This
is blog #49 and today is Super Bowl 49.
Coincidence? It’s been a hectic
week full of travel, track and field, recruiting and snow (in Iowa)!
MVC Preview at
Northern Iowa
In
four weeks we’ll be competing in our main competition of the indoor season, the
MVC Indoor Championships, and this week we got to see three of our upcoming
opponents on the facility the championships will be held (UNI).
It
was a very competitive meet and Indiana State defeated us on both sides while
we took down UNI and Drake. Here are the
team scores:
MEN: Indiana St 161, Wichita St 144.5, Northern
Iowa 143.5, Drake 75
WOMEN: Indiana St 163, Wichita St 146, Northern Iowa
117, Drake 96
The
men’s meet was much closer right until the end when our conference champion
triple jumper had to pull out of the competition with a slight injury. Up until then it was nip and tuck the whole
way – it was a great team competition full of excitement and enthusiasm!
How did we REALLY do?
This
weekend was a tough balancing act. On
one hand we held out several of our top athletes for either injury or the fact
they would be competing at Notre Dame next week (and we didn’t want them to do
a long travel two weeks in a row). On
the other hand we really wanted to win the meet and legitimize our #11 Track
& Field News National Dual Meet Rankings for both men and women. Unfortunately we weren’t able to accomplish
both goals because Indiana St is just too good.
They are the defending MVC Indoor champions and put together a very fine
meet to beat us.
The
MVC is a very tough conference. Whoever
wins the championship in four weeks will have definitely earned it.
But
our team still did very well this weekend.
One of the events we competed in that wasn’t part of the team scoring
was the men’s Heptathlon and women’s Pentathlon. These are always strong for us and events
that should help us significantly in four weeks, especially on the women’s side
where we posted the #8, #9 and #11 marks in the nation!
For
my group of sprinters and hurdlers we continued to progress nicely. Last week we took a couple of hits with
injuries but this week went much better and we ended the meet by winning both
4x400m relays. It’s always a good
feeling to walk away winning the last event of the meet, both in come from
behind fashion. Hopefully that’s
something we WILL duplicate in four weeks.
What’s next?
Most
of our team will take a rare weekend off with the exception of our top distance
runners (headed to Notre Dame) and possibly a few Pole Vaulters who are going
to small meet in Nebraska. I like the
idea of a weekend off in the middle of the season. Not only will we be able to get some much
needed rest and time for our injured athletes to heal, but it’s also a great
chance to refresh our minds and refocus as we head towards the championship
portion of the indoor schedule.
Our
next meet for our entire team will be in two weeks, February 14, at home
against UT-Arlington, Oral Roberts and Emporia State. It’ll be our last home indoor meet and one of
the last chances to figure out who will make our conference team.
It’s
hard to believe the indoor season is halfway done – time flies when you’re
having fun!
Recruiting
I
haven’t talked much about recruiting lately but we’re still working at it
pretty consistently. We continue to have
athletes verbally commit (next signing period is in April) and we’re excited
about these athletes joining our team in 2015-16.
We
don’t graduate a lot of athletes this year so we probably won’t sign our usual
large number because there’s just not that much scholarship money available
this year. And one of our philosophies
is to reward kids on our team with larger scholarships when they have success
at the MVC and NCAA Championships. We
expect to increase a lot of scholarships in the coming weeks.
That’s
not something every NCAA track & field program does but Coach Rainbolt does
a great job treating our athletes fairly.
There is responsibility to having a scholarship and we definitely reward
those who achieve and improve.
“Y” Movies
This
is the 23rd of a 24 part series (we’re almost done!) where I list movies I own
by letter (I don’t have any movies that begin with Q, X or Z but I do have some
that start with numbers). I currently
own a small collection of 179 movies (and growing most weeks) on DVD.
Most
of the movies I own I had previously seen and enjoyed immensely. Some are movies that I had not seen but was
curious about. Some were gifts from
people with bad tastes in movies.
I
only own one “Y” movie so here it is …..
Movie Name (year
made, length, MPAA rating, IMDB rating, Worldwide box office)
Yes Man (2008, 104 min,
PG-13, 6.9, $223m) – Jim Carrey went through a bit of a slump a decade ago but
this was one of the movies that showed he can still really bring it in terms of
physical comedy. The plot is a generally
negative guy (Carrey) goes to a seminar that promotes saying “YES” to
everything and it changes his life.
Obviously saying yes to EVERYTHING makes for great laughs and this movie
is funny from beginning to end. I’ve
always liked Jim Carrey since his days on In Living Color and every once in a
while he brings out a classic. And in my
opinion this is a classic (or will be).
Next week
Since
we have next weekend off, I’m not sure what I’ll be talking about but I’ll try
to think of something! It will be the
last part of my movie series (or will it).
I don’t have any “Z” movies but I have three movies that begin with a
number. One is about a rodeo star, one
is about a guy cutting his arm off and one is one of the worst movies I’ve ever
seen.
Until
then, thanks for reading and Go Shocks!
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