Sunday, March 27, 2016

Outdoor season kicks off and Shocker T&F on TV!


The Outdoor season is underway!

We’ve had two outdoor meets already (4 if you count the meets, over two weekends) and I’d say we’ve been pleasantly surprised by the results.

We always have our multi-event athletes start the outdoor season with a competition in mid-March and this year we decided to have the rest of our team do the same.  We trained hard through this meet (UT-San Antonio Invitational) yet still had some terrific marks put up by the Shockers.

Same goes for this past weekend as most of our team was at the Arkansas Spring Invitational.  It was a very good meet in terms of competition for this early in the season and our kids held their own against some track and field powerhouses.

What does it mean?  You can never be sure but it can only be viewed positively that our team looks ready for the important upcoming meets in the outdoor season.  This week we’ll split up our team for three different meets:  The Texas Relays, Stanford Invitational and Emporia State Relays.  It kills me to not have our team together (see previous posts about scheduling) but with the way the current NCAA Track & Field system is set up we must make sure our top athletes get the opportunity to compete at Texas and Stanford.

Looking ahead at the outdoor schedule

After this weekend we’ll have an off week before heading into the most important portion of our regular season schedule:

April 13-16 – KT Woodman Classic at Wichita State
April 23 – John Jacobs Invitational at Oklahoma
April 30 – Rock Chalk Classic at Kansas

Then a home tune-up meet on May 6 before heading to Indiana State for the MVC Championships.  Following that will be the NCAA West Prelims at Kansas and the NCAA Finals at Oregon.

And finally, if we’re lucky, we’ll have some athletes back in Eugene for the US Olympic Trials at the beginning of July.

Lots of exciting track & field in the coming months!

Shocker T&F on TV!

In less than three weeks we’ll host one of the largest track and field meets in the Midwest – The KT Woodman Classic (for colleges) and Shocker Pre-State Challenge (for high schools).  Over 100 schools and 2,000 athletes will compete in Cessna Stadium that week.  We recently got word that for the first time we’ll be broadcasting the meet on cable television.

Several years ago (I honestly can’t remember when) I had the idea to try and broadcast our meets online and through the years we’ve carried almost all of our meets that way.  I was always surprised with how many viewers we’d have and dreamed that someday we could afford to do a more professional job.

Then in stepped WSUtv.

Before this year began I put out a message on social media for anyone who wanted to help with our online broadcasts and got a message from a guy named Curt Rierson who works on campus for WSUtv.  Curt is a serious runner and has wanted to broadcast meets for some time and as it turns out the MVC recently signed a deal with ESPN to start moving broadcasts of all our sports online to ESPN3 in the coming years.  Long story short, WSUtv is becoming an important player in helping WSU Athletics broadcast sports at a much lower cost than it would have been if the athletic department did it itself.

All thanks to track and field!  Haha.

WSUtv did our final home indoor meet (The Herm Wilson Invitational) as an online stream for a kind of “test run” and it went very well.  You can watch that meet here.

So back to the KT Woodman Classic …

Like many track fans, I am usually frustrated with how our sport gets broadcast on television in this country.  I’ve seen a lot of meets from Europe and the knowledge of how to broadcast a meet is so much higher than ours.  We’re hoping to do some things with our broadcast that no one in the USA does.  Mostly it has to do with how poorly field events are usually covered.

Besides having announcers that do a good job for running events, we plan to have dedicated announcers following all of the field events.  We’ve also created a system for live field event results that can not only be followed for fans at the meet on their phones or laptops, but it will also be able to be put on the screen to be shown during field event action.  How often do you see real time live field event standings on the screen during a competition?  Hardly ever, and if you do it might just be the top couple athletes.  We plan to do a great job with the running event results as well.

The bulk of the meet from Thursday through Saturday will be simulcast live on Cox Cable Channel 13 as well as our own LiveStream channel online.  The Decathlon and Heptathlon will just be broadcast online.

I’m excited to see how it comes off and hopefully other schools will pay attention and start to follow suit.  Having quality and entertaining broadcasts is another way we can bring more attention to Shocker Track and Field as well as helping the sport gain more fans.

Next time

I’ve been debating on starting a movie project but I’m not sure I have the energy at this time of the year – maybe after KT Woodman.  Next week (or the week after) I’ll give the mid-year outdoor update and talk about how the MVC is looking and anything else I can think of to (sort of) entertain you all for a while!


Until then, thank you for reading and Go Shocks!!!

Sunday, March 13, 2016

What an actual track and field recruiting trip is like and 6 movie reviews

I decided to go a little different route this week with the blog.  I get a lot of questions about recruiting and how that part of my job goes, especially from people who aren’t college coaches.  I thought I would share what types of recruiting trips there are and details of a trip I went on last week to give anyone interested an idea of what a recruiting trip is.

Recruiting in general

In virtually all sports at the collegiate level, recruiting should be one of the most important parts of the job.  There are lots of great coaches around the country that don’t have very good teams because they don’t spend enough energy and attention on recruiting.  At Wichita State we try hard to balance coaching our teams to their potential with recruiting the best athletes we can possibly get.

Recruiting at Wichita State is very different from recruiting at a place like Oregon or Florida.  It’s also very different from recruiting at a non-DI school.  So my comments are solely reflective of my experience at a mid-major type DI program.  Both of my college coaching jobs have been at similar type institutions (WSU and Kent State).

However, I don’t want to get into recruiting philosophy here, but more what an actual recruiting trip is.

Types of recruiting trips

At WSU, we have several different ways of recruiting.  I would divide them into four categories:

Home visit – This is where a coach goes directly to the recruit’s home and talks with the family.  Sometimes it’s to get a recruit initially interested in your school, other times it may be to try to “close the deal” after a recruit has already taken an official visit to your campus.  Home visits are always a lot of fun for me.  I also think it’s exciting for a family to have a college coach in their home and they usually do a great job of being hospitable.

