Shocker recruiting update, where should I go for vacation and October always brings great movies!

I’ve been struggling to keep this blog updated but it has been a busy past month.  Here’s some of what’s been going on …

Double gold medal in Rio for Deja Young

Last time I mentioned that I coach a girl who is part of Team USA Paralympics.  Well it was a heckuva meet for Deja Young in Rio as she swept the 100m and 200m sprints and brought home two gold medals.  Since her victories in Rio, it has been a whirlwind.  She has become a media darling, got the key to the city of Wichita and had an Olympic Oak Tree planted on campus in her honor.  It’s been fun to have a part in her success and I think it has been a great experience for her!

We gave her a little time off after the Paralympics but now she is back on the track with her WSU teammates getting ready for the indoor season.  Great job Deja!

Shocker Track Update

We’ve been doing a lot of recruiting lately.  Previously I had mentioned how this was going to be an important year of recruiting on the women’s side and we’ve begun to make headway on the class of ’17.  We’ve already had nearly 30 official visits this fall and have eight commitments thus far.  The early signing period is a few weeks away and we are hoping to bring in a few more.

Recruiting is not an exact science but generally the harder you work the more success you have.  Our staff has really taken up the challenge of putting together a quality group of women this year.  So far so good!

Practice has been going well.  After 6 weeks of conditioning, we put our kids though a week of testing (that went good overall).  Now we are a couple weeks into our next phase of training that will take us through the end of this semester.  It's a grind right now.  Trying to keep the kiddos focused while working them as hard as possible.

I’ll be heading up to Northern Iowa this weekend to watch our cross country team compete in the Missouri Valley Championships.  Both our men and women are picked second in the pre-meet poll.  Coach Hunter has the team running really well so we are optimistic we will bring home some hardware!  Top-2 get trophies but, as always, our kids are not going to be satisfied with anything less than the top spot.

Tomorrow (Wed, Oct 26), Coach Rainbolt will have his annual Golf-a-thon fundraiser where he will walk and play the number of holes consistent with how old he is.  This year he turns 59.  He’ll begin as the sun rises over Willowbend Golf Course and will hopefully be done with 59 holes (and around 28 miles) by sunset.  If you’re around come out and walk nine with Bolt as he tries to reach his goal and raise some money for Shocker T&F!

Travel

Since I got such a good response from my travel blog about Southeast Asia I thought I’d mention some of the places I get to go from time to time in this space.

A few weeks ago I headed out east to catch some football and hang out with some great people.  First, I took in the Florida/Tennessee rivalry in Knoxville, Tennessee.  I’ve been to plenty of big time sporting events but witnessing the craziness that is Rocky Top (as well as seeing them defeat rival Florida) is way, way up there.  That whole Rocky Top thing is pretty hilarious – they really love that song!

On the same trip I headed back home to Cincinnati to catch the Bengals home opener against the Denver Broncos.  Unfortunately the good guys weren’t able to pull this one out but it was a fun game nonetheless.  I had a couple of Cincy style cheese coneys so I was a very happy guy.

Other than that, I’ve not been anywhere too exotic lately.  It’s been a lot of traveling to see recruits and staying in hotels with continental breakfasts.  Hopefully in the next few weeks I can get out to some place that will bring some entertaining stories.

I’m thinking of taking another international vacation next year and am looking for ideas.  I’ve been to parts of Europe, Asia and the Caribbean.  What does everyone think of Iceland?  I’ve been doing a lot of research and I’m very intrigued.  Thoughts on Iceland or anywhere else fun?

Movies

October is always a great month for movies because of Halloween.  This year in the downtown Warren in Wichita they brought back a ton of old horror movies for $5.  I love a good horror movie.  Also we just had the Tallgrass Film Festival that brings in great independent films from all over the world.  Here is a recap of what I’ve seen since the last blog …

Sept 16 – Sully – This is the retelling of the Chelsey Sullenberger story where the American pilot emergency landed his commercial flight in the Hudson River (directed by Clint Eastwood).  Overall I thought it was a solid movie, with the most interesting part being how he had to defend himself through the post-landing investigation.  Rating 7/10

Sept 19 – Snowden – Oliver Stone’s latest movie about former NSA Intelligence employee Edward Snowden (played well by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and his trials and tribulations about classified government documents.  I liked this movie and it makes you think what would you do in the situation?  Gordon-Levitt is also becoming one of my favorite actors.  7/10

Sept 28 – Blair Witch – Sequel to the hugely successful 1999 film that broke ground in low-budget horror.  This new version could be broken down to two parts.  The first hour is an average set up with fairly uninteresting characters.  The final 30 minutes is very good and leaves you on the edge of your seat until the end!  If you liked the first one, you’ll like this one.  7/10

Oct 3 – The Exorcist – The 1973 original was the opening film in the downtown Wichita horror month and wow was it terrific!  I’ve seen The Exorcist before but never on a big screen.  Seeing it in the theater was absolutely riveting.  If you ever get a chance do the same.  Great stuff!  9/10

Oct 4 – Halloween 3: Season of the Witch – The only Halloween movie that wasn’t about Michael Myers, it was made in 1982.  I saw this movie as a kid and thought it was kind of cool.  It is a little dated now and is probably more funny than scary but I still enjoyed it.  6/10

Oct 6 – Phantasm – This 1979 horror movie scared the crap out of me as a kid.  All I could ever remember was the scary tall man and the sphere that chased people through the mausoleum (and then killed you).  It has been digitally remastered so I gave it another look.  Still was a lot of fun!  7/10

