Bliss youth relay team best in region, 10th nationally

Master Sgt. Steve Miller
Public Affairs Chief

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Two Fort Bliss family members comprised half of the top boys 4x400-meter relay team in the region during a recent meet in Provo, Utah.

Thaddeus Chase Jr. and Anthony Lambert ran the second and third legs, respectively, on a team that also included Edward Britton and Alex Calzada, winning in 3 minutes, 19.9 seconds. Their win in Utah against teams from Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and West Texas propelled them to the National Junior Olympics meet – for youngsters 19 or under – last weekend in Eugene, Ore., where they finished 10th while competing against all the other regional winners – more than 20 teams in all.

“It was just our training – our coach trains us really hard,” said Chase, who leaves Saturday for Stanford University, where he will attend college on a $30,000 academic scholarship. “It pays off in the end.”
Dale Laverty coaches the youngsters on a part-time basis and is a former University of Texas at El Paso track athlete.

“We work on a lot of stuff they don’t work on in school, such as interval training, where I might have them run at 90, 80 or 70 percent of their normal 400 speed and then adjust the recovery rate as the season goes along,” Laverty said. “We shoot for quality versus quantity. I work the kids harder than most of them run in high school.”

Chase, 18, is the son of Capt. Thaddeus Chase and his wife, Anne. The elder Chase is assigned to the Training and Doctrine Command System Manager’s office here.

The younger Chase excelled locally at Burges High School, where he performed the long jump and ran the 200-meter dash, the 4x200-meter relay and the 4x400-meter relay. He was named 1st team all district in the 200, as was his 4x400 relay team. His 4x200 relay team was named to the all-city team in El Paso on a Burges team that has gone the last two years unbeaten in dual meets. Chase was also a wide receiver and safety on the football team and – for good measure – was the valedictorian for his May 30 high-school graduation ceremony.

“I worked with Thaddeus all through his high-school years,” Laverty said. “He’s a great kid – they all are.”
Lambert, 18, is the son of Lt. Col. Andy Lambert, commander of the 1st Battalion, 362nd Air Defense Artillery, a training support unit, and his wife, Stacey.

The younger Lambert is also a multi-sport athlete and finished in the top five of his graduating class at Chapin High School. He plans to attend UTEP and major in computer engineering.

At Chapin, Lambert ran the 400 and 800-meter dashes and was on the 4x100 and 4x400 relay teams, which earned all-district honors, including a district record for the 4x400 team. Lambert also was a shooting guard for three years on the Husky basketball team and ran cross-country his senior year.

“We were all used to being the leaders on the track teams at our schools, and I think that really helped us. (At nationals,) I took off too fast because I almost caught him,” Lambert said of closing a 20-meter deficit. “Then I hit a brick wall – I just couldn’t make up any more ground and we stayed in third. The two teams that beat us in our heat finished first and second overall, so ours was the toughest heat.”

Alex Smith, girls track coach at Burges, accompanied the relay team to both the regional and national meets.
“The regionals were something they felt they should have won – and they did,” Smith said. “The nationals include all the regional champions, and it was definitely very tough competition. They did not run according to what they expected, but I felt they gave it their best.”

Chase and Lambert have known each other since the 4th grade – some nine years now, growing up in El Paso most of the time. They plan to keep their friendship strong in the face of the challenges their adult lives will present.