Shocker T&F sweeps at home, MVC will be a war and what movies do you own on VHS?

It was a great Valentine’s Day at the Heskett Center as we were able to come away with a sweep of the team titles.  Now the focus shifts towards the MVC Championships in two weeks.

Good final “Team” tune-up

At this time of the year the athletes are really starting to round into form and we thought we would have a pretty good meet this weekend – and we were right!

Here were the team scores:

WOMEN:  Wichita St 195, UT-Arlington 130, Emporia St 87, Oral Roberts 65

MEN:  Wichita St 168, UT-Arlington 133, Emporia St 111, Oral Roberts 61

Before the meet we had it very close for the men and a slight advantage for the women so to extend our point total out to a convincing margin was exactly what we were hoping for.  There was a lot of spirit and a very large crowd at the Heskett Center Saturday – it was a great environment for college track and field!  It was also awesome to see Herm Wilson make an appearance – we were honored by his presence!

As with all track and field meets it wasn’t perfect, but I would say our team should gain some confidence from a great effort as we look ahead to the next goal …..

What’s next?

The Herm Wilson Invitational was our final “team” tune-up for the MVC Championships in two weeks.  We have one more meet on Friday at Kansas State where we will have two things to accomplish:  1) finalize our roster of 32 men and 32 women for the MVC meet and 2) give our top athletes a chance to either rest or have one final competition before the championship.

As a coach I try to treat these last couple weeks on a very individual basis.  Some athletes need to take a weekend off while others like to keep competing to stay sharp.  In fact every athlete’s training for each day is very individualized at this time of the year.  It’s the difference between what people refer to as the “art of coaching” versus the “science of coaching”.

I don’t claim to be an artist of any kind but generally the athletes I’ve coached have run their best in the championship meets.  There’s no secret to having success at this time – it’s mostly trying to get the athletes feeling good and confident.  We have a terrific sports psychologist (Greg Buell) who has helped me in this area as well as watching our other Shocker coaches get their athletes ready.

I have told numerous people that I’ve been very lucky to have been surrounded by great coaches and people my whole life.  Hopefully whatever amount of that I’ve been able to collect has rubbed off on the athletes in my group.  It’s an extremely fun and exciting time of the year! 11 days until we head to Cedar Falls, Iowa, to see how we stack up!

How does the MVC look this week?

Last week I gave a short preview of how the MVC looks and I don’t think much has changed for this week.  On the women’s side it’s gonna be a battle between Wichita St, Indiana St and Southern Illinois with Northern Iowa trying to sneak up in there.  For the men I still think Wichita St and Indiana St hold a slight advantage over Loyola and Southern Illinois with, once again, UNI trying to make it a five-team race.

There are no clear cut favorites this year, we could finish anywhere from first to fourth.  Historically we’ve competed well at the MVC Indoor Championships so we expect to be in the mix.

“VHS” Movies

Last week I concluded my 24 part series of movies I own on DVD by letter.  This will be my final movie post for a few weeks as our indoor season approaches it climax.  I thought it would be fun to shake up the old VHS movie box and see what fell out.

Movie Name (year made, length, MPAA rating, IMDB rating, Worldwide box office)

The Big Lebowski (1998, 117 min, R, 8.2, $17m) – The ultimate cult classic film made by The Coen Brothers and starring Jeff Bridges as “The Dude” who is mistaken for a millionaire and tries to seek restitution for his ruined rug.  The plot doesn’t really matter, it’s all about unique and interesting characters and witty dialogue.  I became a track coach around the time this movie came out and it’s definitely a favorite for my colleagues from that time.  It bombed at the box office because most people probably didn’t “get it” initially, but I’m sure it more than made up for it on VHS and DVD sales over the years.  “The dude abides.”

Caddyshack (1980, 98 min, R, 7.4, $39m) – One of the all-time classic comedies, I also own on DVD and wrote about it previously.  One of the most quoted movies ever!  “Did somebody step on a duck?”