Oct 10 – Phantasm 5: Ravager – The latest of the Phantasm sequels (and probably the last) was opening here.  Super low budget and not near as good as the original but I still enjoyed seeing all the old characters from the original back trying to defeat the bad guys.  5/10

Oct 14 – The Beatles:  Eight Days a Week – This is Ron Howard’s latest movie (part of the Tallgrass Film Festival) about the touring years of the Beatles.  The documentary focused on the quick rise to superstardom for the group and how they basically invented the stadium concert.  I could tell most of the audience was older and fans of the Beatles because half the crowd sung along with the songs.  Really good movie, rarely do I attend a movie where the crowd claps and sings through the end of the credits!  8/10

Oct 24 – Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer – Wow, this is one of the most disturbing movies I’ve ever seen.  Made in 1986 and not released until 1990 because of rating disputes with the MPAA, it was banned in most cities around the country.  I can see why.  It’s not that gory or gruesome (although there is some blood) but the disturbing thing is how real it is.  It has an eerie feel all the way through and as I walked out of the theater I was a little paranoid about every person I saw on the street.  This is daring filmmaking for 1986 and I’m so glad I was able to see it.  9/10

Next time

I’ll be back to update everyone on the latest goings in Shocker T&F, my travels and movies!  Hopefully sooner than a month from now!

Until then, thanks for reading and Go Shocks!

Paralympics, Shocker T&F, No selfies and a movie update

Oh man it’s been a while since I’ve blogged (over a month).  So here’s an update as to what is going on …

Did you know I coach an Olympian?

Deja Young

This is true.  Deja Young will start competition today (Saturday, Sept 10) in the Rio Paralympics.  Last year she won the world title at 100m (silver in the 200m) and broke her division world record in the 100m at 11.92.  She’s worked very hard to keep fit all summer while most of the team took some time off and now it’s time to see how she can do.  She’s very excited for this opportunity to represent her country and we’re all proud of her at Wichita State!  You can watch her run on the NBC Sports Channel’s coverage or online.  Good luck Deja!

Here’s a couple links to stories and videos about Deja, you might find some quotes from me if you look hard enough …..

Wichita Eagle (Bob Lutz)

GoShockers.com Rio preview

 What else is new with Shocker Track?

It’s been a busy few weeks, as it is every year at the beginning of school.  There are a ton of meetings the squad has to attend explaining NCAA or WSU rules and policies.  Now we are mostly beyond all that and just finished up our first full week of practice.  Two weeks ago we had a week of learning and instruction with our newcomers.  We have a very nice group of freshman and transfers that are good people and a lot of fun to work with.

Here are the Shocker newcomers if you wanna check them out …

The first week of full practice with the entire team was also generally good.  You always have some athletes that are coming back from injuries and aren’t in very good shape but everyone is working hard.  We are trying to instill a few new wrinkles into the program this year and they are taking to them well.  We will do “conditioning” for around five weeks until a week of testing at Fall Break.

We hosted the JK Gold Classic cross country meet last weekend and our team kicked butt.  The real racing doesn’t start until October but our crew looks strong early in the season!

Lots of work to do and we’re excited to finally get started!

Reaction to my blog about Asia

I wasn’t sure what kind of reaction I’d get from blogging about my two weeks in Asia but overall it’s been great!  Thanks for all the nice comments, it makes me think about focusing on the traveling part of the track and field season as something to possibly write about in the future.  We’re always so focused on the competition that we don’t take the time to appreciate where we are in the world.  I’ll think on it and see if anything interesting might come from it.

No Selfie September

Last year as a joke, me and some friends came up with the concept of “No Selfie September” on a late night over a couple of adult beverages.  I put it out on this blog and, much to my surprise, it went viral (at least locally).  After a couple television interviews I realized that there might be something to it.  So here is a link to last year’s blog and I once again challenge everyone to not take another selfie until October!

Movies

I haven’t written about movies in a while but I often get people telling me it’s their favorite part of the blog.  I’ve actually thought about creating a separate blog about movies but haven’t decided to put that much effort into it yet.  Nonetheless here is a list of movies I’ve seen in the movie theater since April and some brief thoughts about each one …

April 10 – Hardcore Henry – Shot from a first person perspective, one of the craziest movies you’ll ever see.  I liked the concept.  It was a unique movie-going experience.  Needs to be seen on the big screen.  Rating: 7/10

May 1 – Everybody Wants Some – Latest movie by Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused, Boyhood) about a week in the life of college baseball players.  I love this guy’s movies and this one gets better with repeat viewings (saw it twice on my flight to Asia).  8/10

May 22 – The Nice Guys – Kind of a buddy cop movie with Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling.  I enjoyed it throughout.  8/10

June 6 – Journey to Space 3D – Saw this at the New Mexico Museum of History and Science while on a recruiting trip.  Not bad but could’ve been a lot better.  3D didn’t add much.  6/10

June 9 – Popstar: Never Stop Stopping – One of the great comedies of 2016 that no one saw!  They make fun of everyone in the pop music industry and the music is actually really good!  8/10

June 12 – The Conjuring 2 – It’s hard for horror sequels to be as good as the original but this one was.  Really, really good movie if you like horror.  8/10

June 20 – Close Encounters of the Third Kind – Luckily I live in a city where they put classics on the big screen from time to time.  This 1977 Spielberg movie holds up great almost 40 years later!  8/10

July 5 – The Lobster – Super weird but I give it props for being original.  7/10

July 6 – Purge: Election Year – I’ve seen all three Purge movies and I like the concept but they’re never pulled off as well as I think they could be.  6/10

July 13 – The Shallows – The best non-Jaws movie about shark attacks I’ve seen.  7/10

