Festivus, Holiday Movies, and Winter Training

It’s been a pretty quiet Christmas week for me but there are always things to do and talk about, so here goes …

When I landed in Oklahoma City last Sunday I was greeted by some of the craziest ice I’ve ever had on my car.  In fact it was so severe that there were parts of the ice I just couldn’t remove.

Any icy car greeted me in OKC

  Luckily I was able to get enough of it off to safely navigate my way back to Wichita and hang out with former Shocker sprinter Jared Foley that evening.  He currently works  at a winery near Sacramento, California so you know where I’ll be during the USA Championships in late June!

Monday was “Festivus”, made popular by my favorite sitcom of all time Seinfeld.  I’ve unofficially made Festivus my favorite part of the holiday season since I’m not very into the materialism of Christmas.  If you don't know about Festivus please check out this website:  Festivusweb.com. I didn’t have much in the way of “airing of grievances” and I didn’t have a “feats of strength” contest but it was definitely a very good day.  Christmas was a good day as well but I mostly enjoyed hanging out with friends and having some down time at home.

I did happen to make it to the office a couple times this week but like most years this is a quiet time around Koch Arena (except during basketball games).  In fact the only people I did see on Thursday or Friday was a couple of the basketball coaches.  Most of our coaches are not from Wichita originally, so it’s one of the only times they can go “home” for a few days with their families.  We know this will be our last time to have off before the grind of the track season begins.

I need to give our basketball team some props right now for their incredible success of late.  Everyone knows they made it to the Final 4 last year but I’ve been just as impressed with their 13-0 start and top-10 ranking this year.  They carry a lot of pressure around here with that target on their backs and sports like track and field definitely benefit from their success.  It’s nice to call recruits from all around the country and have a better chance for them to know who Wichita State is before I have to explain it.  We’re also very lucky we don’t have a football team but that’s a discussion for another day.

As for our current recruiting, we are working hard at bringing in some talented athletes in January to help our team. I’m not able to make any specific comments here (NCAA rules) but hopefully we’ll have a press release coming out soon detailing our new Shockers.

DJ Lindsay shoveled his track
to get his workout in this week

I was able to touch base this week with all of the sprinters and hurdles I directly coach (27 of them) and it seems like training is going pretty well.  Our indoor track is closed between Christmas and New Year’s so this week is the final time many of them will need to tough it out in the cold weather before having the Heskett Center’s mondo track available again.  Check out the picture to the right of what one of our sprinters (DJ Lindsay) did to get his workout in.  The origins of this picture was from years ago when Chris Dickman and Jordan Zerr did the same.  We've used it for motivation ever since and I've actually received three of these pictures during the break this year.  Awesome stuff.  We’ve had some pretty good weather this past week so it looks like we shouldn’t have any excuses for not being ready when practice resumes in a couple weeks.  We won’t officially start back up until January 12 but most of our athletes will be back in town before that getting ready for our season opener at home on January 17-18.

If you know me very well you know that I’m a bit of a movie buff.  My collection of DVD’s is significant and diverse and I tend to have an affection for movies that aren’t always in the mainstream.  Last week I mentioned that I saw the terrific movie Nebraska and this week I was able to see three movies; Grudge Match, Anchorman 2, and American Hustle.  Grudge Match wasn’t my idea (date) but it was decent nonetheless.  I love (and own) the original Anchorman so obviously I had high expectations for the sequel.  As with most sequels, it wasn’t nearly as good as the original but I did find myself laughing quite a bit.  American Hustle was a different kind of movie, kind of a cross between Goodfellas and Oceans Eleven, and it kept me entertained throughout.  I give Grudge Match a 6/10, Anchorman 2 and American Hustle 7/10 and Nebraska 9/10.  If you can find Nebraska in your local theatre go see it.

The upcoming week will be relatively quiet (except for New Year’s of course) and our staff will back in the office by the end of the week.  I’m looking forward to getting all the way caught up on work and getting totally refreshed!  Our first meet is less than 3 weeks away!

For your reading:  Here's an interesting article I found about how much money universities are spending on college athletics (mostly football).  I don't agree with all of it but I agree that most places spend a ridiculous amount of money trying to keep up with the status quo.