Roudy Monrose - Spring Valley High School - Class of 1997
Although Roudy Monrose's favorite event was the 200 meters, it was in the longer sprints that he achieved his greatest fame at the high school level. The Spring Valley sprinting dynamo captured the New York State 400-meter dash crown outdoors as a sophomore in 1995, and zoomed to the State 300-meter gold medal indoors as a junior in 1996, clocking a still-standing Rockland County record of 34.61 seconds.
A precocious talent who bloomed early, Roudy set five Rockland County records, won a pair of County titles and three Section 1 Class A championships, and earned numerous League and invitational meet victories. Two of his County records still stand – the 300-meter mark and his 300-yard time of 31.4, and he ranks second in the outdoor 200 at 21.2 (wind-aided), which he clocked in the trial heats at the '95 State meet. Roudy also rates fourth in both the indoor 200 (22.36) and 60 meters (7.19) and sixth in the outdoor 400 at 48.14, which he ran in the semis of the '96 State meet. Other noteworthy performances include a third-place finish in the 1997 State meet 200 meters in 22.06, which also nabbed fifth in the Federation; a gold medal at the 1996 Loucks Games 200 meters; and a fourth place at the 1997 State and Federation meets in the 4x100-meter relay for Spring Valley.
Roudy might have soared to loftier heights had his religious obligations not directly conflicted with his track competition on meet days. As an adherent of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Roudy attended worship services on Saturdays, when many of his meets fell. Until he turned 16, Saturdays were devoted to church, meaning that Roudy missed out on meets such as the 1994 indoor State meet, which he had qualified for in the 300, and the County meet that same season.
Once Roudy turned 16, his mother, Ruth Monrose, allowed him to decide for himself how to handle the Saturday dilemma. “That's between you and God,” Mrs. Monrose told Rudy. He made a pact with his mother that stipulated he spend the first half of the morning in church, then depart for the track meet if it were held locally. But meets out of the area were his call. The '95 State outdoor meet in Buffalo was one such instance. Roudy qualified for the meet in the 400 and, in prime competitive form, made the decision to compete in Buffalo. Although he missed the Sectional team bus, he got a ride to Kingston, where the bus waited and picked him up before continuing on to Buffalo. The rest, as they say, is history. “I think the Lord made me qualify so I could go to States,” Roudy says. “It was a sign.”
Born in Nyack, Roudy moved to Spring Valley at age 7 or 8 and enrolled in the East Ramapo schools. He showed sprinting promise during field days at Eldorado and Fleetwood elementary schools, and joined the Spring Valley track program as a seventh grader under the direction of Hall of Famers Betsy Evans and Jim Ashcroft. He also drew inspiration from his cousin, Michelle Lorvil, who excelled for the Spring Valley track team in the early 1990s. During Roudy's eighth- and ninth-grade years he received coaching guidance from Spring Valley track alumni David Ash and Hall of Famers Larry Gardner and Sherwin Sterling.
When Gardner was in town, Monrose would work with him in separate sessions after practice, learning from an athlete who reached the national level with 45-second credentials in the 400. “I had the drive and the urgency to win,” Roudy said. “I didn't like to lose. I had the will to do the extra sessions. I knew that Larry and Sherwin had reached the elite level as athletes. I wanted to take advantage of Larry's knowledge and insights about training and his work ethic. I thought it would help me in my career.” Roudy also benefited from the expertise of outdoor coaches Percy Boykin and Pierre Fils, the latter especially with weight training, indoor coach Mark Jackson, and cousin/coach Dudley Macharie.
Roudy enjoyed his experience on the track team at Spring Valley, developing close friendships with teammates Joseph Nemorin and Helmuth Nelson. Nemorin ran a leg on the Tigers' state-caliber 4x100 relay, along with Mark Paisley, Ronald Albert and Jean Etienne. When the team chose to focus more on the relay during Roudy's senior year outdoors, he de-emphasized the 400 and stuck with the 100, 200 and relay.
