By Christopher Hunt
photos by Errol Anderson
NEW YORK – Natasha Hastings visited Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn Monday. Wearing the gold medal she earned as a member of the American 4x400-meter relay team at the Beijing Olympics, she spoke to the boys and girls track team and some members of the volleyball team about everything from steroids to how she maintains her hair through training.
“I usually wear braids,” she said stifling a laugh. “Either braids or weaves.”
For Hastings, 22, who graduated from A. Phillip Randolph in Harlem, it was her first public speaking appearance in New York as a professional athlete. She gave a candid talk about her life as an athlete and about the Olympics. She talked about meeting LeBron James and Serena Williams and watching Asafa Powell and Sanya Richards. Hastings relived watching both the men’s and women’s 4x100 relays drop batons while American track fans’ hearts dropped into their stomachs.
But mostly, while she was in her home city for a week’s vacation, she wanted to show that she once sat in an auditorium not any different from the one at Clara Barton. She once looked up to athletes but noted that she was never in awe (she only admitted to asking for Marion Jones’ autograph). Hastings wanted to show that they could also make something of themselves even if it’s not a professional athlete.
“This is what I want to do without getting caught up in what I’m doing,” she said. “I want my life to be a vessel.”
Hastings has been a hometown hero on the local track community since she became a star in high school. She won a World Youth champion in 2003 and a World Junior champ in 2004 in the 400 meters. Then Hastings, who was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Rosedale, Queens, won the NCAA 400 title in 2007 while at South Carolina and later a bronze medalist at the USA championships with a personal best of 49.84.
Hastings turned pro in 2007 after her junior year. She now lives in Clermont, Fla., training with Lance Braunman in a training camp that includes Jamaican Olympic champion sprinter Veronica Campbell.
“Doing this for a college scholarship is a lot different than doing this for a pay check,” she said.
Hastings went from the comfort of a college dorm or her family’s living room to living on her own. She switched coaches from South Carolina coach Curtis Frye to Braunman. Everything was different, from her training to having to cook for herself. And Hastings struggled.
She spent most of the season running her 400’s around 51 seconds. She even told her audience that her most embarrassing moment in track and field came this season when she competed at the Reebox Grand Prix at Randalls Island at finished what she called “butt-naked last.”
She made the relay pool after finishing fifth at the Olympic Trials. Hastings only found out she’d be running in the preliminary round until the night before the race. She was in China for two weeks never knowing if she’d step foot on the track.
“I can’t say that it was a bad season,” she told the kids. “How can I say that I had a bad season when I have a gold medal around my neck.”
Quotable: A student asked Hastings how it felt to be drug-tested even if she knows she’s clean. Hastings said: “It’s a mixture of feelings. When you are ranked in a certain order, they can perform want is called out-of-competition testing. That means they can come through this door right now and tell me to pee in a cup. We have an organization called the USADA (United States Anti-Doping Agency). It may be a hassle but I am proud that we are one of the few countries that have that type of system in place. It’s sad that some of our athletes have been (on steroids) but at least we are doing something about it.”