Monday, September 28, 2015

"No Selfie" recap, Track practice begins and M. Night makes a good movie

It’s been a while so there’s a lot to catch up on!

No Selfie September recap

My last blog turned out to have an interesting amount of conversation surrounding it.  It started as a tongue and cheek entry about social media and how we are obsessed with taking pictures of ourselves and ended up being the most read blog I’ve ever had – by a lot.
  
No Selfie September actually got a bit of media attention.  I did interviews with KWCH, KSN and two newspapers about it.  The blog got over twice as many views as any of the previous ones.  The American Heart Association got on board and helped with promotion as well.  I met a lot of cool people through the process and made some new friends.

All in all I think it went well.  “Causes” like this that are successful don’t happen overnight.  We’ll probably try it again next year and thank you to everyone who participated! 

What have I been up to in September besides not taking selfies?

Actually quite a bit!

We’ve started track practice.  Cross Country has gotten off to a good start.  Recruiting is in full swing.  I’ve been watching lots of movies.

Track practice begins

The college track and field season is a long grind but it’s necessary to make sure our athletes stay fit year round and are ready for the 5-6 months of competition that begins in the winter.

After having the athletes train on their own all summer, we start preseason conditioning about the third week of school – which means we’ve completed about four weeks of conditioning up to this point.  We have one more full week before we do some testing and give the athletes some time off for Fall Break.

We are trying to accomplish several things during our conditioning phase, here are a few:

--- Getting in shape --- most of our athletes come back to school in good shape so there are only a few of them that we have to actually “get in shape”.  What we’re really talking about here is getting the athletes in shape enough to start serious training in mid-October.  If we jump right into serious training when we get back we would have a lot of injured Shockers so we work into things with lots of running and jumping activities that are focused on building a base of fitness in several different areas.

--- Establishing a tough mental mindset --- Nothing will make you doubt yourself more than a tough running workout in 95 degree heat or intense circuit training at 6am on a Friday morning.  But getting through these demanding workouts start to build confidence little by little in an athlete and by the end of the conditioning period most athletes feel a sense of accomplishment.

--- Integrating the newcomers into the group with upperclassmen --- The first few weeks of college are a very up and down time for most freshmen.  Add into the mix trying to fit in with a bunch of new teammates and trying to impress a bunch of new coaches.  Most newcomers have no idea what it takes to be a successful Division I athlete and they start to figure it out during this early process when they train next to athletes who have been successful at this level already.  Our upperclassmen have done a good job in welcoming our newcomers into the fold and it’s been fun watching them start to bond together as a team.

--- Establishing a positive team culture --- We want track practice to be a place that everyone can’t wait to get to everyday because of how much fun they have with their teammates.  So far it’s been pretty good and even the tough days have brought the team closer together.  And when I say establish a positive culture I don’t just mean telling them how good they are and how much we like them.  As coaches we are pretty tough right now and demand they be on time, warmup properly, complete every repetition, and so on.  We aren’t trying to be their best friends – we’re trying to teach them how to train and get ready to be champions.  Winning championships and reaching potential is one of the best ways to create a positive culture.  Everyone wants to be part of a winner and we’ve been fortunate to have some great athletes that continue to enhance the positive culture of our team.

We’re about a week away from doing some testing events so we will see how much we’ve progressed from a year ago very soon!

Cross Country off to a good start

Coach Hunter has built a terrific distance program over the years and this could be one of his best teams yet.

The Cross Country team started with winning our own JK Gold Classic handily over Kansas State and Oral Roberts.  Since then they’ve only competed a few athletes in a couple of small meets.  This weekend they will get their first real test of the season as they head to the University of Arkansas for the annual Chile Pepper Festival.

After that will be the Pre-Nationals in Louisville in mid-October before heading to Evansville for the MVC Championships on October 31.  Both our men’s and women’s teams have been picked third in the MVC.  We are hoping for an even better result in a little over a month!