Remember the Titans (2000, 113 min, PG, 7.7, $136m) – One of my favorite sports movies, RTT depicts the true story of a newly appointed African-American football coach and his first year as a racially integrated team in 1971 Virginia.  Denzel Washington knocks it out of the park as Coach Herman Boone who brings together black and white to form a championship team.  It’s a cheesy movie in some parts but others it’s very effective.  My favorite part is when they wake up early and run to the site of the Battle of Gettysburg.  

Major League (1989, 107 min, R, 7.2, $49m) – This is a movie I also own on DVD and wrote about previously.  Great movie, I remember seeing it for the first time in high school and thought it was hilarious.  I obviously like it enough to buy it on two kinds of platforms.

Michael Jordan:  Come Fly With Me (1989, 42 min, n/r, 8.1, $??) – Made before Jordan started winning all of his NBA titles, this was an extremely cool video to promote one of the rising stars of the league.  It’s basically a 42 minute Jordan documentary made by the NBA so it doesn’t have anything negative except for the injury he suffered in his second season.  Lots of “ahead of their time” visuals that most kids my age saw at a friend’s house after basketball practice.

Forrest Gump (1994, 142 min, PG-13, 8.8, $677m) – This was a combination of a movie being original, funny and well-acted.  In turn it became one of our country’s most well-known and popular movies of all-time.  Making $677 million worldwide - it was truly a phenomenon.  Almost everyone I know has seen this movie and liked it.  It won best picture of 1994 as well as a host of other awards.  It’s probably the defining role of Tom Hanks’ career, my favorite part is always when he decides to run and run and run without stopping.

Top Gun (1986, 110 min, PG, 6.8, $356m) – Did anyone who grew up in the 80’s not see this movie?  Tom Cruise plays “Maverick” who is a student in the Navy’s elite flight division where he has to curb his reckless ways in order to become the best pilot he can be.  It’s easy for me to like this movie because of the intense flying scenes and cheesy dialogue.  Who can forget classic characters like Ice Man and Goose!  “I feel the need, the need for speed!”

The Hurricane (1999, 146 min, R, 7.6, $73m) – Starring Denzel Washington as a boxer named Rueben “Hurricane” Carter who was wrongly accused of murder and spent two decades in prison trying to clear his name.  This is a great movie that most have probably forgotten because of how many awesome movies Denzel has made over the years.  If you haven’t seen it I would recommend checking it out.  It doesn’t have a lot of sports action but it’s a terrific drama and inspiring to show how hard Carter fought for so long to seek justice.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981, 115 min, PG, 8.6, $389m) – The classic action/adventure movie from Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford where Indiana Jones goes in search of the Ark of the Covenant.  I have always liked this series of movies but I was never obsessed like some people.  I like the archaeological aspects of the stories but of course they have to Hollywood it up as much as possible, and in this case they made good choices because of how much money they took in.

American Pie (1999, 95 min, R, 7.0, $235m) – The movie that spawned three sequels and numerous other knock-offs was a big hit in 1999 for its combination of crude humor and likeable characters.  I’ve never been a huge fan of these movies but I will admit if I see it on cable I’ll end up watching for a while.  In 1999 it was a unique movie to the R-rated movie genre and opened the door for movies like The Hangover and Old School to be made and make lots of money.

It’s kind of cool to see these movies from back in the day.  I didn’t have any money back then so I was picky to buy good movies – which all of these are.

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this movie project for the past 25 weeks!  I’m sure I’ll have some more movie talk in a few weeks!

Next week

Everything will be about the upcoming MVC Championships!

Until then, thanks for reading and Go Shocks!

Why seniors are special for WSU, STC, and Gunga Galunga.

I had recently read this year was supposed to be colder than normal during the winter months and, if it’s true, we got an early dose of it in Wichita this weekend.

Some very chilly weather occurred during our weekly 6am Friday morning workout and with our weight room not available for another week or so (because of remodeling), we had an outdoor session.  It’s interesting how you can be cold and shivering when you start warming up but 30 minutes later be down to a t-shirt or tank top in 40 degree weather because you’re sweating so much.

I’ve had a few people ask me how our workouts are going and how the team looks.  My usual response is, “I think we’re pretty talented but we have a long way to go before we figure out if we’re any good.”