When the time came to choose a college, Roudy opted not to pursue an athletic scholarship so he would not be locked into competing on Saturdays. Upon the advice of Coach Fils, he enrolled at Norfolk State in Virginia, which had a strong track program and allowed walk-ons to try out for the team. Roudy trained with the team indoors his freshman year, but ultimately decided not to go any further. He majored in biology on a pre-med track and spent three years in Norfolk, but left one year early and did not graduate.
Strange as it might seem, Roudy got the sprinting bug again in the fall of 2007, a decade after high school. “I decided that I wanted to try out for the 2008 Olympics,” he says simply. Since his parents are from Haiti, Roudy has dual citizenship. His quest to make the Haitian Olympic team prompted an outreach to Larry Gardner, who put him in touch with Dennis Mitchell, the former world-class sprinter who coaches a team of professional athletes in Clermont, Florida. Mitchell gave Roudy the green light to train with his athletes, so Roudy started practice in October 2007 with an eye on making the Olympic standard of 20.75 in the 200 and competing in the Beijing Olympics in August 2008.
Roudy ran personal best times of 20.96 and 20.88, both wind-aided, but essentially ran out of time and meets. Since Haiti does not hold trials for the Olympics, he chose to compete in June at the Bahamian trials, where he hoped to hit the standard. But after qualifying for the final (in 21.1), he learned he was ineligible to compete in it because he was not Bahamian, and abandoned his pursuit.
Roudy was not quite done with his sprinting crusade, however. Battling through lower-leg injuries, he qualified for the Haitian national team to compete in the 2011 World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, at the advanced sprinting age of 33, having run a personal-best time of 20.69 to qualify. He ran in the first round but did not advance, thus ending his odyssey as a competitor at the upper echelon of the sport.
After scaling back his sprinting career in 2015, Roudy served as an assistant coach for Mitchell, managing international athletes in Mitchell's stable of sprinters. Roudy, who is 41, has lived in Clermont since 2008 and currently is a personal trainer and coach with his own business, Complete Body Fitness LLC, training high school and pro athletes.
to edit.
Although Roudy Monrose's favorite event was the 200 meters, it was in the longer sprints that he achieved his greatest fame at the high school level. The Spring Valley sprinting dynamo captured the New York State 400-meter dash crown outdoors as a sophomore in 1995, and zoomed to the State 300-meter gold medal indoors as a junior in 1996, clocking a still-standing Rockland County record of 34.61 seconds.
A precocious talent who bloomed early, Roudy set five Rockland County records, won a pair of County titles and three Section 1 Class A championships, and earned numerous League and invitational meet victories. Two of his County records still stand – the 300-meter mark and his 300-yard time of 31.4, and he ranks second in the outdoor 200 at 21.2 (wind-aided), which he clocked in the trial heats at the '95 State meet. Roudy also rates fourth in both the indoor 200 (22.36) and 60 meters (7.19) and sixth in the outdoor 400 at 48.14, which he ran in the semis of the '96 State meet. Other noteworthy performances include a third-place finish in the 1997 State meet 200 meters in 22.06, which also nabbed fifth in the Federation; a gold medal at the 1996 Loucks Games 200 meters; and a fourth place at the 1997 State and Federation meets in the 4x100-meter relay for Spring Valley.
Roudy might have soared to loftier heights had his religious obligations not directly conflicted with his track competition on meet days. As an adherent of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Roudy attended worship services on Saturdays, when many of his meets fell. Until he turned 16, Saturdays were devoted to church, meaning that Roudy missed out on meets such as the 1994 indoor State meet, which he had qualified for in the 300, and the County meet that same season.
Once Roudy turned 16, his mother, Ruth Monrose, allowed him to decide for himself how to handle the Saturday dilemma. “That's between you and God,” Mrs. Monrose told Rudy. He made a pact with his mother that stipulated he spend the first half of the morning in church, then depart for the track meet if it were held locally. But meets out of the area were his call. The '95 State outdoor meet in Buffalo was one such instance. Roudy qualified for the meet in the 400 and, in prime competitive form, made the decision to compete in Buffalo. Although he missed the Sectional team bus, he got a ride to Kingston, where the bus waited and picked him up before continuing on to Buffalo. The rest, as they say, is history. “I think the Lord made me qualify so I could go to States,” Roudy says. “It was a sign.”
