How we pick our MVC team, Short films are amazing, Sports Illustrated loves the Shockers, and they ride bulls in Wichita bars

Track

At this time next week we will have just finished the MVC Indoor Championships so, obviously, we have been very busy in preparation for trying to have our team ready for next weekend.

Several athletes took this past weekend off, while most of the others competed at Kansas State or Nebraska on Friday.  We split up our team to give each individual their best chance for success.  Nebraska’s banked track benefits the runners going around the track while Kansas State’s field event and straightaway sprints are generally better.

Besides giving some athletes a final “tune-up” for the MVC Championships, these meets also provide a last chance for several athletes to try and make our 32 person roster for next weekend.  It’s very competitive to make and being a part of a conference championship roster is the first goal for most athletes we have.  If you can make our 32 person roster, we feel you have a chance to score points at the MVC Championships.  It makes for some very difficult decisions and as I write this blog (late Sunday night) we still haven’t 100% figured it out.  Some teams don’t have this issue because they don’t have 32 quality athletes to take to this meet.  We are always one of the deepest teams in the conference so it makes for a good problem to have.

Here’s how we go about picking our team.  Let’s take our men’s team for example.  First of all, the goal of picking a team is to score the most points possible.  This might seem obvious but what you have to take into account are things like relays (which score automatic points) or events that are weak.  Last year we had an excellent hammer thrower named Taylor Goldsmith, who was on the bubble of making the NCAA West Preliminaries but didn’t make our conference team because of how strong the MVC was in the Hammer.  So the first thing to look at it is who are the “no-brainers”, people who are ranked high in the MVC in their event and are most likely to score.  On our men’s team we have 18 athletes who we consider automatic to make the team (with one of them slightly injured, I’ll address that in a moment).  Then we look at who are at the next level, basically athletes ranked 9-20 in the conference, and we have about 17 athletes in that range.  After that we include the rest of the team who is still competing but not likely to make it (about 10).  So overall there are around 45 men competing for the 32 spots and most likely 17 men competing for the last 14 spots.  After our meet 2 weeks ago at Oklahoma one of the men from the bottom group moved up to make it 18 for 14 spots.

We take that middle group and see who is the most valuable.  Who can run the Distance Medley or 4x400?  Who has scored in the past but maybe hasn’t had a great indoor season?  Who is competing in a weaker event or in an event that we don’t have many entries?  Once we analyzed all that last week, we took 7 from the middle group onto the roster so now we have 25 athletes with 11 competing for the final 7 spots.  From there we headed to Nebraska and Kansas State to see who might impress us and make the team.  Lastly, we have one athlete, who would be a no-brainer, that has a slight hamstring issue.  We probably won’t know until practice on Monday or Tuesday if he will be ok so we need to figure out who our first alternate would be just in case.

On the ride home after the meet we had all the info we needed to start making the tough decisions on the final roster spots.  Different coaches give their perspective on who they think should go and in the end Coach Rainbolt has the final say.  This year we had a couple of very tough decisions.  One of the reasons it was so tough was because we need to field a Distance Medley Relay team but we don’t want to bang up all our best distance runners who will be running several individual races.  Do we double (or triple) one of our top guys or take someone else to only run the relay and be fresh?  If we take someone only for the relay it will knock out somebody in an individual event.  At this point you have to start going on hunches and comparing different levels of risk because no one knows for sure what the best decision will be until the meet comes and goes.

As of this writing we have our 32 women figured out and 30 of our men.  Those final two spots will be decided in the morning with the coaching staff.  Once that is done we will post the list at practice and start figuring out what events everyone will be entered in for the MVC Championships.  That’s a whole other process of analyzing the conference and how to maximize our point scoring potential.

I’m sure it sounds like a lot of work and stress figuring out these roster spots but it’s one of the things I enjoy the most about my job.  Putting together a team to try and win a championship is very hard but after a successful championship it’s one of the most rewarding feelings you can have as a coach!  Most people think that track coaches only figure out workouts and coach the technical aspects of track and field but in reality it is only a small part of what we do and think about on a daily basis.

As for the MVC Championship itself, and how we look, if I had to predict where the pre-meet coaches’ poll will put us I would say our men are second and our women third or fourth.  Not much changed this weekend so you can read last week’s blog for who I think are the favorites.  Coming home from Northern Iowa with a trophy (top-2 finish) will be the goal for both squads but our women face a significantly steeper climb than our men in accomplishing that goal (although both teams are focused on winning the championship, not finishing second).

The indoor and outdoor conference championships are my favorite meets of the season, it’s the one time the entire team is totally focused on what the whole team is doing.  It creates great synergy and makes the atmosphere at the meet electric.  It’s unfortunate that most people can’t experience the team atmosphere created at these kind of meets.  If anyone has ever been at a MVC Championship meet they will probably tell you how enthusiastic Wichita State is, both the team and the fans.  Hopefully several of you can make the trip to Cedar Falls, Iowa, next weekend and cheer us on to victory!

In terms of practice, this week is all about fine tuning the athletes and getting them feeling confident about the upcoming races.  Some people call it “peaking” but we refer to it as “maintained readiness” throughout the year.  This week we want to be more ready than ever.  Our practices will be intense but short with lots of rest.  The bus will leave Thursday morning and we compete Saturday and Sunday.  Follow our Twitter page for all kinds of updates throughout the weekend @WichitaSt_TFXC.

Tomorrow (Monday) we will have a press release talking about our signees so far this year so I will try to take some time next week to talk about that, although I have a feeling I will talk a lot more about the MVC meet (hopefully good stuff!).  We are very excited about the athletes we’ve signed so far so check out Goshockers.com to see all the stats on the new recruits!