Aug 1 – Lights Out – From the director of the Conjuring, another really good and suspenseful movie.  I saw this in Thailand and the theater was generally screaming throughout.  Asians love horror movies (and also make the best ones).  8/10

Aug 17 – Sausage Party – Has to be the most inappropriate animated movie of all time.  And yes I thought it was outstanding!  8/10

Aug 21 – War Dogs – Very solid movie that’s based on a true story (and isn’t completely true) and is entertaining nonetheless.  Part political, part action, part comedy.  Jonah Hill is great once again.  7/10

Aug 30 – Don’t Breathe – Another really good horror/thriller.  I’m encouraged the genre is going more in this direction lately.  Hard to know who the good guy is in this movie and I think that’s awesome.  8/10

Sept 4 – Hell or High Water – One of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time.  Great cinematography and great music surround an interesting take on bank robberies.  9/10

I feel as though I’ve seen a lot of really good movies in the past 5 months.  Notice there isn’t one comic book or big budget movie on the list.  I don’t think any of these movies cost more than $30-$40 million to make and most were under $10 million.  If you do a little research you can generally find some great movie going options out there.

Next time

I’ll be back to update everyone on the latest goings in Shocker T&F.  Hopefully sooner than a month from now!

Until then, thanks for reading and Go Shocks!

My travels through Southeast Asia

This is going to be a non-track blog about my travels in Southeast Asia for the past two weeks.  If you want some track stuff I’ll probably get back on it in mid-August once the kiddos get back

on campus.

Observations while in Asia

--The Chinese put the top 1% of their attractive population on Air China as flight attendants.

--You tend to bond with other Americans when you miss a connecting flight in a foreign land.

--Chinese people (and most Asians) smile when they’re nervous.

--The loudest eater on the face of the Earth sat next to me on a 12 hour flight (fortunately he slept most of the way).

--At some point in the first 3 days I had no idea what time or what day it was.

--Some countries in Asia don’t understand the concept of standing in line or personal space.

--Other Asians think the Chinese talk way too loud.

--Singapore is super clean.  There were touch screens in the bathroom at the airport to rate your experience while peeing.

--The meals on the overnight flights were surprisingly good.

--Chinese people take an insane amount of selfies as well as posed glamour shots.

--Before you die you need to go see the temples in Cambodia (especially Angkor Wat).  Pictures don’t do it justice.

--Get a tour guide.  Mine was one of the nicest people I ever met.

--People get massages all the time and it’s incredibly cheap for a legitimate good massage ($8/hour).  There’s a 50/50 chance they’ll ask you for a happy ending.

--Driving laws in Cambodia are a suggestion and rarely followed.

--I was surprised there weren’t more non-Asians tourists.

--Americans are actually friendlier than most non-Asian tourists.

--Taking a ride on a tuk-tuk is awesome in a “riding a rollercoaster” kind of way.

--Make sure your non-English speaking tuk-tuk driver knows exactly where you need to go before you get started.

--You’ve never really been in a traffic jam until you’ve been in a traffic jam in Bangkok.

--Everyone drives insanely but no one has road rage.

--If you’re not good at math then you’ll probably spend more money than you should. $1 US is equal to 34 in Thailand and 1000 in Cambodia.

--Pack light and do laundry every few days.

--Crossing the street in downtown Bangkok is a risky proposition.  Pedestrians do not have the right of way.

--If someone offers you a really cheap ride on a tuk-tuk, you will most definitely end up at a tailor where they will try to make you buy new and expensive clothing.

--The Buddhist temples in Thailand are spectacular and make anything we have in the United States seem small and cheap.

--Most people in Bangkok are nice but if you are white they will try to rip you off at every moment.

--Everyone seems to work.  It’s hard to get welfare and minimum wage is $9/day.

--If you know where to go you can eat amazing food for less than $5 a meal.

--Most taxi drivers in Bangkok have never left the city and dream to come to the USA but would never be able to afford it.

--I played a game of pool against a guy with no shirt, nipple piercings and tattoos all over his body.  Super nice guy.  He beat me handily thank goodness.

--The city planner (if there is one) needs to be fired immediately.  The streets in Bangkok are totally random.

--If you say anything negative about the king and queen you will be put in jail.

--More people have smart phones than running water.

--I saw an Asian man sing Oops I Did It Again by Brittany Spears.  One of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

--French toast and pancakes are desserts.

--Multiple mornings I woke up and had no idea where I was (this has continued back in the states).

--I got a 5-minute massage and chiropractic adjustment by a bathroom attendant.  It was absolutely incredible.

--If you’re 6-0 tall you’re a giant.

--The red light district in Bangkok is much smaller than you would think.  If you’re curious to check it out it’s good to go with a group of people that have your back.

--Prostitution is illegal but there is no enforcement of the law.  If you are white you will get approached by prostitutes non-stop.

--If you happen to go inside of a club on Soi Cowboy you may see things you’ve never seen before and will never see again.

--The most fun thing about going to a Mai Thai fight is the crowd.

--Every street corner has a different smell – good and bad.

--Poor men in Bangkok drive taxi’s, the women work as street vendors.

--“Saving face” is something that is very important to the people of Thailand.  Causing embarrassment has the potential to result in a variety of bad things for you or them.

--I never felt unsafe at any time.

--I never saw or felt any form of racism.

--Religion is so much more important there than in the United States.

--You’re always respectfully greeted with two palms together in front of their face and a bow.  By the middle of the trip I started doing the same.

--Going to a movie cost $4 and you will need to rise to listen to the Anthem of the King.

--There is virtually no PDA (public displays of affection) thank goodness!

Why Southeast Asia?