Born in Nyack, Roudy moved to Spring Valley at age 7 or 8 and enrolled in the East Ramapo schools. He showed sprinting promise during field days at Eldorado and Fleetwood elementary schools, and joined the Spring Valley track program as a seventh grader under the direction of Hall of Famers Betsy Evans and Jim Ashcroft. He also drew inspiration from his cousin, Michelle Lorvil, who excelled for the Spring Valley track team in the early 1990s. During Roudy's eighth- and ninth-grade years he received coaching guidance from Spring Valley track alumni David Ash and Hall of Famers Larry Gardner and Sherwin Sterling.
When Gardner was in town, Monrose would work with him in separate sessions after practice, learning from an athlete who reached the national level with 45-second credentials in the 400. “I had the drive and the urgency to win,” Roudy said. “I didn't like to lose. I had the will to do the extra sessions. I knew that Larry and Sherwin had reached the elite level as athletes. I wanted to take advantage of Larry's knowledge and insights about training and his work ethic. I thought it would help me in my career.” Roudy also benefited from the expertise of outdoor coaches Percy Boykin and Pierre Fils, the latter especially with weight training, indoor coach Mark Jackson, and cousin/coach Dudley Macharie.
Roudy enjoyed his experience on the track team at Spring Valley, developing close friendships with teammates Joseph Nemorin and Helmuth Nelson. Nemorin ran a leg on the Tigers' state-caliber 4x100 relay, along with Mark Paisley, Ronald Albert and Jean Etienne. When the team chose to focus more on the relay during Roudy's senior year outdoors, he de-emphasized the 400 and stuck with the 100, 200 and relay.
When the time came to choose a college, Roudy opted not to pursue an athletic scholarship so he would not be locked into competing on Saturdays. Upon the advice of Coach Fils, he enrolled at Norfolk State in Virginia, which had a strong track program and allowed walk-ons to try out for the team. Roudy trained with the team indoors his freshman year, but ultimately decided not to go any further. He majored in biology on a pre-med track and spent three years in Norfolk, but left one year early and did not graduate.
Strange as it might seem, Roudy got the sprinting bug again in the fall of 2007, a decade after high school. “I decided that I wanted to try out for the 2008 Olympics,” he says simply. Since his parents are from Haiti, Roudy has dual citizenship. His quest to make the Haitian Olympic team prompted an outreach to Larry Gardner, who put him in touch with Dennis Mitchell, the former world-class sprinter who coaches a team of professional athletes in Clermont, Florida. Mitchell gave Roudy the green light to train with his athletes, so Roudy started practice in October 2007 with an eye on making the Olympic standard of 20.75 in the 200 and competing in the Beijing Olympics in August 2008.
Roudy ran personal best times of 20.96 and 20.88, both wind-aided, but essentially ran out of time and meets. Since Haiti does not hold trials for the Olympics, he chose to compete in June at the Bahamian trials, where he hoped to hit the standard. But after qualifying for the final (in 21.1), he learned he was ineligible to compete in it because he was not Bahamian, and abandoned his pursuit.
Roudy was not quite done with his sprinting crusade, however. Battling through lower-leg injuries, he qualified for the Haitian national team to compete in the 2011 World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, at the advanced sprinting age of 33, having run a personal-best time of 20.69 to qualify. He ran in the first round but did not advance, thus ending his odyssey as a competitor at the upper echelon of the sport.
After scaling back his sprinting career in 2015, Roudy served as an assistant coach for Mitchell, managing international athletes in Mitchell's stable of sprinters. Roudy, who is 41, has lived in Clermont since 2008 and currently is a personal trainer and coach with his own business, Complete Body Fitness LLC, training high school and pro athletes.
to edit.