Over the past few years, Tompkins County has been a hotbed for producing state champion cross country and track athletes. From Ithaca’s Riley Hubisz, Joshua Kwakye-Minott and Noah Hilker to Lansing’s Trent Thibault this past fall, it’s been a fruitful endeavor to the big stage for quite a few local stars. That trend has continued during the indoor season, and it was Newfield’s turn to bring home a state title.
On March 7, Maddie White won both the state and federation championships in the 1,500-meter race walk at the Ocean Breeze Athletic Complex on Staten Island. The junior waltzed her way to a time of 6:53.11. Not only was that mark 22 seconds ahead of the runner-up, but she also bested her personal record by 20 seconds. With a combination of the right mindset and strategy as she lined up , White put in a performance for the ages and for the record books once the starting gun went off.
“I mainly was trying not to go out too fast,” White said. “Usually in the bigger meets, people go out really, really fast, and so I just wanted to pace myself and race my own race. [I was] just trying to stay calm, not raise my heart rate too much and just get into the zone.”
While it was an individual triumph out on the track, it took a whole village to help White race her way to the top. That included her coaches, including Richie Dorval, Erin Taylor-Talcott, and Sarah White. As White’s coach and mother, Sarah could not have been more proud of what Maddie has been able to achieve this winter.
“It was so exciting,” Sarah White said. “She put in so much work. She really put in the time and effort. As parents, we always say, ‘We will do our part if you do your part.’ And she definitely did her part. She didn’t stop [with the] crummy weather. She was still always training, even right up to the state meet [the previous] night in the parking lot, doing strides in Staten Island.”
The weather also didn’t stop the celebrations back home. Through the pouring rain, White was welcomed back to town with a fire truck escort with many members of the community awaiting her arrival at the high school.
“It was amazing because I could see all my friends cheering for me,” White said.
White has had a meteoric rise through the race walking ranks. She began competing in the event in seventh grade, but it took until her sophomore season where she really broke through. Last year at both sectionals and state qualifiers, she bested defending champion Maddie Tuttle from Watkins Glen to win her first title and make her maiden voyage to Staten Island, where she ended up placing ninth.
Over the past year, all the hard work and patience has paid off with the ultimate prize.
“The really hard part was to just be patient and let the whole process happen,” Sarah White said. “Even though she was maintaining certain speeds, when she needed to go big and decrease her time, she did so. It happened when it needed to happen.”
Another new challenge for White heading into this season was transitioning back into her bread and butter from a new sport. In the fall, she competed in cross country for the first time. As she got back in the swing of things, her times kept going down and down and kept breaking her own school record in the process.
“My biggest improvement was probably getting back into race walking,” White said. “It’s only in indoor and so I had to get back into it and just focus back in on it because I was running for cross country. It was basically just doing race walks or cooldowns after cross country meets and like stuff like that, and then just activating the muscles again.”
White has a shot at more glory on an even grander stage. The New Balance Indoor Nationals are up next on March 12 in Boston, followed by the Nike Indoor Nationals on March 14 in New York City. White has won every race that she’s taken part in this season. Given that her performance at states was good for the second-fastest time in the entire nation, White is primed to shine once again on the track, this time against competitors from across the country.
“I just have to lock back in basically for nationals and just continue training,” White said. “I can’t take any days off.”
“I don’t think it’ll be too much hard training just because she’s going on Thursday and then again on Saturday,” Sarah White said. “For us, it’s just logistics, figuring out where you need to be, when you need to be there. As long as she’s ready physically and mentally, she just has to do it.”
White is the first state champion from Newfield since 2022, when the boys basketball team powered its way to the Class C title.