School visit – Most of the time these visits are done during the school day and coaches are usually part of the visit at some level.  They are shorter meetings (because the kid usually has class) and it has the same goals as the home visit.  Getting the high school coach involved in the recruiting process is an important part of the equation so we tend to do a lot of school visits during the year.

Attending a practice session – Sometimes you might attend a practice at the school (or club) of a recruit.  This way you can actually see how the recruit interacts with their teammates and coaches in a practice setting.  You have to be careful, however, and not talk to any athletes that aren’t old enough to be “recruited” yet.

Recruiting at a meet – This type of recruiting takes on a variety of different circumstances throughout the year.  Actually seeing an athlete compete in person is the best thing you can do to evaluate them.  But you can’t actually talk to them until they are done competing for that day so sometimes you end up watching a lot of track meets where you aren’t seeing any recruitable athletes for a long time.  I’ve been to a lot of meets where there is only one DI level athlete in the entire meet.

Miscellaneous recruiting – There are all kinds of ways to find athletes.  Nowadays with the prominence of the Internet you can virtually recruit athletes without even seeing them in person.  Obviously communication with recruits is another significant part of the process whether it be by phone, email, Facebook, Twitter, Skype, etc.  DI track coaches aren’t allowed to text recruits yet but that should change soon.  You have to be open to any route of recruiting to find the right type of athletes for your program.

My trip last week

Ok, just so everyone knows I can’t get into details about where I went and who I talked to because of NCAA rules.  So feel free to make those details up with your favorite locales and athletes haha.

My trip was a combination of all the type of recruiting trips I mentioned above.  I had been planning it for a little over a month.  Sometimes these trips are very spur of the moment but this one wasn’t.  Our budget at Wichita State is very good but we aren’t able to just hop on a plane and spend $5000 without a thought.  Six weeks prior to this trip I found tickets for around $300 and went ahead and bought them.  Details like hotels and rental cars can be last minute but Coach Rainbolt wouldn’t have let me go if the plane ticket was $1000.

On to a journal of my trip …  We had got back from the MVC Indoor Championships early Monday morning so I had 24 hours to unpack, do laundry, repack and try to get as much work done at the office before I left again.

Tuesday – I picked a late morning flight (I really hate 6am flights) out of Wichita that had a layover before reaching my final destination in the early evening.  My destination for the week was a large city so traffic and parking would be an issue.  I have a friend that runs a bed and breakfast in the city so I decided to take their room.  It actually worked out great because it was cheap and I had people to hang out with in the evenings.  After getting checked into the B&B, I went to grab some dinner and a few drinks with my friend.

Wednesday – When you have been somewhere for a while (this is my 10th year at Wichita State), you start to get to know people from all over the country.  We’ve got several athletes from this particular area of the country I was in, so I planned having lunch with a current athlete’s parents.  From where I was it was about an hour drive to meet them.  Luckily I was near a high school where I met with an athlete after lunch at his school.  Next was a 90 minute drive to a junior college where I know the coach and they have several good athletes every year.  He let me attend a team meeting where he introduced me and talked about our program and then I attended practice and met with several athletes until late in the evening.  Even though I had only been to two places today I had chatted with about eight really good athletes and they all seemed pretty interested in Wichita State.  I got back to the B&B later that evening and went to a movie with a couple friends before hitting the hay.  I was tired and slept really well.

Thursday – I had two more locations today to visit that were about 100 miles apart so I got up and left around 9:30am to make it to the first high school to meet an athlete during his lunch period.  This was one Coach Yost had been recruiting.  Meeting athletes for other coaches on the staff is something we do often because, in the end, we’re all on the same team and want to win so if taking a couple hours out of my trip will help the team then that is what we need to do.  Our head coach Steve Rainbolt is constantly meeting with athletes that he doesn’t coach on recruiting trips and the rest of us do the same on a smaller scale.  The next part of the day was one of those “hurry up and wait” deals.  I wanted to see a particular athlete compete in a meet and she was going to run at 3:15pm in her main event.  I had about two hours to get there and traffic was not helping.  I roll into the high school at 3:10pm and didn’t know the track wasn’t located on campus.  Once getting directions from a fine member of the custodial staff, I drove about a half mile to the track where there was no parking available.  I ended up parking on a road about another half mile away and got a good workout running to the track.  I got there about 3:25pm and luckily the meet was behind schedule and I got to see her run.  Because she was scheduled to run the 4x4 at the end of the meet (and run 2 other races), I wouldn’t be able to talk to her for several hours.  This is where the waiting part of the day comes and every coach who is reading this knows what I’m talking about.  I got some food, responded to all of my emails and text messages, sent a couple Snapchats to friends and talked to a couple HS coaches at the meet.  The 4x4 rolls around and it turns out this particular athlete isn’t running.  As the meet ends I ask the coach if I can talk to the athlete and he thinks she may have went home already.  Awesome.  He trying to call her with no answer.  Her mom was running the concession stand so she tries to call with no answer.  I’m about ready to give up and she walks up to meet me out of nowhere.  She had been getting some treatment after the meet.  Whew!  As the lights to the stadium came on, some 6 year old kids took over the infield for soccer practice.  We had a great chat about her track career, goals and Wichita State.  Hopefully we’ll get her on an official visit soon.  I got back to the B&B around 9pm that night and met my friends at what I was told was a “Jazz Bar”.  It ended up being a local (and interesting) bookstore with an elderly French couple singing songs (in French) to a crowd of 14 (I made 15).  It was such an intimate “concert” that when I opened the door to the bookstore everyone turned and gave me a dirty look for not being on time.  It was quite the bookstore as well, I almost bought a book called “How to talk to you cat about gun safety.”  Like I said it was an interesting bookstore.