Movies

Even though this week was pretty busy I enjoyed some really good movie watching.  The highlight of my week was Saturday morning when I got to see all the Academy Award nominated short films in the live action category.  This is an annual event on the west side Warren Theater in Wichita.  Six movies, ranging from 7-30 minutes for FREE!  There are three categories of short film awards:  live action, animated, and documentary.  I wanted to see all three but got there too late, I guess word gets out when free movies are being shown.  But even though I only saw the live action category, it was still awesome.  In all it was just under two hours of movie watching, easily the best two hours I’ve seen all year.  When you strip away the Hollywood stereotypes of how movies are “supposed” to be made, it is really beautiful to see what talented filmmakers can do.  If you have any way of seeing these movies, go and do it.  Ask your local movie theater to bring these to your area!  I’m really lucky to live in Wichita, there is a very vibrant art culture in this city as well as a popular film festival every October called the Tallgrass Film Festival.

I also saw a couple of great movies at home via YouTube.  The first one is called Comedian (2002), a documentary chronicling Jerry Seinfeld’s post “Seinfeld” days when he was starting over with his stand-up comedy act.  I had seen this movie about 10 years ago but it was great seeing it again.  I’ve always been a fan of stand-up comedy and seeing how these super talented comedians come up with their act is impressive.  And I’m a big Seinfeld fan anyways.  Besides being hilarious, I’ve always like how he carries himself, always upbeat and full of optimism.

The other movie I saw was Stephen Speilberg’s first full-length movie he directed called Duel (1971).  I had heard about this movie but had never seen it and sure enough the whole thing was there on YouTube for free.  I wasn’t sure I’d watch the whole thing but pretty quickly it got me hooked.  It was about a normal guy driving through the mountains on a highway and basically trying to prevent getting murdered by a lunatic in a semi truck.  Sounds crazy but it is one of the most dramatic movies I’ve ever seen.  I don’t want to spoil any of the plot points but if you haven’t seen it check it out.  I really enjoyed this movie, so much in fact that I’ll probably try to buy it on DVD this week.  I put links to both these movies below in the final section of this blog.

DVD choice of the week (from my collection):  Considering we are the underdog and

heading into a tough battle this week I’m gonna pick Rocky Balboa (2006).  This is the final movie in the Rocky films, where Balboa comes out of retirement to fight an exhibition against the current champion.  While not as commercially successful as some of the previous films, I have always enjoyed this particular movie.  The boxing is probably the most realistic of all the Rocky movies and the climax of winning or losing isn’t the most important part of the picture.  Maybe I’ll take this on the trip for the Shockers to watch on the bus.  They’d probably rather watch Fast and Furious though, haha.

Everything Else

What can I say about Shocker Basketball?  They are now the only unbeaten team in the country and will probably be ranked #1 or #2 in this week’s national polls.  They are on the cover of this week’s Sports Illustrated.  They have two more games left, away at Bradley and home against Missouri State to try and go 31-0 for the regular season.  I can’t express how impressed I am with these guys.  By being a coach in the athletic department I am fortunate to be able to have two season tickets for all the games.  I go to a few games but usually I give them away to friends (NCAA rules prohibit us from selling our tickets for profit).  In past years, every once in a while I’d get asked for my tickets, but now every game I get at least a dozen people ask me.  I got offered $200 a piece for the last game of the year against Missouri State (which I’ll be gone for the MVC Championships).  On the website Stubhub.com tickets are selling for anywhere from $150-$500 a piece for that game!  I guess everyone wants to be a part of history.  I’m very happy to be coaching here at this special time for the athletic department.  Go Shocks!

This was the first Saturday I’ve had free for a long time so I took advantage and did some socializing with one of my former athletes, Dylan Hartnett.  He was a MVC champion in the 200m and 400m dashes a few years ago and one of the few single friends I still have left! We had lots of fun and hung out with several cool people at a place called Club Rodeo.  It’s a country bar that has live bull riding.  Let me repeat, live bull riding.  Not mechanical bull riding, but professional (kind of) bull riders who are in a competition every Friday and Saturday night.  Most of the night people are dancing then for 15 minutes or so every hour there is live bull riding.  Anytime I have a friend from out of town I take them to Club Rodeo and they are amazed at what is transpiring.  Never a dull moment out here in the Heartland!

Website of the Week

DailyRelay.com

This is a great website that has daily articles about all levels of track and field.  I usually visit this site once a day and greatly appreciate all the coverage of NCAA Track and Field they deliver.  Most “track and field” websites on the internet focus on distance running so it’s nice to see a website that covers the sport as a whole.  Check it out!

Interesting articles and videos to waste some time with

Bill Russell's response to being left off of Lebron James' "Mount Rushmore" 

Cat Curling (video 0:41) 

Dog eating with hands - hilarious (video 1:46) 

30 signs your town is really small - I can relate 

Wichita State women winning the 4x400m relay at Iowa State (video 4:22) 

Jimmy Fallon and friends doing a Ragtime edition of R Kelly's Ignition (video 2:03) 

Brian Williams and the NBC new crew's version of Rapper's Delight - Brilliant! (video 1:35) 

Haunting photos of the abandoned 1984 Winter Olympics Facilities in Sarajevo 

Wichita State is no fluke, they deserve to be ranked #1 

Full version of the movie Duel (1971) (video 1:29:18) 

Full version of the movie Comedian (2006) (video 1:21:25)