One of the reasons I say that is because we’re lacking in seniors.  This might be hard to believe but I have 28 athletes (men and women) in the sprint/hurdle group and only two seniors.  While this means we should have a heckuva group for the next few years, an area that I worry about is leadership.

Seniors bring a special kind of leadership to a team.  Seniors usually become less selfish and less interested in their own goals and more focused on the team than juniors and sophomores.  This type of thinking lends itself to terrific leadership over the course of their final year.  Those seniors become desperate to win championships and will do anything, including motivating their teammates, to win.

Don’t get me wrong, there are always great leaders from younger members of the team, but the desperation isn’t there because they know they still have at least another year remaining.  I was the same in college.  I was a captain at Kent State for my junior and senior years and I was a much better leader as a senior because all I wanted was to win a MAC title.

I’ve seen some of the younger members of my group show some early signs of good leadership but it is something I will be concerned about throughout the year.  It takes a lot more than putting together some talented athletes to win a Missouri Valley Conference track and field championship.

Shocker Track Club

I’m fortunate to be part of a non-profit organization called The Shocker Track Club (I’m the head coach of the Elite Team and on the board of directors).  This weekend the STC hosted their annual master’s and open meet at WSU’s Cessna Stadium.  There were almost 100 athletes in competition who were beyond their “prime athletic years” and it was awesome.

Athletes up to their 80’s from all around the country were there running, jumping and throwing on the same facility that hosts thousands of college and high school athletes each year.  I only had a small part in the hosting of the meet but it was definitely inspiring seeing how much spirit was in these tremendous athletes!  We had many of our new athletes work the meet as officials.  Hopefully they came away inspired as well!

For more information about our organization you can visit www.shockertrackclub.com.

“C” Movies

This is the third of a 24 part series (maybe) where I list movies I own by letter (I don’t have any movies that begin with Q, X or Z but I do have some that start with numbers).  I currently own a small collection of 150 movies (and growing most weeks) on DVD.

Most of the movies I own I had previously seen and enjoyed immensely.  Some are movies that I had not seen but was curious about.  Some were gifts from people with bad tastes in movies.

Here is the list of my 8 “C” movies from best to worst …..

Movie Name (year made, length, MPAA rating, IMDB rating, Box office)

Caddyshack (1980, 98 min, R, 7.4, $39.8m) – Most every male over the age of 30 has seen it and can recite at least a dozen quotes.  Chevy Chase, Bill Murray and Rodney Dangerfield are in the primes of their comedic lives, “so it’s got that going for it, which is nice.”

Coming to America (1988, 116 min, R, 6.9, $288.7m) – Seeing Eddie Murphy at his funniest when you’re in the eighth grade just isn’t fair.  I laughed the entire time and was amazed at the end when I realized he played an old, white Jewish man.  I know I’m the only person in Kansas who owns a Randy Watson World Tour T-shirt.

Clerks (1994, 92 min, R, 7.9, $3.1m) – The movie that made anyone think they could make a movie because Kevin Smith only spent $20k making it with a bunch of his friends.  You don’t watch this movie to see how well it was made; you watch it to be inspired about what can be done with so little.  And to laugh at crude jokes.

Crazy Heart (2009, 112 min, R, 7.3, $47.4m) – This is a terrific movie about the “over the hill” side of country music starring Jeff Bridges.  I’ve always been intrigued by what happens to talented people when their popularity is gone.  Colin Farrell is awesome as well.  Who knew an Irish guy could play a country music superstar?

CB4 (1993, 89 min, R 6.1, $17.9m) – Being from a totally white place growing up, I was intrigued with rap music in high school and this Chris Rock movie came out during my senior year.  It still holds up quite well and is one of Rock’s best movies.  So many funny quotes that can’t be spoken in this public forum.  Eddie Murphy’s brother Charlie was hilarious as Gusto!

 

Casa de mi Padre (2012, 84 min, R, 5.5, $8m) – Even though it didn’t really come off as successful, I am very proud of Will Ferrell for making a movie where he speaks Spanish the whole time and he knew wouldn’t make any money.  Most people won’t like this movie because they don’t realize it’s supposed to be bad.