My hotel key collection
Friday – The majority of the next two days were to be spent in another city so I thanked my friends for the awesome stay and headed down the highway to the next place.  This B&B I had stayed in had a significant collection of old VHS movies so before I left I had to rearrange so the best movies were closest to access.  I’m sure my efforts were greatly appreciated.  I had scheduled to go to three different high schools this day and because of the long drive I wouldn’t be there until the afternoon.  Luckily all three schools were pretty close to each other and I got to visit with some great coaches, attend a couple of practices and meet some upper level athletes before going to check in at my hotel for the evening.  I’ve stayed in more hotels than I can count in my life and about 4 years ago I started keeping one of the key cards from wherever I stay.  I thought it would be a cool collection of a life of travel someday and I don’t think it’ll cause Marriott or Hilton to go out of business anytime soon.  After getting checked in I got some food and explored the city for a couple hours before getting some sleep for the night.

Saturday – This was my last full day of the trip and the plan was to go to a couple of track meets.  It’s early season competition so I wasn’t necessarily going to see a lot of great stuff so I mostly went to meet more coaches and say hello to the ones I had met the previous day.  After four straight days of recruiting I was getting pretty tired so I decided to finish the business part of the trip and go to the beach.  Sometimes on these trips you get into such a groove that you forget where you’re at so I wanted to enjoy a little bit of paradise while the sun was still up.  I ended the evening by having dinner with parents of another athlete on the team before driving to the original city I had been in for a flight back to Wichita Sunday morning.  Traffic was moving well and after getting bad directions from my GPS a couple times, I finally arrived to my hotel around 11pm.

Sunday – Two flights (where I wrote my previous long blog) and a long layover and then I was back in Wichita by early evening. I had a few hours to do my laundry again and sleep before BEGINNING the work week on Monday.

In summary – you never know if your recruiting efforts will yield the results you want until athletes 1) sign to your school and 2) produce results over time to help you accomplish the program’s goals.  Maybe in a couple years I’ll revisit this blog to see how it turned out.  The last time I made this particular recruiting trip it resulted in the eventual signing of four Shockers that have helped us win many MVC championships.  You don’t always hit a home run in recruiting, howver.  Sometimes you just have to fight and claw to get on base and then you hope to eventually have a big inning.  But you’ll never have a chance to win if you don’t step up to the plate and take a few hacks.  I took a bunch of swings this week.

NCAA Indoor Championships

We had two athletes compete at the NCAA Championships this weekend and both took home 12th place finishes and 2nd Team All-American honors.  Pretty solid results for a couple of first time NCAA qualifiers.  Congrats to Breanne Borman (Pentathlon) and Jared Belardo (Long Jump) on a great indoor season!

Outdoor season is beginning!

As quick as indoor has ended, it’s already time for the outdoor season.  We’re gonna change things up this year and head to San Antonio with our team for a meet over Spring Break.  We’ll head out Tuesday and train in Texas for a couple days then compete Friday/Saturday.  Our multi’s are actually leaving today (Sunday) for a Hept/Dec at Rice University on Tuesday/Wednesday before joining us over in San Antonio.

Indoor is always fun but outdoor track is what we really try to prepare our team for!

Movie update

Because of all the other topics on this blog recently, I haven’t had much in the way of movie commentary for the eight people who read this blog for that reason.  Since I reviewed The Revenant in late January I have seen six movies.  Here they are in the order I saw them:

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi – This movie has made headlines because of the political connections to Hilary Clinton but those connections weren’t the focal point of the movie, and I’m glad they weren’t.  It was focused on the men who tried to make sense out of the chaos that occurred after an American ambassador was killed in Libya.  Directed by Michael Bay (Transformers, Armageddon), it did have a little too much “Hollywood” for me but overall I really liked it.  The struggle these soldiers went through was something I couldn’t imagine and it’s an important story that needs to be seen by everyone no matter what your political leanings are because of the sacrifice these soldiers make for you and me to do what we want everyday.  7/10.

Hail, Caesar! – I’m always excited when a new Coen Brothers movie comes out (Big Lebowski, True Grit, No Country for Old Men) and I also like George Clooney (who is from near where I grew up).  And while this movie had lots of interesting characters and scenes, much of it either went over my head or didn’t connect.  Maybe I’ll need to watch it again to appreciate it, which is how many Coen Brothers movie are.  The basic plot is about how Josh Brolin is a Hollywood studio executive who is trying to keep all these characters in line during the 1950s.  It has elements of politics, religion and Hollywood insider info that just came off confusing in parts.  Like I said it might be better than my first impression but I give it a 6/10 upon initial viewing.

Race – I’ve been eagerly anticipating this Jesse Owens biopic for some time.  When one of my favorite comedic actors, Jason Sudeikis, was announced as the Ohio State track coach Larry Snyder, I was further intrigued.  One thing I was worried about, however, is how seriously track and field would be taken by the director and producers of the movie.  Obviously this movie had a lot of elements in regards to race and discrimination besides the historical track and field accomplishments of Jesse Owens so I knew it would get the typical Hollywood treatment in that regard.  Generally I thought it was a good and entertaining movie despite the over dramatism of the plot with one exception – the track and field scenes.  Stephan James played Jesse Owens and looked athletic for an actor and his running wasn’t too bad but the scenes of him long jumping were hard to watch (as well as German Luz Long).  Jesse Owens jumped over 26 feet in 1936, a mark that would still be one of the top in the world today, and these guys looked like they were jumping 16 feet out there.  Surely they could’ve cut to some angles and used actual long jumpers that could jump 23 feet or so.  The 4x1 handoffs were atrocious as well, not even close to what it really looked it.  Anyways, other than those goofs that most non-track fans wouldn’t notice it was a good movie.  7/10.

The Shickles – So when I was on my recruiting trip, I hung out with an actor friend and we went to a premiere for this movie that another friend was in.  It was a low budget dramedy (drama and comedy) that was part of a film festival in the city we were in.  A lot of the money was raised through donations and it was interesting talking to some of the people who knew how the movie was made, including one of the main actors.  I imagine it only cost about $100,000 to make and was a labor of love for the director with very little chance to make any real money.  There are tons of movies like this made every year and I enjoyed getting to see a different side of the industry.  There is such a large number of actors, directors, writers, etc. that work very hard for little money to try to make a career out of the arts and usually these people fail but I admire the effort and enthusiasm in what may seem like a waste of energy to people around them.  Hey I’m a track coach and people don’t understand that either so I get it.  As for the movie it was about an eccentric Jewish family in the days after their beloved grandparents deaths.  I recognized a few of the actors from other movies or TV shows but there was no one really famous in the cast, however the acting was very good throughout.  The directing and editing were not as great so it gets 5/10.  Go out and support independent films when you get a chance!

