Handsworth Secondary is the main reason real estate values are so high in North Vancouver.
I can only assume that’s the case because every real estate ad on the North Shore proclaims that the property for sale is in the “Handsworth catchment area” whether it is or isn’t.
The Handsworth brand as a symbol of a quality education is that strong.
Based on the experience of my own children, who spent five years at Handsworth, it’s difficult to tell if the reputation is deserved. But then, there are other factors at play. Like genetics.
Still, Handsworth is right up there with the Tomahawk Restaurant as a quintessential North Shore experience, and the good news is that the province is going to put $62.3 million to rebuild the 57-year-old building. Around here, apparently, 57 is old.
The bad news is that the new school doesn’t come with a running track. The current track, which took years to get built, will be sacrificed in the new design, and there’s only an empty space on the plan for a replacement: “New track goes here someday maybe if Jimmy Pattison or somebody wants to donate the money.”
There must be some mistake. Don’t they know that I do intervals on the Handsworth track? Of course, to look at me, you’d think that when I say “intervals,” I must mean the period between trips to the cookie jar, but that’s a different kind of interval. Just as important maybe.
But seriously, there’s nothing quite like turning up at the Handsworth track at dawn on a summer morning and doing timed 400-metre drills while gasping for breath. It’s age versus training, and with age on the inside track. Once the track is lost, age will be able to run circles around me.
I realize that there are priorities, but if you review the amenities lined up for the new school, they were obviously heavily influenced by the drama department, which gets a new 300 seat “black box theatre.” Let’s hear it for the drama department. Unlike track nerds, who mostly talk about their splits and their injuries (two different things) drama types can make an eloquent case for their own needs.
And there’s all kinds of talk about the new school’s atrium, taking advantage of the light and natural surroundings, all from an indoor perspective. That’s lovely, but the best way to appreciate nature is to go outside, no?
Then there’s the field which the so far non-existent track surrounds. The province will underwrite a grass field only, which, on the North Shore is another way of saying quagmire. Maybe the biology teachers thought it would be a good idea to establish a marshland nearby so they could study the wildlife from the comfort of the atrium.
Apparently it’s lost on the planners and architects that running remains one of the most popular sports in North America today and Vancouver is a hotbed. More than 100 million North Americans run and every April, along with the daffodils, about 45,000 runners turn up for the Sun Run through the streets of Vancouver – routinely one of the continent’s biggest road races.
When I was a kid (much groaning, eye-rolling) the fitness standard in Canadian schools was a six-minute mile. Now, in the age of Fortnite, I suspect too many kids would find a 60-minute mile challenging. Which is why now, more than ever, we need a track at Handsworth.
See how I did that? I managed to turn a selfish agenda item into a call for the renewal of our most precious asset, our young people, and it only took a couple of fingers. Imagine what a fully trained track athlete can do with all that energy.
I know. I admit it. The Handsworth track is like the Bloedel Conservatory. When it was threatened I wrote an impassioned column about the need to save a Vancouver institution. I haven’t been there since. And my dedication to the Handsworth track is contingent on a couple of premises – I gotta lose that 10 pounds before any serious talk about intervals.
But don’t let me get in the way. The psychological and physiological benefits of cardio exercise are so well documented, the retention of the track should be a slam dunk (sorry, wrong sport). The other good thing about running is that anyone can do it and everyone can benefit from it. All you have to do is put one foot in front of another.
And Handsworth is the ideal place to get started.
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