even during competition.
High school officials around the country have been known to disqualify athletes for uniform deviations, even those worn for religious purposes. In January, for example, a Muslim runner in Washington, D.C. was disqualified for refusing to remove her head covering, but so far that hasn’t been an issue for Ali.
“I don’t mind if people ask me about it,” she said. “(But) nobody really bothers.”
Away from the track, Ali has a strong interest in history and is an avid follower of politics, both in Somalia and the United States.
“I’m really fascinated with politics,” she said. “In my nation we don’t have a government system right now and it kind of got (messed up). All these things go on with people being careless about certain things and (they just need) someone who will get things done. I thought, ‘I can do that when I get older.’”
For now, though, Ali will continue to balance her already full plate and attempt to restore some luster to the Lynnwood track program. Eventually it will be off to college, where she would like to study political science and then hopefully launch a career in public service.
“I read about all these inhumane things that are going on and it really makes me want to do something about it,” she said. “Just moving here kind of influenced me to go into politics because I see there’s a lot of tolerance for things (in the United States). Even when things don’t work out, they’re not as big a deal as in another country … Just seeing how things work out so well here and how you can always improve it, well, why can’t you do that in other places?”
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