The starting gun fires and Bevon Matz takes off like a rocket. She flashes to the front and then legs out another victory in a 300 meter race.

Matz, the current school record holder in the 300 hurdles for Jim Thorpe, is an exception to her gender. She is one of only five Olympians that has dedicated herself exclusively to the sport of track and field. The other girls on the team participate in a variety of other sports."This year we have a nice turnout of 40 girls as opposed to just 23 boys," said coach Frank Miller, who begins his ninth season at the helm of the Olympian track team. "When I became head coach in 2006, we had only 19 girls so this has been a nice and steady increase."Palmerton track coach, Jeff Minnich boasts of a yearly consistency in his numbers of female athletes with his spring roster holding 27 girls and 42 boys."I believe that all our girls are playing other sports as well," he said "Many of our female sprinters and distance runners are also soccer players, but with no spring soccer season, they come out for track to get faster and to build up endurance."Several of Jim Thorpe's female track athletes come from cross country, soccer, and volleyball. Both Miller and Minnich support the multi-sport participation of their athletes and frown upon specialization, especially at the very young levels."There's no question that track and field is a great opportunity for the girls to condition themselves in order to improve upon their performance in other sports," said Miller.Both coaches also agree that there are some girls who "participate just to participate," but most are committed to their track and field events and practice as hard as the boys."I have found that our female athletes are not only mentally tough, but they are very critical of their own performances," said Miller. "Track and field is different than team sports. The athletes have to be self-motivated. There are no rah-rahs, like you might have in football. Our girls, as well as our boys, have to look inside themselves to get it done."As far as his growing number of girls who participate, Miller is now happy to announce that this is the first year that Jim Thorpe has a seventh and eighth grade program. There are currently 36 girls signed up to participate in five tri-meets."This is very significant to the development of our track athletes because of the experience factor, " Miller said. "A freshman at Pottsville, Tamaqua, or Blue Mountain is more experienced and therefore better prepared than most of our juniors. With a solid feeder program, we will be able to do advanced level training with our girls instead of just coaching the basic fundamentals of the events."Depending upon the passing of this June's school budget, Palmerton intends to begin a middle school program in 2016."As of now, there are no school sports programs at this level so most of the kids go home after school. I'm hoping we can get 40 to 50 kids out for the sport, with many of them being girls, to participate in this new track and field program," said Minnich. "I am very excited about having this pipeline to our high school team."Minnich agrees with Miller that any experience at the younger levels will be a great asset when the girls arrive at the high school."I have learned to have great patience with those girls who are completely new to the sport," he says. "It's like teaching a little kid to swim for the first time."