AOW: Asile Patin
One long stride launches her forward and she’s off. Her feet become a blur as her arms windmill at her sides, propelling her body into a full sprint on the red rubber surface. As her body approaches the white line, senior track and field co-captain Asile Patin takes a last huge breath of air. Her muscles tense at the last moment like a cliff diver, tightening her whole body in anticipation before the jump. She focuses all this power in her last step, toeing the white line as she springs upward and forward.
One. Lift-off.
After a single jump, Asile’s ordeal would be over. But true to her character, Patin takes on as much as she can as an athlete along with her rigorous academic schedule. Patin is the one to run the optional extra mile, the one to dedicate her senior spring to coaching prep track, the one to take on not one, but three jumps in her main event. She packs an extraordinary amount of willpower in her thin frame. This is the triple jump, and it is not in Asile’s character to quit after one.
Pedaling her feet in the air as she falls, she readies her opposite foot for the next jump. As her foot hits the ground, she already knows what the rest of her team will know moments later. This will be the jump of her life.
Two.
For the third and final time, her feet touch the ground, spraying sand like fireworks as she sets the all-time school record at Interschols, the final meet of the year. The perfect ending to a legendary Hall of Fame high school career.
Three.
Patin recalled her casual beginnings in the sport. Dunbar proctors and track and field co-captains, Sylvia Okafor ‘12 and Lisa Scott ‘12, had encouraged her to try out.
“They said, ‘Yo Asile! You should join track,’” Patin said. Okafor and Scott then dragged her out to the track and set her down at the white line and said one word: “Go.” Patin did, and never looked back.
Patin spoke of the single-minded concentration that has kept her going. Her attitude allowed her to focus on one thing at a time, perfecting each step to get to where she is today.
“If my coaches and captains told me I needed to pick my feet up, I’d pick my feet up,” Patin said. “Forget everything else, this is the only thing that matters until it’s done. Then we’ll move on.”
Now, a proctor and captain in turn, Patin does the same for younger track athletes. “My main focus is for the preps to feel like they’re a real part of the team, that they’re part of the bigger picture,” Patin said.
Asile’s experience drives her to make sure her own preps do not miss out. While Asile packs EF track into her schedule, she is using her senior project time to coach CD prep track as well. So much for senior spring.
“I remember feeling not as involved my prep year because the prep track team meets at a totally different time. I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen again,” Patin said.
Senior Lloyd Campbell, a close friend and teammate, commented on the leadership qualities of Patin.
“She’s committed, she’s outgoing, and that makes her well-respected in Dunbar and among her teammates,” Campbell said. “She’s a great coach, great teacher, great leader. She’s willing to dedicate her senior spring to the preps because she wants to see every one of them become track stars.”
Prep CJ Obiofuma expressed his appreciation for Patin’s instruction. “The fact that she’d take the time out of her day to just come and teach us the things she knows,” he said. “It’s incredible. There’s no other way to say it. It’s selfless and amazing, and I won’t forget it.”
Patin recalled an especially memorable moment from the season. “There’s this hill we go up for practice by the Exeter River. It’s called crew hill… We go up and down and up and down, and there’s no quitting halfway, you have to make it through the whole practice—all seven hills,” Patin said. “So, obviously, being the captain, I have to be a good role model so I’ll run eight. But I remember there was one girl who was having trouble breathing, and lagged behind us. Well I couldn’t let her run alone, so I ran a ninth with her. The most memorable moment for me was when she thanked me. I think more than the Hall of Fame time, more than anything else, that’s what I do track for.”
Asile Patin is more than the Hall of Fame runner. She is more than a title, a captain of track and field, or a proctor in her dorm. She is the amazing soul in her soles, the heart she puts into her teammates and friends and the immense willpower she places in every jump.