Recruiting

Since the NCAA moved the early signing period up to November two years ago it has definitely made our job in recruiting a little different.  With more and more athletes wanting to decide by that early date we have to be prepared and ready to start earlier.

My office has a calendar that lists all the recruits we have coming on visits in red.  The month of October will soon be filled with a lot of red.  Our coaches have been doing a good job in locating and contacting lots of terrific prospects and we’re ready to have some talented new future Shockers sign in November.

I’ll be on the road this week for a couple days visiting multiple athletes and hopefully convincing them to make an official visit to Wichita State.  I always enjoy getting out on the road and visiting athletes at their schools or homes.  The respect Wichita State gets now is much greater than when I first arrived 10 years ago so I’m always excited to hit the road!

Movies

I’ve been to the movie theater five times in the month of September and, as usual, it wasn’t to see a superhero movie or romantic comedy.
  
I started the month by seeing an independent movie called Mistress America.  It’s about a lonely college freshman who gets into a crazy adventure with her soon to be stepsister.  There’s no major stars involved and it has only had a limited release.  Luckily Wichita has a theater (Warren 13th) that shows these kinds of movies.  Did I like the movie?  I’d say yes.  It was interesting for the most part and had several funny moments.  It had some underlying commentary on how some young people these days have great ambition but not enough focus and follow through to achieve what they want.  It also kind of reminded me of the 1992 comedy Noises Off with how the actors read their lines and worked together in a sort of slapstick way at times.  I would recommend it for a viewing whenever it comes out on home rental.

Another great thing about living in Wichita is sometimes they play old movies in the main movie theaters.  I also happen to live within walking distance of one of those theaters so I was able to see the 1984 cult classic Repo Man on the big screen.  I’ve never seen this Emilio Estevez movie before and definitely wasn’t disappointed.  It was funny, odd and downright weirdly entertaining.  And it only cost $5.  This week they’re showing 2001: A Space Odyssey and I will be there to watch it.

I got invited to watch the CNN Republican Debate, which was being shown in a theater and hosted by a local State Senator.  It was actually pretty entertaining to watch the debate and listen the people around me talk about it and cheer for the person they would like to become president.  While I didn’t stay for the entire 3+ hour debate I was glad to have gone.  I watch politics like I watch movies – for the entertainment.

I saw the new M. Night Shyamalan movie The Visit as well this month.  Shyamalan was once one of the hottest directors in Hollywood with movies like The Sixth Sense and Signs but has fallen on hard times recently as most of his latest movies have not had critical success.  So I guess you could say I was pleasantly surprised when I really liked The Visit.  It’s about two kids that take a week to stay with their grandparents and then find out their grandparents aren’t very normal after 9:30pm every night.  It has similarities to the Paranormal Activity movies but with more humor.  I definitely enjoyed my 94 minutes of watching and if you like humor with some creepiness then you will like this movie too.

The final movie I saw was one of the many faith based movies that have come out recently, this one was called War Room.  In the last couple years there have been a lot of effort put forth from a group of filmmakers to come out with several Christian oriented movies that Hollywood would generally shy away from making.  I enjoyed the movie Fireproof with Kirk Cameron a few years back and the same director made War Room.  It was a decent movie that was predictable and spoke to its target audience well about people struggling with marriage and staying faithful.  I don’t think it’s going to get a bunch of non-Christian types motivated to get out and see it but I’ve noticed it’s doing well at the box office so expect to see more and more of these types of movies because there are people who want to see them.  Myself, I’ll probably stick to cult classics and independent films for the most part but I appreciate that these movies are out there because there is an audience that wants them.

Next time

This blog has gone on long enough, hopefully it won’t be a month before I write another one.  I’ll be giving updates on our practices as well as Cross Country.  And I also turn 41 years old soon so anyone who wants to donate to another good cause feel free to let me know!


Until then, thanks for reading and Go Shocks!

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