Eddie the Eagle – Another sports biopic but this was very different from Race.  This was about English ski jumper and Olympian Eddie Edwards and his sometimes funny and sometimes sad attempt to make the Winter Olympics in 1988.  Edwards was a former downhill skier who wasn’t good enough and realized there were no British ski jumpers so he tried to make the Olympics in that event.  He dealt with many obstacles, mainly people who didn’t believe in him, and eventually realized his goal.  Taron Egerton played Edwards and they got Hugh Jackman to play his coach.  It was a good movie, just a little short of being really good because you just knew it was a little over the top in trying to make Edwards look ridiculous.  The real story is very amazing and I would’ve probably rather seen a documentary on ESPN about it.  7/10.

10 Cloverfield Lane – I purposely tried not to know too much about this movie because I heard it had a twist ending.  And I’m glad I waited to see it in person to see what the hype was all about.  The plot is about a girl who is in a car wreck and saved by John Goodman in the midst of some sort of attack on the United States (or possibly the Earth) that isn’t clear.  They are locked up in a bunker beneath the ground for weeks before the real drama starts happening.  I don’t want to spoil it anymore in case you’re gonna go see it but I would give it a very good score for originality and suspense.  8/10.

Next time

I’ll be back to talk about our Spring Break trip to San Antonio and the beginning of the outdoor season!

Until then, thank you for reading and Go Shocks!!!


Sunday, March 6, 2016

My (long) response to comments about my college T&F plan and my plan for the outdoor season

I’ve been on a lot of airplanes recently so I’ve had time to write and respond about our new favorite topic haha!

It has been a lot of fun seeing the response to my ideas about college track and field the past few weeks.  I have probably talked to 25 or so current Division I coaches and have generally had great conversations and have been able to speak to any issue they bring up.  We all have things with how the sport affects us personally but through this entire project my goal has been to look at it with a bigger picture in mind – the health of our sport.

Link to Letsrun thread --> Letsrun.com Message Board Thread

My ideas for outdoor are down below this comment/response section as well as a note to my distance coaching friends …

Responses to comments on Letsrun.com about my solution to college track and field problems:

Comment – Awful programs and distance programs won’t like it.
My response – This is a common response but one that has a good answer.  First let’s take smaller schools that focus on distance running and don’t have the adequate budgets and facilities to have complete teams (awful programs as it was put).  My proposal hardly affects them at all.  They can still have the same team, same budget, same facilities, etc.  The only thing that it affects is if they end up having more than one NCAA level qualifier for indoors.  And how many of those teams end up having that?  Hardly any.  In our conference Bradley would be in that situation.  They qualified zero athletes to NCAA’s this year even though they won the MVC in Cross Country and have many good distance runners.  They would still get to run at Notre Dame a couple times a year but would also run in smaller scored meets.  These type of schools could even have their own scored meets against each other.  Their RPI wouldn’t be very high because of the strength of schedule but it would be competitive in the distance events and commonly not in the field events.  Part 2 let’s say that we’re talking about BCS distance schools that focus on distance.  I hear Oklahoma State in this scenario a lot but keep in mind they aren’t just distance runners (they won the Big 12 and had several athletes in other events).  How many events does Oklahoma State generally qualify to the NCAA’s?  I think with very little recruiting effort Oklahoma State would have a high enough RPI to qualify as many athletes as they needed.  And if there is a BCS school that has enough resources and facilities to have a somewhat complete team but simply chooses not to then that is not good for our sport.  And understand I say “somewhat” complete team because in my proposal you only need one entry in each event.  You could potentially cover that with around 7 non-distance athletes (LJ/TJ, HJ, PV, SP/WT, 60/200, 200/400, hurdler).  Heck if you had a good multi they could cover most of them by themselves!

Comment – Sounds great but you can’t compare T&F to Football and Basketball because those sports have an equal playing field of scholarships.
My response – Actually no they don’t.  FBS and FCS football scholarships vary by around 20.  T&F actually is potentially more equal because there is no difference in the amount that is allowed for T&F (12.6 for men and 18.0 for women) by the NCAA for all D1 schools.  Add into that the way it currently is for T&F is that schools are already different in how they choose to offer scholarships and that wouldn’t have to change.  Having more scholarships would definitely help you build a better overall team but it isn’t any different than it would be today and, like I mentioned above, if a school is ok with not having a full team and focusing on Cross Country then they can still do that.

Comment – No matter how much WE love T&F we are no more popular than Tennis, Wrestling, Rowing or any other non-revenue sport to the average fan.  Changing this will not change that fact.
My response – As Ron Burgundy might say, “agree to disagree”.  First I would say that T&F is indeed more popular on the collegiate level than rowing and tennis to the average fan.  Just look at attendance at any of those sports compared to a track meet.  Yes we have the advantage of large participation numbers but those are still butts in the seats and people watching our sport.  For small indoor track meets at Wichita State we routinely have over 500 paying fans and over 1000 people in the building.  Our top-25 ranked tennis team might get 100 people (including players and coaches) if their lucky on a sunny day.  I’ve been to plenty of non-revenue sports at many different universities.  This is the way it is for lots and lots of them.  On top of that whenever T&F is on TV it generally gets very good ratings.  From what we were told at the convention in December, the NCAA meet last year on ESPN had very high ratings and that everyone was surprised how well it did when it was packaged in a way that was easier to understand for the casual fan (sound familiar here?).  Secondly, I know our sport is great and I’ve seen drama within all the events that, presented properly, always gets the casual viewer interested.  How often are highlight films shown and great track and field athletes or moments shown right alongside the NBA, NFL and MLB?  All the time.  I’m not saying we should have a goal of getting 20,000 people to a dual meet but it is realistic to grow our sport and get much larger than current attendance.