The Campaign (2012, 85 min, R, 6.2, $104.9m) – Will Ferrell and Zach Galifinakis running against each other for public office.  I’m a sucker for good old fashioned dumb humor and this one is high in that category.  ”Because Filipino tilt-a-whirl operators are our nation’s backbone.”

Cold Mountain (2003, 154 min, R, 7.2, $173m) – One of those “gift” movies that I think I watched once when I got it.  It’s not really that bad of a story about the Civil War.  Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were at the height of their romance I believe. Easily forgettable.

Once again most of these (except the last one) earn high marks for me.  I own 15 “D” movies so next week look out for movies that start with Dazed, Death, and Django!

Go Shocks!

MVC Indoor recap, RIP Harold Ramis, and will Shocker Basketball ever lose?

Track

It was another exciting weekend at the MVC Indoor Championships, I’ll try to document some of the things that the typical fan or parent might not be aware of during the very important week.

If you’ve been reading this blog with some regularity, you’ll know that we were decisive underdogs heading into the MVC Indoor Championships this past weekend at Northern Iowa and the pre-meet coaches poll had our men picked second and our women third – and on paper that appeared to be accurate.  We are always very honest with our team so they knew what a steep hill there would be to climb to have a shot at a championship or even a trophy (top 2 finish).

The first thing we noticed when we got to Northern Iowa was the weather!  Wichita is not exactly Phoenix when it comes to heat and humidity but it’s quite warmer than Northern Iowa.  We experienced double digit negative temperatures for multiple days while in Cedar Falls.  Now you might be saying it’s an indoor meet and how does that make any difference?  Well the way we are setup at this meet our kids have to walk to their breakfast/lunch/dinner locations so the frigid temperatures were something we had to be prepared for.  I don’t remember any of our kids complaining about the weather, they seemed tough all weekend.

One of the best parts of our championship tradition is traveling as many people as we can.  We like to refer to it as our “Bowl Game” and in that regard we want to have as many non-competing athletes and staff members there as possible to support the team who is competing and learn about what it takes to be successful at this meet in the future.  We always have a huge travel party and are very lucky our administration supports us in this philosophy.

After a light practice on Friday at the beautiful UNI-Dome, we had our first team meeting back at the hotel later that night.  This meeting serves two purposes.  The first is for logistics of the meet, general announcements and to hand out bib numbers and passes.  While these things aren’t very exciting, they are necessary so the athletes know what to expect during the weekend and can be totally focused on the competition.  The second part of the meeting is to talk about the meet, where we stack up, and how we can try to win the championship.  We set up a projector screen with event-by-event analysis of how our team is projected to score (along with all the other teams).  I know some teams don’t talk about their championship meets in such detail because they fear it will add too much pressure to the athletes but in our culture of track and field it’s something we talk about often and the kids are all very keyed into what we expect.  They want to know this info and use it for motivation no matter if it appears good or bad.

So on Friday night in our women’s team meeting (we have separate meetings for men and women), our projection had a tight battle between Indiana State (136) and Southern Illinois (135).  We were down in third place with 84 points with Illinois State (77), Loyola (69), Northern Iowa (65), Missouri State (58), Bradley (35), and Drake (7) behind us.  All indoor season this is how it has looked as our women are a very young team (only 4 seniors in the group of 32 competitors) and, even though we didn’t like it, had sort of mentally been settling into the fact it might be a “rebuilding” type of season.  Luckily our women’s team didn’t look at it like that – more on that in a bit.

In the men’s team meeting we were in second place behind Indiana State (167-110) with Northern Iowa (89), Loyola (87), Illinois State (86), Southern Illinois (76), and Drake (55) trailing.  On both sides we were a little over 50 point underdogs on paper.  Only one time, the men’s indoor championship of 2010, have we ever turned around a deficit that large.  To win either meet would require us to have an extraordinary meet and for one of the top teams to struggle significantly.

I have always loved these pre-meet team meetings.  There is such a great team spirit and focus on the overall success of Wichita State by all the athletes.  It’s truly a unique experience to be part of, one I cherished as an athlete and one I continue to love as a coach.  I’ve always wanted to do a documentary style overview of the MVC Championships weekend but, alas I’m usually a little too busy - maybe someday when I retire (never).

