Track
This past
week was our Spring Break at Wichita State so it was a little different from a
normal week. We let our kids off from
official practice for a few days then had them report back on Wednesday and had
four days of good, solid practice. We
were fortunate to have pretty good weather and even the worst of days was still
around 50 degrees. We ended our week
with a spirited Saturday workout that included our 400m hurdlers having a time
trial while the rest of the team cheered them on.
We will
make the short trip to Emporia, Kansas, on Saturday for our season opener this
weekend. It will be a low-key way to get
things started for our team. I’ve
already talked to our group about our goals – which are to run at least three
races for each person and basically get a high quality workout in. I’m not too worried about how fast they run
Saturday as much as giving a good effort and beginning our season with a
positive attitude. We have much bigger
meets coming up soon and I’ll be more concerned with running fast when the time
comes.
Our
multi-event group had a successful meet last week at Rice University near
Houston, Texas. We had a freshman,
Hunter Veith, who scored 7027 points in his first ever Decathlon! It was a great performance for such a young
athlete and, early in the season, is ranked second in the country. This will be one young man to watch in the
future for the Shockers – keep an eye out!
With half
of our staff being gone for the past two weeks it’s been a little disjointed in
our office lately. That’s pretty typical
as the outdoor season gets going because we all have different priorities with
our groups and with recruiting. I am
planning on getting out to several high school meets in the coming weeks as
well as bringing in kids on more official visits. I have noticed I am having more and more
contacts with juniors via email than ever in the past so hopefully that will
yield better results next year. Thank
you to our basketball team for that! I
get emails from probably 10-15 kids every day that are interested in Wichita
State and even though only a few of them are at the Division I level, it‘s
great to have so many people interested in our school!
Movies
I didn’t
do much movie watching this week as most of my television watching was limited
to the NCAA Basketball Tournament. I am
hoping to get out and see the movie The
Grand Budapest Hotel this week. It
was made by Wes Anderson who did the surprise hit Moonrise Kingdom last year and his new movie looks very funny.
I did
catch the end of a movie this week on TV (don’t remember which one) and, like
most times on TV, the credits scrolled by super fast after the movie was
over. I have always wondered why they
even show the credits if they are going to scroll them faster than a speed
reader could read them. Is there a
contract they have with the movies that they have to show these credits? And if they have a contract then why are they
allowed to show them at a rate that can only be seen in super slow motion?
I’m one
of those people who sit in the theater until the credits are over. If I’m with a friend I enjoy talking about
the movie for a few minutes while it’s still fresh in our minds and with a lot
of movies there is an extra bonus scene after the credits are over for those
who have stayed. It’s also always
interesting to see how many people and how many different jobs there are that
go into making a movie. There’s usually
some good music too!
Everything Else
Well the
great Shocker Basketball season of 2014 has ended. Unfortunately for most of those around here
it has ended too soon. After winning the second round NCAA game against Cal-Poly,
the Shockers lost a heartbreaker to Kentucky 78-76 on Sunday. The announcers said it was the best game
Kentucky had played all year and they needed every bit of it to pull off the
upset against Wichita State. That sounds
like a sentence out of a bizarro world but it is true. The whole city was saddened by the loss but everyone
is so proud of what these young guys have done.
To have a 35-1 record and ranked #2 in the country is something that
will never be soon forgotten. Our #1
assistant coach Chris Jans (a really nice guy by the way) has already been
hired at Bowling Green and hopefully we can keep the rest of our staff together
for next year.
I was
talking to someone today about how it’s funny how things seem to even out. Last year the Shockers went into the NCAA
Tourney as a #9 seed and had multiple upsets all the way to the Final Four and
this year went out early as a #1 seed.
It just goes to show you how unpredictable college athletics are and how
extreme the highs and lows. On the
bright side our basketball team returns most of its players next year and will
probably be ranked in the top-10 before the season starts. Well done guys!
Other
than that it was a pretty quiet week around here, which is always nice. I was able to hang out with some good friends
over the weekend and enjoy the last free weekend of the track season until ……
July? Here we go!
Website of the Week
Weather.com
I know it
might seem funny to put Weather.com as the website of the week but it’s
definitely one of the most visited places I go during the outdoor track
season. For the most part we practice
outside during the outdoor season unless it’s just a terrible day of weather
and I’m always looking for what the wind is doing on a daily basis. If you don’t live in Wichita just let me tell
you … it’s WINDY. And you have to
prepare for what direction it’s blowing because we generally always try to run
with the wind at practice. I visit
Weather.com about three times every morning to check the hourly forecast before
heading out to practice. How did anyone
ever figure out where to have practice and communicate with their team before
the Internet? Haha.
Interesting articles and videos to
waste time with
Q&A with Oakland A's GM Billy Beane - I really like this guy
Dance Walking Fitness with Ben Aaron - great stuff here! (video 3:08)
Jarkko Nieminen beats Bernard Tomic in 28 minute tennis match (that's a record folks)
An oral history of FloJo's 10.49 100m world record - great track and field journalism here!
No comments:
Post a Comment