Comment – How about making it like football where there are two divisions where BCS schools are fully funded and is a team sport and non-BCS are at 75% and is individual?
My response – So basically all non-BCS schools keep it the same as now but have less scholarships?  Sounds great (sarcasm).  I don’t entirely disagree with the notion of having separate championships for BCS and non-BCS but currently in track several of the top-25 schools at the NCAA Championships are non-BCS schools.

Comment – Does anybody seriously think this would increase track and field’s popularity?
My response – In the USA sports are generally popular if they are TEAM sports.  Exceptions to this are sports like Golf, NASCAR and Tennis.  At the collegiate level Golf and Tennis are very much team sports and the top athletes go on to professional sports.  NASCAR is actually more of a team sport than most people realize.  I’m not proposing any changes to elite track and field (although Vin Lannana is trying to have a team concept with pro meets this year).  I think my ideas would help college track and field become more popular in a grass roots style on campus and in the community.  It would also have a MUCH higher chance of being on television or at the least online streaming.  The more eyeballs watching it means, yes, the more popular it would get.  And many of the meets we have now don’t inspire anyone to watch.

Comment – The system we have now allows a coach to develop an athlete to perform. Ask any coach of any scoring team at NCAA if they would compromise that to make their team more appealing in the January post-meet press release.
My response – Let’s be honest, there are only a handful of teams each year that placing high at the NCAA Championships is something they can realistically focus on.  Oregon, Texas A&M, Florida, Texas are some of those schools (who almost all have early season scored meets now anyways).  There are some teams like Missouri that are focused on a top-25 NCAA type performance.  The rest of the teams that end up finishing high at NCAA’s do so with a couple of upper level athletes (example Kansas State with Akela Jones), almost all of the rest of their team is not at the NCAA Championships so what are they compromising?  Akela Jones competes in a lot of events early in the season for her team (she kicks our butt a LOT) and there are plenty of press releases about her.  And my proposal would eliminate the NCAA Prelims for outdoor so the early season meets would be two weeks closer to the NCAA’s than it is now.

Comment – I think another problem is that "the system is broke" rhetoric is simply an opinion. There are people who feel strongly that it is broken. There are people that feel strongly that it is not. These are opinions.  We are not a popular sport. We are a boring sport. I love it. I always have. But it is not an attractive sport to average sports fans because it is simply too boring. Not length of meets. Just boring to the average sports fan because there is nothing that connects the athletes to each other. No contact. No plays. No connection with a ball for defense and offense. Changing the NCAA system is a waste of time.
My response – I feel bad for this person because, obviously, they have not experienced track and field like many of us have in terms of intense and entertaining scored meets (namely conference championships but also very good dual/tri/quads with rivalries).  He is right that these are all opinions – and his opinion is that we are boring!  Believe it or not it doesn’t have to be that way!

Comment – I have no idea how threatened the sport is because we don’t have a lot of scored meets. Most have a scored conference championship and that is fine. Non scored meets offer more flexibility in athlete development. I would rather we train people to be their best rather than compromise that because someone who doesn’t even care about the sport wants a team score on a given weekend.
My response – At our annual coaches convention two years ago a speaker said to us, “Look to your left, look to your right, in 10 years one of the three of you will not have a track program anymore”.  Does that give you any reason to be concerned?  Do you now think we should just keep it the same?  Our sport is under threat and we must be proactive before it’s too late.  If AD’s and administrators want our programs to have more fans and be easier to understand then we better listen to them before we’re looking for jobs in another line of work.

Comment – Would your training change if there was a schedule change as you suggest? Do you feel that a change that values the "regular season" meets more than a single qualifying race would be a detriment to those All-Americans and qualifiers to are trying to peak for the end of the season? Where would you cut off potential to be a late-season performer, as opposed to training athletes to perform for the now important early season races?
My response – Being a sprint coach it wouldn't affect us at all. We want to run fast from the first meet on (as do most sprint coaches). In fact in my proposal we would eliminate any meets in December so we would actually be starting later than usual. This "non-effect" would be the same for virtually all events except the distance runners. Although I've talked to a lot of distance coaches and many (not all) don't think it's a major change either – heck they run in distance carnivals all outdoor season long to try and qualify now! You wouldn't HAVE to run all your distance kids every week, it depends on how good your team is. You would need to at least cover the events with one decent athlete in each event, however, which only seems fair.

Comment – Conferences should retain the right to customize meetings between member schools. But remember situations like ECAC and Hawaii. You can’t just fire away changes and alter the whole system. There are winners and losers to every administrative wide decision put forth.
My response – I definitely understand those situations but what do they do in a sport like softball?  They have to figure it out.  I think there are exceptions to the schedule I proposed for schools in certain situations but one like Hawaii isn’t very common and shouldn’t dictate what 300 other schools might do that is overall a positive.  I address this further below in talking about setting up an independent committee to deal with specific issues.

Comment – If a basketball player scores 30 points that has an overwhelming effect on how the team is directly competing with the other team. However in track if a runner wins by a huge margin and breaks a world record in the process, their points do not mean anymore than someone who barely wins in a very slow time. That is why a press release will talk about individual results in track even when the team loses. If he is proposing a point system based on time or distance as opposed to place (like in the decathlon) then maybe we are on to something.  5k 1st place 13:30, 2nd place 14:20... shouldn’t have the same scoring as 1st place 14:19, 2nd place 14:20.
My response – While I would agree a Decathlon type scoring system would be more accurate it seems almost impossible to implement unless you want team scores that number in the hundreds of thousands!  And while I love the Decathlon it’s a very hard event for most fans to follow and keep track of.  I don’t think we want team scores going in that direction – it would cause more confusion.  In my proposal you could have up to 4 entries in each event that would need to meet a minimum mark so in a dual meet I would simply score 8 places with 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 and if there were only 4 entries in the event they would get the 10-8-6-5 points.  In a quad meet score it 16 places 20-18-16-14-13- on down to 1 if there are 16 people who get the minimum mark.  There would even be a lot of excitement for someone getting 12th place and making the minimum mark because it could result in an important 4 points for the team!  A battle for 12th and 13th place in a meet SHOULD have some level of significance.