The MVC Indoor Championships is only a two-day meet so things happen very quickly once the meet starts.  Our goal in the first day was to try and cut into the lead by about a third.  There are 17 events in our meet and on day one there are 6 finals and lots of preliminaries.  If we were going to have a chance at a title (or second place on the women) we would have to have some massive “point swings”.  The one event on the first day that was a big swing was the women’s Pentathlon where we scored 24 points instead of the projected 14.  Mission accomplished, so to speak.

In our final team meeting on Saturday night we gave the team an update on how the meet is going.  Overall the first day went pretty much according to the projections with the exception being the Pentathlon.  After day one we had Indiana State and Southern Illinois tied with a projection of 134 points, so they were pretty much in line with what we thought.  We had moved up from 84 to 97 so instead of being down over 50 points, now it was 37.  Even though that is still a very large margin our women had cut into the lead by about the third that we had needed.  It was still a long way to go for a trophy.

On the men’s side, we pretty much held form and I had us projected for 109 points.  Indiana State had a very good day and moved up to 179 points in our charts.  A 70 point deficit was going to be very tough to overcome, especially since our top athlete, Austin Bahner, would not contest the rest of the meet with a hamstring injury.  We had Bahner penciled in for 18 points so our message to the team would be we need to really pull together in order to finish second.  There were four teams lurking behind us by about 20 points and any of those teams had the potential to beat us if we didn’t finish strong.

The final day of a championship meet is full of excitement and intensity.  We needed some big things to happen, and happen quickly!  Right away we had two big things happen.  Our best triple jumper Shanice Andrews hit a huge personal best to win the event and Southern Illinois had an 11 point fall in the Shot Put.  So with nine events left the projected margin for second place went from 37 down to 18.  Those results seemed to kick-start our women’s team and they proceeded to have an incredible day.  By the middle of the final day our women had surpassed SIU on the projection and looked in line for a second place finish.  Indiana State’s women appeared to be too tough to catch and they were having a good day as well.  There were lots of very close finishes in several events and at the end of the day our women ended up in second place, losing to Indiana State 130-116.5.  We had gone from over 50 points down to losing by 13.5, as well as beating SIU by 19 points in the process.  We outperformed our pre-meet chart by 32 points – the highest total for our women in the eight years I’ve been at WSU.  A terrific accomplishment given that it was done with only 4 seniors (who scored a total of 18 points).

While we never seriously threatened Indiana State for the title, here’s how close we came to winning.  In the Pentathlon we had two girls lose spots by a total of 18 points (about two seconds in the final event, the 800 meters) and in the hurdles we finished a close second and third place.  If we would have scored those 18 points and went 1-2 in the hurdles it would have been a 14 point swing and we would’ve won the meet by a half of a point.  So often you can find things like this all over the place and to think we were that close to a championship after where we started was a remarkable feat.  We were very proud of our ladies and this should give them confidence heading into the outdoor season.

The men’s side, unfortunately, wasn’t as close.  Without Bahner we were doing everything we could to scrape together points as best we could.  Indiana State did come back to us a bit but they finished with 151 points to our 105.  We held off a strong charge by Southern Illinois, who scored 95 points.  Our men had been very determined to win a championship this year but this one was not to be.  We think our outdoor team is better than our indoor team with the addition of the Javelin and a few other events.  We will also add a couple of redshirted athletes that should make our team better.

On the way up to the meet our coaching staff had decided finishing second (men) and third (women) would have been a pretty successful meet.  On the drive home after exceeding those predictions, we were happy but not satisfied.  Overall it was a great weekend of track and field for the Shockers!

Today (Monday) has been mostly spent sleeping.

Last week I mentioned I would probably talk a little bit about recruiting and our class of signees but since we are off this next weekend I figured next week would be a better time to talk about it.  And you’re probably ready for me to stop talking about track at this point anyways.

Movies

A sad event occurred this week as writer and director Harold Ramis passed away at the age of 69.  Ramis was involved

with many of my all-time favorite movies like Caddyshack, National Lampoon’s Vacation, Animal House, Stripes, and Back to School.  I’ve always enjoyed seeing him in interviews talking about these movies and he was, obviously, a major influence on the film industry.  RIP Harold, you will be dearly missed!