I had been wanting to go on another international vacation for a while and was struggling with where to pick.  I’ve been to parts of Western Europe and the Caribbean so I was looking to go somewhere different – real different.

I’ve had several friends that said how much they’ve enjoyed visiting SE Asia so I gave it a good look.  I was in the office with Coach Yost and our Director of Ops Ryan Patton one day and asked them what they thought.  Before they could answer I went ahead and bought a ticket.

I decided to mainly hit Bangkok, Thailand and Siem Reap, Cambodia for a combination of history and excitement that would totally get me out of my element.  As I get older I want to go to as many places as I can so that I can experience as much of this crazy world has to offer.

It was funny to see the reactions that people had when I told them where I was going.  Most people, like me, don’t know that much about the region so their general reaction was, “That sounds ….. nice.”

The Travel

There’s really no away around the travel.  It’s a bear.  It’s basically halfway around the world.  On top of that my flights out there got all messed up and I was sent on a 38-hour excursion through five countries and seven airports.  Here’s what that looked like …

Depart Wichita on Wednesday afternoon on a direct flight to Los Angeles where I stayed the night (not counting this as part of the 38-hour trip).  Thursday my flight from LA to Beijing, China, was supposed to leave at 2:20pm (Pacific Time) but didn’t leave until around 4:00pm.  I had a two hour layover scheduled in Beijing so it was gonna be close.  It was a 12-hour flight and unfortunately I needed it to be 11:45 and I missed the connection to Bangkok by less than 10 minutes.  It was 8:00pm Beijing time and now I had two options.  The first was to wait for the next direct flight to Bangkok the next day at 2pm.  The problem with that is I had to depart Bangkok for Cambodia on a flight at 1:30pm the next day.  Obviously when you’re in China there is going to be some language barriers so for about 30 minutes I tried to convince this poor woman to just fly me straight to Cambodia and skip Bangkok but unfortunately they didn’t have a flight available.  What they did have was a 6-hour flight leaving at midnight to Singapore that would arrive at 6am, then I could catch at 7:40am flight from there to Bangkok to arrive at 9:30am.

At the point I realized it was 9am back home and I slept maybe 30 minutes on the flight to China.  Traveling through the night around Asia wasn’t going to help that either (I have trouble sleeping upright in a plane seat).  But I sucked it up and took the challenge and thought, “well I’ve never been to Singapore.”  Fortunately the flight to Singapore and the next one to Bangkok were on time.  There was only one problem in now flying to Cambodia from Bangkok and that was that I had to leave from a different airport on the other side of the city.  I got an Uber and for the super cheap price of $14 I got a 45 minute ride to the other side of town.  The flight to Cambodia was only an hour and by 3:30pm (in who knows what time zone) I checked into a hotel and slept for 14 straight hours.

Now after reading all that you probably thought it was a nightmare.  Well I think the little issues, problems, hassles that come up on a trip are just part of the deal and if you look at it as an adventure then it wasn’t as bad as it appeared.  Yeah I was super tired when I finally got to Cambodia and still haven’t adjusted back to Central Time in Kansas, but I also met a lot of cool people along the way.  While stuck in the Beijing airport for 4 hours, I befriended a guy from Los Angeles who ran track and cross country in college and was now doing triathlons.  On the flight from China I was sitting near a married couple from Columbus, Ohio, (they went to Ohio State) who was going to Asia as part of a Peace Corps type situation.  I struck up a conversation on the way to Singapore with a lady from Malaysia who was flying on a plane for the first time to go see her family.  My Uber driver in Los Angeles ran track for the LA Jets and knew Obea Moore, one of the best high school sprinters of all-time from back in my day.

If you aren’t busy chasing Pokemon or shutting off the world with your headphones you’d be surprised as how fast a trip like that can go.  Oh yeah, I also watched twelve movies and ate six meals on the flights.

Total flying distance on this trip – 26,743 miles.  How far is it around the world? 24,901 miles.

Final thoughts

Overall, traveling to Asia was a terrific experience.  If you want to see pictures, I put a few on my Facebook page.  I had a lot of help along the way that was desperately needed and appreciated.  I was really out of my element for much of the trip – which I think is a good thing for us spoiled Americans from time to time.  We don’t realize how good we have it.

I would definitely go back again someday.

Next time

It’s almost time for the Shockers to be back on campus!  We have an exciting year ahead and now that my travels are over I’m ready to get started!

Until then, thanks for reading and Go Shocks!

A Dude Named Rainbolt - part deux (reposted from 3/14/2007)

Last week I reposted a blog from 2006 (from Trackshark.com) when I had recently arrived to Wichita to take the job as the sprint coach about Coach Rainbolt.  This is the follow up I wrote in March of 2007.  Anyone who has worked with Bolt can probably relate to a lifetime of memories in whatever time you had working with him.  Here are just a few ...

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March 14, 2007 (Trackshark.com)

If I would have to describe Bolt’s management style, I would probably refer to it as “organized chaos”.  If you were to follow Bolt and our staff around for a day you would probably wonder how the Shockers maintain their level of success.  Bolt is a master of flying by the seat of his pants.

An example of this is our staff meetings.  I know Wendel McRaven, Brad Hunt, and Jenni Ashcroft are probably giggling right now thinking about some of those historic Rainbolt staff meetings.  Generally we all gather in his office, many times after practice in the early evening.  Bolt likes to keep the lights off except for one near his desk.  He feels this sets an unthreatening ambiance for a positive staff meeting.  Bolt likes good karma with his staff. :)

Most of the time we will meet for an hour or two and usually we get about 15 minutes of actual work done.  Here is an example of a conversation that might happen in one of our staff meetings:

Wise:  Ok, when are we leaving for Tulsa?

