Patrick Newell

Contributor

NORWICH – Karen Snyder was such a dynamic track and field athlete; it’s easy to forget that it wasn’t her first love. From the time she was about 5 years old, she was putting in many hours practicing and playing soccer.

“I started [playing sports] pretty young , and I was fortunate my parents threw me into everything,” Snyder said, 33, who now lives and works in New Hampshire. “Some of those sports stuck and others did not.”

Long before she graced the Norwich High School varsity track and well before she joined the NHS varsity soccer team, she competed at the club level as a standout defender for the Chenango Chargers. Usually, Snyder was the last line of defense to protect her goalie. She would carry those many years of training into a standout four-year varsity soccer career for the Norwich Purple Tornado.

Snyder came up the soccer ranks with the same core of young ladies, and that group would ultimately jell into the program’s defining team.

Snyder’s senior season, the fall of 2001, stands alone as the Purple Tornado’s best team performance in school history, and no team has come close to matching that 11-5 overall record.

Snyder played with some outstanding athletes, and again, she was the anchor of the defense at fullback, earning Southern Tier Athletic Conference all-star accolades following her junior and senior seasons, as well as her Norwich team’s Most Valuable Player.

“We had a good contingent that all started playing together around the same age,” Snyder said. “Our senior year, we had an excellent team. We had played so long together and had a lot of good talent.”

During that season of distinction, the Purple ladies pulled off perhaps the greatest win in school history. Hosting perennial state championship contender Seton Catholic Central at Perry Browne Elementary School’s Alumni Field, Norwich gained the program’s signature win edging the Saints, 2-1 in a thriller.

Seton was virtually unbeatable that season, and went on to win a Class C state championship. But it was Snyder and the rest of the Tornado that earned eternal bragging rights as the team that beat the eventual state champion.

Snyder could have pursued a collegiate soccer career. Aside from her prodigious soccer skills, she was blessed with tremendous speed and strength.

That speed and strength served her well in the spring, and she proved a natural in just about every track and field event she entered.

Snyder said she discovered an aptitude for track and field during her elementary school days.

Toward the end of the school year, Norwich’s elementary schools have traditionally held a track and field day where kids participated in a variety of running, jumping, and throwing events led by retired NHS physical education teacher Gloria “Scottie” Decker.

“It was one of the crazy days to have fun, but I kind of took it seriously,” Snyder said, remembering back over 20 years.

Decker also coached track and field at the modified, junior varsity, and varsity levels at Norwich for over four decades, and Decker had a big hand in Snyder’s development, particularly in the jumping events.

“She was a huge part of my high school sports career, especially in track and field” Snyder said. “…I think what made her such a great coach was that you knew that she truly cared about her athletes. It wasn't just about running faster or jumping harder for the sake of the team. I felt like she cared more about the value that participating in sports brings to the individual.”

As a freshman newcomer to the varsity track and field team, Snyder was also fortunate to have NHS Sports Hall of Fame inductee, the late Katie Almeter, helping pave the way. Almeter was two years Snyder’s senior, and was a school record waiting to happen every time she entered an event.

Almeter went to the state track and field meet each of her four high school varsity seasons culminating her career with a state championship her senior season in 2000.