'All about the kids'

NORTHEAST GLENDALE ? Alan Ghazarians and Michelle Pomar were just thrilled to win their heats in Friday's 20th annual Middle School Relays at Glendale Community College.

And after they won their respective 70-yard hurdle final events, they couldn't even describe their emotions.

"I'm [still] shaking," said Pomar, an eighth-grader at Toll Middle School.

Added Ghazarians, a seventh-grader at Wilson Middle School: "I've been nervous the whole week."

Ghazarians and Pomar overcame the jitters to make their classmates proud at the relays, which featured competitions between Roosevelt, Toll, Rosemont and Wilson middle schools. Ghazarians easily won the championship heat of the hurdles in the seventh-grade boys' division before Pomar took to the track.

Pomar captured Toll's first championship heat when she outleaned her opponent at the tape. Pomar had to wait several seconds to find out the result as officials reviewed a photo of the finish line.

"I was just trying to get [to the tape] as fast as I could," Pomar said with a smile as wide as Glendale College's Sartoris Field, which hosted the relays for the first time.

David Duran, a track and field coach and math teacher at Roosevelt Middle School, was as nervous as his students.

"None of these kids have been in a track meet before," he said. "I tell them that this is a great competition. This might be the only time they run on a track team. I encourage all of them to run and enjoy it."

Twenty years after he helped establish the relays, meet director Bill James of the West Glendale Gateway Kiwanis Club ? which sponsored the meet ? was enjoying watching the more than 200 students bring out the best in each other.

Said James: "This is all about the kids."