The Syracuse Post Standard, Neighbors, February 9, 1984
Athletes of the year
Marcellus’ Golden ‘seems to succeed’ at what she does by Ron Mergenthaler
Cathy Golden doesn’t remember what drew her to sports. It might have been simple enjoyment, or, perhaps, the interest her coach took in her when she was a fourth-grade gymnast. Maybe it was the competition that her participation brought. Either way, she was hooked.
“I don’t know,” the Marcellus senior said. “I seem to succeed at what I do.”
Obviously. It was those accomplishments in both gymnastics and track and field that led to her receiving the Genesee Classic Champion Award as female High School Athlete of the Year. And it is those same accomplishments that are making a lot of college coaches stand up and take notice. Ability like Golden’s does not stay a secret for long.
She was introduced to gymnastics as a fourth grader, and the coach, Bob Benjamin, spotted something he liked. He was right. Three years later, he promoted her to the Marcellus varsity.
“It was her skill level,” he said. “The level she displayed for a fourth or fifth grader put her far ahead of other girls on that same level.” In six years competing for the Mustangs, she qualified for the sectionals every year, and became the first athlete in the school’s history to become a six-year letter winner. But that wasn’t enough.
Four years ago, George LePorte, the school’s track coach, heard of this extraordinary athlete on the gymnastics team. He spotted potential. Golden, looking for a way to break up the tedium of 12 months of gymnastics training, agreed.
“The skills gymnasts have in terms of strength and mechanics can be easily converted to track and field,” LePorte said. “Gymnasts are self-disciplined and self-motivated, and these are all important to track and field.”
So Golden took to the track. And, like gymnastics, she took to it with a passion. Her obsession to excel even surprised LePorte.
“She’ll work and work,” he said. “We’ll be out there four hours or so, and I have to say, ‘Let’s knock off,’ or she’ll be out there all night. She’s a coach’s dream. You get a kid like this about every 15 years.”
In gymnastics, she competed in the all-around competition despite a growing problem: her size. At 5 feet, 8 ½ inches, she was the team’s tallest competitor in a sport whose subtle skills almost demand a lack of size. In track and field, she won the state indoor high jump last year, and won a bronze medal in the scholastic division of the Empire State Games. She holds the school record in the long jump at 17 feet, 6 inches, and, as a junior, won the state championship in the high jump in her first year at the event. Her athletic ability seems boundless.
“I don’t have any clear-cut goals,” said Golden, who has been recruited as a track athlete by, among others, Vermont, Illinois, Lafayette, and West Virginia. “When I get to a place (college) with good facilities, which we don’t have here, and more coaches, I hope to be able to improve a lot more.”
As modest as she is talented, Golden is reluctant to discuss the records she holds or the ones she is likely to set during the current track season. Not LePorte. Golden is good, and he knows it.
“I think she could be a pentathlete,” he said of the event, which includes the 100-meter hurdles, the high jump, long jump, shot put, and 800-meter run. “She’ll be a world class athlete, in my opinion, if she gets the right coaching and depending on where the coach uses her. It’s kind of scary as a coach to work with a kid with this tremendous potential. She can go as far as she wants to.”