With the business of this week’s MVC Championships, there was no way I was going to be able to get out and see any movies.  I did catch a few on cable and online though before and during the trip.  I watched a movie called This Film Is Not Yet Rated, made in 2006 about the MPAA ratings systems for movies (R, PG-13, etc).  I found it on YouTube and thought it was a very interesting documentary.  Because of the subject matter it was rated NC-17, which is kind of funny when you consider what the movie was about.  It has a lot of adult material but I’d recommend it.  I’ve always respected movies that were original and took risks.

I watched most of the movie Road House, starring Patrick Swayze.  The fact that is was being played on the American Movie Classics channel makes me chuckle, because Road House is not exactly considered the best film in the world.  Is has a certain kind of cult charm though, and has developed a great following over the years.  I have to admit I got drawn into it.  On the road I watched the movie Election with Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon about a high school presidential election and the teacher who is involved with organizing it.  It was directed by Alexander Payne, who later in his career directed movies Sideways and Nebraska, which I’ve talked about here before. Obviously I enjoy his movies very much and this early version of his work is good as well.

Right now I’m watching the Rocky marathon on AMC.  The Rocky movies are always great entertainment.  I was also happy to hear Matthew McConnaughey won an Oscar this week, he definitely deserved it for his role in Dallas Buyer’s Club.

DVD Choice of the Week (from my collection):  In honor of Harold Ramis, this week’s movie is Caddyshack.  The classic 1980 comedy is one of my all-time favorites, starring Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, and Bill Murray.  If you get a couple of guys together who are at least 30 years old you will probably hear several quotes from this movie in their general conversation.  “So I got that going for me, which is nice” is usually one of our favorites.  No need to talk about the plot here, if for some reason you’re one of the 1% of Americans who’ve never seen this movie then you can’t be helped.

Everything Else

The only bad thing about being out of town for the MVC Championships was that we weren’t able to be in Wichita Saturday for the regular season finale of what has been one of the most remarkable seasons of college basketball ever.  If you’re not aware, Wichita State finished the regular season with an undefeated record of 31-0.  It’s the first time a school has won that many games and gone undefeated in the regular season – ever.  Bobby Knight, the former Indiana coach, was in town to do the ESPN broadcast and, from what I’ve been told, the game

was awesome.  It was a blowout win for the Shockers over Missouri State and an epic celebration afterwards.  The next goal for this team is to win this week’s MVC tournament, something WSU has NEVER done before.  If that happens they will be 34-0 heading into the NCAA Tournament.  Really?  No words can really describe this.  Wichita State is on television more than President Obama at this point.  It’s a wonderful thing for everyone at Wichita State and we’re gonna ride this wave as far as it goes!

The only other thing I was going to mention was about the new Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon.  I can remember growing up and every once in a while getting to watch Johnny Carson’s monologue before falling asleep, and while I’ve enjoyed Letterman and Leno over the years I am really impressed by Jimmy Fallon so far.  He was the host of the Late Night Show for a few years and has been awesome to watch in his new gig.  It’s a fresh take on the late night talk show circuit, one that I think is worth checking out.  All of a sudden David Letterman looks very old compared to Jimmy Fallon.

Website of the Week

ESPN.com

Since the Shockers are on ESPN every day it seems like, I thought I’d drop their website on here this week.  I’m not the biggest fan of ESPN these days because it seems like they are more about stirring things up with controversy but their website is second to none in my opinion.  I probably visit it several times a day and if I’m going to get anything about professional or major college sports it’s the first place I look.  I hope they don’t change it in the future because it’s as good as it gets for sports news and information.

Interesting articles and videos to waste some time with

The inside story of Gabriele Grunewald's DQ at USA Indoors 

Flotrack's Run Junkie episode about the above story - hilarious (video 3:56) 

The term Mid-Major dies of old age 

Welcome to The Basketball Tournament - this is a very interesting idea 

Interesting take on how someone would change the Olympics 

The Canadian college basketball dynasty you've never heard of