Comment – If your team scored meets don’t do anything except show you beat someone and nothing more (such as conference, NCAA qualifying) then how does this work. A win in November in basketball contributes to a w/l record and possible post season. A win in a scored track meet in early February has no bearing on post season.
My response – Actually in my proposal those meets in early February ARE important because it can determine how many athletes a school can qualify to the NCAA Championships.  This is an important part of the equation or teams won’t try their best to do well at the meets (like they do now).  Every team would have a ranking every week.  How great would it be to have #1 Arkansas, #8 LSU, #25 Louisville and #46 (insert your team name here) to promote to your fans and administrators.  Believe it or not meets like this (and victories against those highly ranked teams) mean more to the fans, alumni and administrators than you think.  It’s not something we as track coaches think is that important because we are so focused on the current system of getting our athletes ready for conference and NCAA’s.

Comment – Cross Country is a team sport and for 95% of the teams - track is an individual sport.
My response – I agree (although not the 95% part).  And for a lot of distance coaches they understand and want that for track too.  Cross Country is setup to be team oriented and the distance kids love it!  Every race is scored and the athletes run hard all season long AND there is meaning to wins and losses for qualifying teams to the NCAA Championships.  Why can’t track be similar?  Why do some distance coaches change their perspective when it comes to track?

Comment – The state of Texas, the largest state in the continental United States, has 3 competitive indoor tracks. One was destroyed this year in a snow storm. 2 tracks... You want the 15-17 NCAA DI universities to all do quad meets at A&M and Houston every week.. Seems realistic....
My response – I definitely think the number of indoor tracks to host is something to look at (not an issue outdoors) but your comment is a little short sighted.  First, not every Texas school would compete in the state of Texas every week (we’ve hosted many Texas schools at Wichita State) and there are other indoor tracks in the surrounding states.  But how about A&M or Houston hosting two meets on the same weekend (Friday/Saturday) with other teams – with the shortened schedule you could even have two on the same day in the same facility.  Many of them already host multiple day meets anyways.  Those host institutions could make extra money while also attracting even more of a fan base for the sport from the people in those areas.  If you’re a diehard track fan you’d go to both meets, especially if they were only 3 hours long a piece.

Comment – I think the problem is- people on this message board are too young to remember that track and field was once popular in the USA.  Look back to the 60's and 70's- it was on TV- people knew Ryan, Liquari, Prefontaine, etc. Why is not as popular now? It was an individual sport back then.  Is it the media? I don't know.
My response – This is a thought provoking post.  T&F isn’t as popular because there is just more competition for things to do but I have also asked this question to alums who ran in the 1960s and 1970s and they said for regular meets the crowds were also sparse.  So maybe we romanticize it to a point except for some obvious meets (USC/UCLA) back in the day.  As for the media this is true for traditional media like newspaper and television but I would argue that there is more attention on track nowadays because of the internet.  Every weekend you can watch meets online and read press releases that summarize meets.  I get frustrated when our local newspaper doesn’t mention how well one of our kids did but we should realize traditional media is not as important and fading with every month that goes by.  We need to think outside the box and continue to grow our sport online and in the grass roots.  I’m not going to get all political here but just look at today’s presidential races and see how important the anti-establishment and grass roots campaigns are now.  “Times they are a changing” and we need to change with it.

Comment – I hate to say this but how about the rest of us who are now not going to be able to get into your Quad meets because you limit the number of teams competing?? You need to live in the real world and not just your team think about everyone. Or is it only you and your school that count??  My program would die under this type of schedule because we could not compete in your meets. I have a full team a very full team 55 men 30 women we hit all events but we are a small school with no track!!
My response – This one makes me chuckle because if you knew about me or the school I coach at you would realize how inaccurate your comment is.  We hosted two indoor meets this year where we invited ONLY non-Division I teams.  One we competed in and another we hosted for local junior colleges.  Two of the four weekends I proposed for scored meets would be determined by the NCAA or the conference you’re in so this would probably help the problem you are talking about.  I did not write this in the perspective of Wichita State University.  We currently have a very healthy situation with the way things are now.  We win a lot of championships, we qualify kids to the NCAA’s and we always have post-collegiates competing and going pro after college.  What I am proposing would actually help other schools more than us.  I do live in the real world, feel free to come visit anytime!

Comment – Let’s have less events (for example 1 distance race, 1 sprint, 1 relay, etc) and make it a shorter and more exciting time schedule.
My response – While I don’t totally disagree with this, I don’t think we want to start cutting out events.  I think this would only lead to cutting those events all together down the road.  With my proposal meets would rarely need to go beyond 3 hours, indoor or outdoor.  And as long as it remains in that window then it would generally be much more exciting track and field to watch for the general fans as well as hardcore track and field followers.

Comment – I don't see how this won't hurt XC. Fully funded teams will be fine, but teams with less funding often choose one sport over the other (i.e. Oklahoma State, Villanova). Many schools also have roster limits and XC athletes count against that roster. Forcing teams to field a full team in this situation is wrong. The NCAA should not push their philosophy on a program in this way.
My response – I like how the comment is schools with less funding like Oklahoma State.  Less funding than who?  Certainly not the school I coach at!  My plan would actually help teams that have smaller rosters because you could only compete 30 people in a given scored meet.  A team like mine (with 65 on the roster) would have to figure out how to deal with this.  I fully understand roster limitations and my proposal helps even the playing field for schools like that.

