Further Support For the Claim That Adnan Was On Time For Track Practice On January 13th

A couple of weeks ago, I posted an entry about Jay’s narrative of events from 3:21 P.M. through 4:30 P.M. only making sense if Adnan was late to track practice, regardless of whether track practice started at 3:30 P.M. or 4:00 P.M. This was based upon (1) Jay repeatedly claiming that he was with Adnan for the 3:59 P.M. call to Patrick/Patrice before they headed to the Forest Park Golf Course; and (2) Jay repeatedly claiming that Adnan took the (three minute long) 4:27 P.M. call before heading to track practice.

This could be problematic for the State given that track coach Michael Sye remembered Adnan arriving and leaving on time for track practice on a day that only could have been January 13th:

Given that Coach Sye didn’t take written attendance, though, it is questionable whether he actually knew that Adnan arrived on time for practice. But a new comment to my prior post made me look back at the notes from Coach Sye’s statement to detectives, and I think those notes provide pretty good circumstantial evidence that Adnan was on time or at least not 30+ minutes late for practice.

Here are the pertinent excerpts taken from the full set of notes of Coach Sye’s police interview:

From these excerpts, the following seems likely: (1) track practice started with everyone meeting on the track; (2) during this meeting, Coach Sye would make a mental note if someone was late in arriving; (3) during this team meeting, everyone would stretch before practicing in their particular discipline;* (4) on the date of the Ramadan conversation, Coach Sye stretched with Adnan and initiated a conversation with him about Ramadan; and (5) Coach Sye then walked around the track with Adnan.

Previously, I thought that the likeliest Adnan-was-late scenario was Adnan arriving late at practice and starting to walk around the track, with Coach Sye eventually joining him and not noting that Adnan was late. But Coach Sye’s statement about stretching with Adnan seemingly precludes that possibility.

You stretch at the start (and sometimes the end) of track practice. Sometime, if you’re doing field events (e.g., discus or pole vault) or intense interval training (e.g., fartleks), you might re-stretch in the middle of practice. But you certainly wouldn’t re-stretch before walking.

Coach Sye’s statement makes perfect sense if Adnan was on time for track practice, with Coach Sye stretching with Adnan at the start of practice before they walked around the track. But it doesn’t really make sense if Adnan arrived at 4:40ish or even 4:20ish. If Coach Sye came upon Adnan stretching at either of these times while everyone else had moved on to their disciplines, it would be obvious that Adnan was late. 

Therefore, the case for Adnan being on time for track practice on 1/13 now seems even stronger.

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*My high school track team was the same for steps 1-3.

-Colin