Catch Kayla Committee

The Catch Kayla Committee was formed from some of her friends on the track team.

Yet beyond the race-day pit crew, the input of her friends helped Kayla cope with her situation and stay focused and positive.

“I think having a team that supported her gave her some of the ability to overcome it,” said Susie Oliver, a junior. “The hardest part was figuring out what to say. Most of the time, you just have to tell her ‘Look how far you have come, and how far you still have to go.’”

Kayla Montgomery is caught by two teammates at the end of a race during track season. Oliver got started catching Kayla at track meets because she had her own injury and couldn’t help the team any other way. Those first catches were a little clumsy. Meet officials and others standing nearby didn’t know what to make of it at first.

“The more times I did it, the easier it got,” Oliver said. “I would typically grab her legs and someone else would grab her arms. It’s better when you have a team.”

The Catch Kayla Committee works even better as a trio. One to grab her legs. One to catch under her arms. And a third to carry the cooler.

Katherine Leak was part of the crew. She’s a year older than Kayla, a freshman at UNC now.

“What we tried to do is stay calm all of the time,” Leak said. “She’d come around the final corner, we’d see her coming and get ready to catch her. Then we (took) her to the side, sat her up and got her cooled off. We tried to show that it was no big deal. I didn’t mind helping her out because I knew she would be helpful to me if I needed it.”

Being discreet is part of the job. The ends of races were stressful enough for Kayla. She knew every time there would be a catch. It could be dramatic. And it could hurt.

Morgan McBride, a senior, put it bluntly:

“It’s a tough job. It’s a boulder coming at you. A few times she’s knocked me to the ground because she’s coming at full speed.”

Once the catch is made, the next piece is calming Kayla down.

“There were times it was very emotional. The first year it happened it brought me to tears,” McBride said.

During track season, the catch sometimes happened twice during the same meet a few hours apart. Kayla started off in the 4x800 relay and then came back later to run the 3,200. The catchers have to be quick and deft to grab her out of the exchange zone of the relay. If a race is close at the finish, Kayla moves to the outside lanes to avoid a pile-up.