Comment – It's constant political battle in NCAATF with the Mid-Majors vs Power Five vs the Olys Four. In the end Oly Medals is all that matters.
My response – College track should not have all of the responsibility for gold medals at the Olympics.  And by the way I disagree that Olympic medals are all that matters.  It’s certainly important but not everything.  We have a problem in this country with USATF and what happens with athletes after college – and that I can give an opinion but I don’t have any solutions.  Our governing body (USA T&F) needs to make changes to help athletes continue to do T&F after college.  Colleges shoulder WAY more than their share of that load.

Comment – How do we build a team to do well in these scored meets but also do well in our tough conference and NCAA meets?  We have to focus on certain event areas to just be competitive.
My response – I realize there are DI conferences that are crazy good out there and you have to recruit national level kids to just score in some events.  One of our problems as a sport that I’ve mentioned before is that the public and administration don’t understand our sport, and that includes how to structure a track and field team.  This idea would force teams to have to at least cover the events (which is only fair to the sport) and make everyone be in a somewhat similar situation which would, in turn, help schools in the above situation.  My idea would be to standardize how meets are run and how teams are built (with much more freedom than most sports).  Think of it like this: A football team can have a focus on being a high-scoring, pass heavy team and not put a ton of resources into running backs and defensive players – BUT they still have to have a defense of some kind.  You can have a distance heavy operation in track and field BUT you should still need to “have a defense”.

Other things that I wish our sport would do (this should be a whole other blog) …
--We need to have some kind of display with the score on it at all times.  At Wichita State we bought a projector and a projection screen to display the team scores because we don’t have any type of large scoreboards.  This is an inexpensive and easy to manage solution.  The score needs to ALWAYS be visible so places that have a large scoreboard for displaying times would need to have something else to go along with it.  Imagine a basketball game that only showed the stats of each player but never showed the score.  This is what is accepted in college track and field these days.
--All meets need to be structured in the same way and have the same basic entering and seeding procedures (including conference championships).  These things are already being talked about on some levels but would help organization for home meet directors.  Entries are due the same time each week, there is no “home track advantage” to seeding races or events, basically it would take out decision making from the home team’s hands.  TFRRS is already the official results reporting service so let’s go ahead and make Directathletics the only way to enter meets (as long as they agree to not monopolize and charge higher fees than normal).  Sorry to those other companies that do entries but it needs to all be in one place for the above mentioned reasons (and many more).
--Setup a committee to deal with specific issues and needs from week to week.  Without going into detail of all the things that could be issues (facilities shortcomings, special seeding issues, etc), it would be important to have an organization that doesn’t have a dog in the fight to deal with questions and create reasonable solutions to hosting needs that are fair to all schools competing.  How frustrating is it when the home team gets all the good lanes in the 200?
--Score the NCAA meet at least 16 deep.  It seems odd to me that you can have a whole group of athletes that are top-10 in the nation and not have a team score at the end.  The top teams in the NCAA meet would still be the top teams but it would be a much more accurate way of ranking teams on a national level.  Getting 8th at a conference meet and 8th at the NCAA meet shouldn’t have the same value.

A final thought to distance coaches out there

I love good distance races and think it’s a very important part of the overall track and field experience.  I even created a distance carnival at Wichita State in April every year to make it as cool of an experience for those athletes and coaches as possible so I get it when you say this isn’t geared to help distance kids develop.  Although I think learning how to race is something many college coaches neglect and I see it every year when kids run time trials all year then fall on their face at conference and NCAA’s where it’s most important.  There are distance kids that NEVER get to experience the thrill of being part of a track team even though it’s entirely possible they could because the teams splits up every weekend.  We are not doing a service to them to have a great collegiate experience by having them segregated from the rest of the teammates.  Distance races make up about 25% of a track meet so we need to be careful to think what’s best for the ENTIRE sport.  Tiger Woods is one of the best athletes in the history of the world and many of his best memories of golf is playing at the collegiate level with a bunch of his buddies.  Track and field can work in a team environment and if you disagree then you’ve simply never been in a situation to experience it yet.  You do it in cross country every week and love it – let’s do it in track too.

Outdoor plan

March 19 or before – any type meet but non-NCAA qualifying (call it the preseason)
Meet #1 – March 26 – Scored Dual/Tri/Quad
Meet #2 – April 2 – Non-scored open meet (Stanford, Texas Relays, etc) – 10k, Multi qualifying
Meet #3 – April 9 – Scored Dual/Tri/Quad – Conference opponents only
Meet #4 – April 16 – Scored Dual/Tri/Quad
Meet #5 – April 23 – Non-scored open meet (Penn, Drake, Mt SAC, etc) – 10k, Multi qualifying
Meet #6 – April 30 – Scored Dual/Tri/Quad – NCAA scheduled meet
May 7 – Mandatory off weekend
Meet #7 – May 14 – Conference meets
May 21 – Mandatory off weekend
Meet #8 – May 28 – NCAA Championships

Once again, details are similar to my indoor plan, you would only be able to qualify for NCAA’s (except 10k and multi) on scored meet weekends (Weeks 1,3,4,6,7).

One issue that will come up is having the big traditional relay meets on the non-scored weekends.  I understand scheduling certain weekends is a major issue but realize the SEC just voted to not go to Penn/Drake and have their OWN meet starting in 2017 so they are one step ahead of me already.  While the colleges are important to those meets, the main draw is the high schools and professionals.  I would be open to moving the non-scored meet weekends around from year to year depending on how much those meets could align with each other.  The other thing to realize is that if we only qualify to NCAA’s on scored meet weekends the need to go to Stanford, Penn, etc. is different although I do think an exception for the 10k and multi is needed.  You can’t fit those events into a short scored meet time frame window.

Thanks again to everyone who has read and given input.  I think this is a great discussion and I welcome any constructive criticism you have!


Thursday, March 3, 2016

MVC Indoor Championships recap and how I (sort of) went viral last week

Well the MVC Indoor Championships came and went this past weekend.  We took home two trophies and were just a fraction away from bringing home the two biggest trophies.