Burns:  Well, first event on Saturday morning is at 9:30 so we need to send some throwers down Friday night.

Hetzendorf:  Yeah, let’s take everyone competing before noon down Friday in a van and I’ll drive.

Yost: Ok how many hotel rooms do we need?

Rainbolt:  Hey, the last time we stayed in Tulsa, I went for a run around the town and you wouldn’t believe what I saw.  There was this homeless guy who was wearing a red robe with a Holiday Inn logo on it.  So I go back to the hotel manager and tell him about it and where they can go get their robe and they look at me like I’m out of my mind.  What the heck?

Wise, Burns, Hetzendorf, and Yost realize the meeting has been temporarily derailed from the tracks.

Over at practice, Bolt can appear to be what he would call “scatterbrained” at times, but usually all of the athletes get in the work they need to get done without too many trials and tribulations.  Bolt generally lightens the mood at practice with some kind of comment out of right field.  This is no joke, today we were setting up some hurdles and as some athletes are jogging by on their warmup and Coach Rainbolt asks them “Do any of you have a sandwich I could eat?”

While it may appear that Bolt’s style would be ineffective, nothing could be further from the truth.  Just sit in a meeting with him and a recruit and you will see one the smoothest and most skillful recruiting minds in the country.  I have seen kids almost jumping out of their chairs thinking about how fast they could run while getting coached by Rainbolt.  He makes people believe they can do things they never thought possible.  I know because I was one of them.

In many jobs, coming to the office in the morning is only the beginning of a non-eventful day with people who are sometimes not very interesting.  In my job, I go to work in the morning knowing full well I will be laughing and smiling most of the day because of the leadership style of Steve Rainbolt.  It’s why I drove out toWichita this past July without even visiting when he offered me a job and hopefully it’s why I’ll be working with “The Dude” for a long time to come.

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It's remarkable how the more things change, the more they stay the same!

A Dude Named Rainbolt - Part 1 (reposted from Trackshark.com 10/26/2006)

I don't have a lot of interesting stuff to update you all on so I thought I'd do something different today.  If you want updated on WSU T&F at the Olympic Trials or NCAA Meets just go to GoShockers.com and you can read some terrific recaps.  I don't feel the need to regurgitate them on this blog.

Through the magic of the Internet, you can go back and look at old websites through the Internet Archive website.  It's a fascinating look back (especially if you used to build websites).  My good friend and former teammate Tom Borish had one of the best websites ever - Trackshark.com - back in the day and I wrote a semi-regular blog around 10 years ago.

I had just moved to Wichita about 4 months prior to this blog entry but, obviously, I knew Bolt pretty well by then.

Here is one of the more popular blog entries from 2006 titled "A Dude Named Rainbolt - part 1" ...

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Oct 26, 2006 (Trackshark.com)

This has been a much anticipated and frequently requested topic from my legions of followers out there.  Well, at least 3 people have said so anyways.

If you don’t really know who Steve Rainbolt is, then your life isn’t quite complete.  “Bolt”, as we affectionately refer to him, is about as unique of a person as you will ever meet, and also one heck of a college track and field coach.

Bolt went to Kansas University and did high jump and decathlon, qualified for the 1980 Olympic Trials and then became an assistant coach at Nebraska.  From there he eventually got his first head gig at Kent State and now has been the commander in chief at Wichita State for the past seven years.  Quite simply, he’s the dude.

Professionally, he is the kind of guy who has accomplished as much as is possible in the places he has been.  He has coached kids who ran on Olympic Teams, won NCAA titles, etc.  But he is most known for the affect he has on young people.

Besides having a passion for golf, he is an avid juggler, ping pong player, and outright entertainer.  He sings an unbelievable rendition of The Auctioneer Song that brings the house down on karaoke night.  There also isn’t a person in Kansas he doesn’t know or doesn’t know him.

The athletes that get to work with him on a daily basis end up becoming lifelong friends and everyone you meet has some sort of story about him at a meet, on a trip, or at a practice session that defies normal human behavior.

Steve Rainbolt and the word normal don’t usually collide in the same sentence.

Once when eating an obviously tasty meal, he turned to us and said, “that was excruciatingly pleasurable.”

Last week at a high jump session he told one of our jumpers to “just try and squirt over the bar.”

If he is frustrated you might possibly hear a “Dadgummit!” and if things are going good you will probably hear a “Dag yo!”

I can remember running at the Penn Relays in front of 50,000 people in the 4x100-meter relay finals and hearing his voice yell “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” from across the track.

Anyone who ran for him is probably smiling and knows what I am talking about.

Then there are the stories … oh my gosh there are some stories.  To go into detail here would be impossible but let’s just say I have been involved in one where he was driving a van back from a trip and got tired, told me to drive the rest of the way and instead of pulling over we changed drivers at 70 mph on the freeway.  As soon as I got seated and my heart rate adjusted to normal I look over and he is fast asleep in less than 30 seconds.

Working with him on a daily basis, now that is a whole other story …

To be continued …

The NCAA Championships are here and my thoughts on the NCAA Preliminary format

Three Shocks qualify to NCAA Finals

We took the most athletes in our school’s history to the NCAA West Preliminaries (25) last week but were only able to get three through to next week’s NCAA Finals.  Even though it may seem like we wouldn’t be happy with a 3/25 performance we actually are.  Let me explain …

First of all, the NCAA Prelims are a pretty brutal competition where all of the athletes are at a quality level.  48 athletes in each event are narrowed down to 12.  Field eventers only get three attempts and there’s not much use in taking a “safety” attempt – this is why you see so many athletes foul out in this meet.  On top of that we had massive weather issues in Lawrence, KS, where a 3-day schedule was basically reduced to a 2-day schedule.  Without going into all the details of the schedule changes, let’s just say we felt lucky that anyone advanced out of this meet.

Another reason we thought the meet went well is because of a scoring system we came up with to measure the success of our team at this meet.  Often there are athletes ranked 40+ that might not have a realistic goal of being in the top-12 so we talk about “moving up” from their pre-meet ranking.  We score the meet, 48 points for first place, down to 1 point for 48^th place.  With our 25 athletes we had a pre-meet projected scored of 570 points and we finished with 617.  That means, on average, our athletes finished about two places higher than their rank coming in.  It was a good meet overall for WSU!

The three Shockers advancing to Eugene next weekend are Ashley Petersen in the High Jump, Skylar Arneson in the Hammer and Damien Odle in the Javelin.  Ashley will make her second appearance at the NCAA Finals with Skylar and Damien will be making their first.

What do I think of the NCAA Preliminary format?

Since I began coaching at the Division I level in 1998 there has always been heated discussion and debate about how to qualify to the NCAA Outdoor Championships and at the NCAA West Prelims I had several coaches ask me what I thought of the current format.

You might remember I wrote a long blog that sort of went viral earlier this year about the restructuring of NCAA Track & Field so, obviously, I probably have some thoughts about this …

Whatever way the NCAA decides to have us qualify is fine with me and we try to prepare our athletes the best we can to achieve that goal.  But if I have any opinion, I guess I prefer there at least being a head-to-head competition for those spots rather than just a descending order list from the season.  Here’s some proof of why …

We have a good distance runner named Brady Johnson who was one of the last guys to make it in the 10k in Lawrence.  He was also one of the only athletes to make it there from a meet that wasn’t run at Stanford or Mt SAC.  He ran his qualifying time at our home meet – the KT Woodman Classic.  It was a little breezy and he didn’t have a lot of competition but he ran fast enough to get to the NCAA Prelims.  Throughout the outdoor season Brady raced in several smaller meets with terrific “racing” success that led to a great double performance in the 5k/10k at the MVC Championships.  Going into the NCAA Prelims he was ranked 46^th and “raced” another good effort all the way up to 16^th place and was in the hunt to qualify for the NCAA Finals until the last couple hundred of meters.

Brady passed and left behind a couple dozen guys who had qualified to this meet in much better conditions and time trials.  It further proved my thoughts that just going off a list, whether it be distance races, sprints or field events, is not the best way to qualify to the national championships.  This (and many other circumstances like this) only validates my earlier posts about the changes we need to make in our sport in terms of placing more importance on head-to-head competition.  I think Brady is much more prepared to race in “big meets” (which are typically tactical in the distance events) now more than ever before because of the outdoor season and the races he competed in this spring.

This is just one in a number of examples I can use.  The current system, even though it’s a rather odd meet to attend, seems better than going off a list.  The NCAA Finals have been much better since we’ve gone to this system so the end result is good.  Is there a better way?  I’m sure there is.

NCAA’s

With all that being said, the NCAA Outdoor Championships are an incredible meet to attend and watch – especially at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.  Even non-track fans will get swept up in the enthusiasm and talent on display this week.  ESPN will have a ton of coverage on their cable channels as well as on ESPN3 so make sure to check it out!

Recruiting

I did not have an athlete advance to the NCAA Finals this year so I will be on the road recruiting until the NCAA meet starts (which is a recruiting dead period).  Our 2016 recruiting class is coming along nicely and while we’re almost finished our attention has started to shift more towards the class of 2017.  We have a very senior laden group of women next year so we will have quite a bit of scholarship money available to work with.  It will be very important for us to hit some home runs in recruiting when you’re losing the likes of Nikki and Taylor Larch-Miller, Sidney Hirsch, Jamesia Milton, Breanne Borman, Gavyn Yetter … the list goes on and on.  The MVC will continue to get better and recruiting good athletes to compete at a high level is something we can never lose focus of.

Next time

Even though the track season never seems to stop, the NCAA Championships represent a “kind of” end to the season.  I’m not sure when the next blog will be but I am thinking of changing it up a bit.  I’ve been writing this blog for a couple of years now and I feel like I’m starting to regurgitate some of the same things and I want it to be interesting for you to read.  Hopefully I’ll come up with something entertaining!

Until next time, thanks for reading and go Shockers!

Shocks win double MVC titles, up next NCAA Championships

I apologize for not being more consistent with the blogs but it has been a very busy (and successful) few weeks since the last one …

Shocks win double MVC titles!

If you follow our track and field program then you’re probably aware that we won both the men’s and women’s MVC Championships last weekend in Terre Haute, Indiana.  We work hard all year long to have championship meets like this but winning both is a rarity.  I’ve been at Wichita State for 10 years and we’ve won 14 MVC Track & Field titles between men and women, indoor and outdoor, but only once had we won both in the same meet (2010 indoor).  And the last time it happened at WSU outdoor was back in 2004.  We’ve been a combination of first/second too many times to count (including this year indoor) so it was a

huge relief to be able to get both last week.

Men's and Women's MVC Champions!

I am the guy who probably keeps the closest tabs on the meet from before the heat sheets come out until the 4x400m relay on Sunday.  Here is a brief day-by-day recap of how I felt about how it was going …

Wednesday

We left Wichita this morning for the loooooooooong drive to Terre Haute (600 miles).  We departed WSU at 9:30am and rolled into Sycamore country around 11pm as we stopped for two meals and a practice at Mizzou along the way.  I rode on the girls’ bus and had my fill of romantic comedies for the year (maybe lifetime).  I’m just glad we didn’t watch Magic Mike.  We’ve had some significant injuries this year so practice was light for the most part.  We got the heat sheets and I poured over them while Just Go With It amused the ladies.  On paper we were significant favorites on both sides and it appeared after the heat sheets came out we were still solidly in the lead (around 50 pts on the men and 25 on the women).