The MVC Indoor Championships

If you aren’t aware by now our men won the MVC Indoor Championships by nine points and our women finish second by 10.  Both meets could have gone either way in terms of winning and losing.  Here’s a brief recap …

Women

Before the year began we thought we’d have the team to beat but an injury to our highest point scoring athlete, Nikki Larch-Miller, put that in serious doubt.  Our ladies rallied around each other and heading into the meet it looked like it would be a battle with Indiana State.  Once the heat sheets came out we realized the Sycamores had also lost a couple of great athletes and wouldn’t be the factor we’d originally thought.  Add to that our best pole vaulter was also out with an injury and all of a sudden it was a four team race that included Northern Iowa and Illinois State.

Both UNI and Illinois St had great meets the week before MVC’s so they came in hot.  Honestly we thought UNI might be the team to watch because the meet was being held at their home track but Illinois St ended up running past everyone to take the title.  In only his second year at the helm, Jeff Bovee has done a great job of getting the Redbirds to the top of the conference.  We had our chances on Sunday and with two events to go (3k and 4x4) we held a one point lead.  Unfortunately we weren’t able to outscore them at the end and had to settle for second.

Our ladies have won several titles in recent years and we were hoping to kind of “steal” this one.  Outdoors we should be a little better as we add the Javelin, 4x100m relay, Discus, 3000m Steeplechase and 400m hurdles – all events we have good athletes.  I think we will be ready in Terre Haute, Indiana, in the middle of May for the MVC Outdoor Championships.

Men

Wow!  It was a mix of up and down emotions all weekend long for our men who have finished second for seven MVC Championships in a row.

On paper, we were a solid favorite although we knew Indiana State, Southern Illinois and Northern Iowa would be threats.  Once the meet started two things happened that were eerily similar to 2015 Outdoor:  SIU started having an incredible meet and we had two events that went in the wrong direction.

Our most consistent weight thrower fouled out (ranked #2 in the MVC) and our top Pole Vaulter (also ranked #2) had an off day after competing in the Heptathlon all day.  On top of that SIU took advantage and had incredible move ups in multiple events.  At the end of the day our considerable projected lead had vanished and we were left regrouping in the hotel Saturday night.

There were no special rah-rah speeches from Coach Rainbolt, just plainly spelling out where we were and that we still had a great opportunity to win.  All season long we sensed our guys had a better focus and in the end we had a great day Sunday and held on for the victory.  A huge sigh of relief came over the coaching staff as our men started to celebrate as the 4x4 came to a close.  These guys were not going to be denied and the celebration afterwards was special indeed!  Even the ladies who had just lost their own close battle were very happy and celebrated with the guys like we had won both titles.  Aside from winning both in 2010 this was probably the most satisfying result of my 10 years at WSU.  Don’t get me wrong – we aren’t happy with losing the women’s meet but considering what we went through we were very happy with how both teams competed and rose to the occasion.

As a combined team we had projected 252 points for the weekend (men 136, women 116) and we scored 252.5 (men 141.5, women 111).  I’d say we were pretty close on that prediction.

NCAA Indoor Championships

The NCAA Indoor Championships are possibly the most difficult meet in the world to qualify for and we are lucky to have two Shockers heading to Birmingham, Alabama, in two weeks.

There are events, even in the Olympic Games, that are easier to qualify for than the NCAA Indoor Meet.  Only 16 athletes per event make it.  To put it in perspective, there are 18 guys who broke 4 minutes in the Mile this year that WON’T qualify.  Want to make it in the High Jump?  You need to jump as least 7-2.  25-4 in the Long Jump won’t get you there either.

We did have someone make the Long Jump, however.  Freshman Jared Belardo (#1 freshman in the NCAA) bombed a 25-9.5 jump Saturday to not only win his first MVC title but also move to #9 in the nation and punch his ticket for Birmingham.  Junior Breanne Borman negotiated a hard fought and emotionally draining Pentathlon to improve her previous score by 12 points and get the 16th and final spot.

I’m lucky to have daily contact with both of these athletes and they have definitely worked hard to earn these honors.  They will be rewarded with at least Second Team All-America honors and if they finish in the top-8 they’ll get First Team.

Indoor season is almost over!

Outdoor season

For the rest of the team we will turn our focus to the upcoming outdoor season.  This week will be very light to get everyone recovered and rejuvenated (coaches and athletes) before heading to our first meet in Texas over Spring Break.

I am currently on an airplane to go recruiting for the week.  Because of goofy NCAA rules I can’t talk about where I’m going but let’s just say it isn’t Siberia!  There is a growing number of amazing coaches and athletes in the MVC each year so we gotta keep pushing forward to stay on top!

Going viral

My blog from a few weeks ago hit unexpected heights in terms of viewing and conversation.  First it got a mention in the Oregonian (a Portland newspaper) website and then got linked on the main page of the Track & Field News website affectionately listed as “Wise Guy solves college track problems”.  But then the creator of Letsrun.com, a website mainly known for its crazy message board, put it up and then all heck broke loose.

Most of my blogs get around 1000 to 1500 views per post and some of the more popular ones get upwards of 3000.  The one I did on No Selfie September ended up around 5000. My solution to solving college track and field’s problems is now over 10,000 views and climbing.  I thought it would get some discussion going amongst the coaches I’m friends with and maybe a little further but I never expected this.  Most of the credit needs to go to the goofballs on Letsrun who gave nearly 100 replies on how they liked, hated or had their own ideas on the topic.  It definitely touched a nerve with a lot of people within the sport and I’m convinced that it will lead to more serious discussion in the coming months.

I got many, many suggestions and critiques of how to do it better and in my next blog I plan on responding to most of them so keep an eye out for that.

I’ve always wanted to have a cult following.

Movies

If you’re here to listen to me talk about movies (all 8 of you), I have seen plenty lately including the Jesse Owens biopic Race.  However, I don’t want these blogs to be excruciatingly long so it will have to wait for another time.  I’ve also gone a little crazy with purchasing movies on DVD lately and I may start another blog project like last year again soon.

Next time

My response to the dozens of nameless guys on Letsrun on how to solve the problems of college track.

Until then, thank you for reading and Go Shocks!