Thursday

The day before the meet starts is usually pretty low key where we go out to see the facility and do a light workout.  Unfortunately it was raining most of the day and our view of the facility was from the indoor warmup area across the parking lot.  After getting the crew through their paces we headed to the pre-meet coaches’ meeting and then had our team meeting to end the night.  We decided to show a worse-case scenario type of projection to our team where the men’s meet was closer and the women’s meet was tight between the top three teams (including Missouri St and Northern Iowa).

Friday

The first day was big for us because of our strength in the multi-events and the Javelin.  And our kids showed up ready on Day 1 by equaling or outperforming our form chart in every event.  We also had some solid qualifying results in the 200m and 1500m.  The only bad thing that happened was our leadoff leg of the 4x1 strained her hamstring in practice and now I was left trying to figure out what we would do on Sunday.  But overall it was a good day and we extended our slight projected lead out to around 15 points on each side.

Saturday

I like to call Saturday of the MVC meet “moving day” like in a golf tournament because this is where most of the prelims are and we need to move as many of our athletes into the finals as possible.  This day (which was chilly and windy) we also continued to move up the scoreboard as the conclusion of the multi-events proved very big in our title efforts.  Once again we equaled or outperformed every event on our form chart (which was a remarkable two-day achievement) and by our team meeting later that night it appeared we had a 40 point projected lead on the men and around 25 for the women.

Sunday

The final day of the MVC Championships are always exciting and go by very quickly.  My main concern was getting the baton around the track in both 4x1’s, which was the first event on the track.  We were only able to do one practice exchange with our new leadoff runner but in the race Morgan Prather and Deja Young executed a beautiful pass.  After a bit of a bobble on the second pass our ladies narrowly missed a second place finish but I was happy that we kept form on paper.  Then our men (also running a new lineup for the first time) ran very well to take third place and our day was off!  Our men had a lead that would be hard to overcome for Southern Illinois so most of my attention focused on the women’s team score where UNI was having a tremendous day.  Our projected lead of 25 had been trimmed down to around 19 when we got report the Discus went horribly wrong for us and that it would be an 11-point swing for UNI.  Fortunately those reports were incorrect and we only lost 3 (whew).  UNI had a couple of bullets left but we were able to dodge them enough that with three events remaining (200, 5k, 4x4) it was safe to say we were in the clear.  For the first time I can remember I took my scoresheet and binder and put it away while just enjoying the final hour of the meet.

It was an incredible team effort by our squad.  All 32 men we took to the meet scored points while 28 of our 32 women scored.  We ended up winning the men’s meet by 74 points and the women’s meet by 22 without the services of Nikki Larch-Miller (last year’s MVP) as well as her sister Taylor only being able to contribute on the 4x100m relay because of a hamstring injury.

It was a great celebration and our team soaked up every minute of it including dumping a cooler of water over an unsuspecting Coach Rainbolt.  Most of the coaches rode home in a van separate from the team and after a time of celebration most of our conversation started to revolve around recruiting and how we would try to win these titles again in 2017.

You can watch the replay of the MVC Championships on ESPN3.

Recruiting

There really is no rest for the weary as the week after the MVC Championships was probably our busiest in terms of recruiting and recruiting visits.  We’ve signed around 20 athletes for next fall so far but are far from done so every day there is a new potential Shocker on campus as well as getting out to the post-season high school meets.  We know we’ll have strong teams in 2017 again but we are concerned with how good we’ll be in 2018 as we will lose a lot of athletes to graduation next year.  It may sound crazy that we’re thinking that far ahead but it’s the only way you can think if you are gonna stay ahead of the pack in the always competitive Missouri Valley Conference.

NCAA Championships

We advanced 25 Shockers to the NCAA West Prelims next weekend in Lawrence, Kansas.  It’s the biggest group we’ve ever had for this meet.  The next highest total in the MVC is 15.  You have to finish in the top-12 to advance to the NCAA Finals in Eugene, Oregon, two weeks later.  We have three athletes ranked in the top-12 but around 16 in the top-30.  We’ve usually competed pretty well at this meet but it’s never a given to get someone through to the NCAA Championships.  This is college track and field at the highest level and all of the qualifiers are terrific athletes.

Next time

I’ve been so bad at keeping this blog up to date that I hope I can be back next week to report on a bunch of NCAA Finals qualifiers!  We also need to get back into some good movie discussion on here which I am hoping to do soon.  I’m thinking of taking an international vacation this summer so if anyone has any ideas let me know!

Until next time, thanks for reading and go Shockers!

A busy April and my first ever broken bone

So it’s been a while since I’ve written a blog, it has been a very busy past few weeks.

And this is a special blog.  This is the first blog I’ve ever written by voice recognition speech to text.  If you’ve ever hung around me very much you’ll know that I’ve talked about technology and the future a lot with my friends.  So they’re probably laughing knowing that I did this entire blog without typing.  And sorry from my laptop for the typo's!

The busy past few weeks

We hosted the KT Woodman Classic a couple weeks ago and, like usual, it ran off very well but was extremely tiring and time consuming.  It was the biggest KT Woodman Classic we’ve ever hosted and we were fortunate to have good weather throughout the week.  Our entire team, staff and athletic department workers came together for the event that had over 2600 athletes and 120 schools across four days in Cessna Stadium.

As a team, we competed pretty well.  We asked our kids to work the high school meet and then come back the next day and compete.  We have to do this in order to run off a high school meet on Thursday and Friday when we can’t get as many officials as we need.  Our kids worked hard and the coaches who came gave everyone high marks, the fact they keep coming back year after year and it keeps getting bigger is a sign that we’re doing things pretty well.

It was a little bit windy during the college portion of the meet, but our kids hung in there and produced a lot of personal bests and marks that put them near the top of the Missouri Valley Conference.

As I mentioned in a previous post, for the first time the KT Woodman Classic was televised on local cable television by WSUtv.  We were extremely happy with how this came off and all of the efforts put fourth by everyone involved.  We also simulcast the meet on our live stream channel and had nearly 20,000 views by the end of the week.  This nearly doubled what we’ve done in previous efforts.

The guys at WSUtv were totally professional to work with and we hope that we can work on more meets in the future.

The John Jacobs Invitational at Oklahoma

We had high hopes heading down to Norman, Oklahoma, for the John Jacobs Invitational.  We had some good practices and were optimistic that we were gonna have a good meet.  For the group that I coach, it happened be one of those meets that things seem to not go our way.  Starting with some handoffs that were less than average by the 4x100m relay, and rough races continuing throughout the first half of the meet, I was left shaking my head and wondering how bad of a coach I was.  Luckily, we started doing better about halfway through the meet and we eventually ended on a positive note.

Our throwers had a great meet and carried us to a second place finish behind the host Sooners.  I thought it was impressive showing by our team considering we didn’t compete as well as we know we could have.  It shows that when we are hitting on all cylinders we’re going hard to beat in the MVC Championships.

Missouri Valley Conference Championships preview

It has taken a while to get a good look at what the MVC has this spring.  But like we were hoping and expecting, the Shockers appear to be in the hunt for both team titles.  Our men will probably be heavy favorites to win the outdoor championship just like we did during the indoor season.  Our guys are a deep and talented team that is strong in all areas.  The most difficult thing will be picking the top 32 guys.  We’re looking at it now and it looks like there are at least 40 very deserving guys to make this conference team.  Normally being ranked in the top eight of your event helps you get onto that conference team but this year in may take being ranked even higher.  That’s a good problem to have for the coaching staff.  The Southern Illinois men appear to be the toughest challenger to our guys this year.  They competed hard indoor and gave us a good fight and we expect the same in a few weeks at Indiana State.

Our women also appear to be one of the favorites to win the championship, however, in a much different fashion than are men.  Our women aren’t as deep as our men and we don’t have as many upper level athletes.  But we have a lot of athletes that are ranked in the middle of the scoring as well as having a few events that we dominate in the conference.  Hopefully this combination can help us get enough points to win the title that we narrowly lost indoors.  It appears to be a battle with Missouri State, Southern Illinois, Northern Iowa and Illinois State (who won the indoor title).

My first broken bone in 41 years

So I recently broke a bone in my foot, I’ve been asked so many times about it I thought I would go ahead and explain what happened on here.  On the Thursday of our track meet that we hosted two weeks ago, I was in our press box.  It was dark and I went to step down onto a step that I thought was only a few inches unfortunately the step was a couple feet.  All of my weight when onto my ankle, which rolled, and after trying to walk it off and seeing how much it swelled up so quickly I realized I was in a little bit of trouble.

Luckily we were at a track meet and I was able to call our trainer Becca Fitzgerald and she came up to the press box to take a look at me.  She said it was a 50/50 chance that it was broken and she leaned towards it being broken.  She said I could go to the Dr. in the morning and get an x-ray.  Unfortunately the next day was the longest day of my entire year, the Friday of this track meet lasts about 17 hours and I’m probably the most significant person in hosting it.  So I got a bag of ice from Becca, a boot and a couple painkillers and hobbled myself around the track for 17 hours the next day, not knowing if my foot was broken or not.  I saw the team doctor Friday night after the meet and he gave the same thoughts as Becca about my foot and said I could get the x-ray on Monday morning at their clinic.  So a 13 hour day on Saturday was not as bad as Friday and I also had some crutches with me that day.  After staying pretty low key on Sunday I went and got the x-ray Monday morning and was told by our training staff that it looked like I had a broken bone near my ankle.

Fortunately it was a non-weight bearing bone so all I need to do is be in a boot and on crutches for a little while.  I’ve been getting a good workout with my arms on the crutches!  It did really suck, however, to be on crutches all day in Oklahoma trying to coach.  Maybe that’s the reason we didn’t have a very good meet, next week I will get rid of the crutches at KU.

Movie update

I had not been to many movies recently because of how busy the track season has been, however I did get out to see an interesting movie.  It was called Hardcore Henry.  It did not get promoted very heavily and has not done very well in the box office so most of you have probably not heard of it.  It is told entirely from the first person point of view, you wake up as a man in the middle of a crazy adventure and you don’t know why or how you got there.  It has very intense scenes of action and violence along with quite a bit of humor.  I thought it was a very original way to tell a story, and even though it probably could’ve been done a little better, I still enjoyed it thoroughly.  Like I’ve said in the space before, I wish more moviemakers would take chances on how they told their stories.  There are not very many movies in the theater right now that I’m interested in seeing.  Because of that I’ve mostly been watching old dvd’s at my place.

Next week

We compete at the University of Kansas against the Jayhawks, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Minnesota, Oral Roberts, and UMKC.  Hopefully we have a terrific meet and we get some needed momentum heading in to the conference championship two weeks later.

Until then, thanks for reading and go Shockers!