Being a beach bum, my month away from social media and the end of this blog as we know it

It’s been about two months since my last blog so I’ll update you about what’s been going on and my plans for 2017!

What have I been doing?

A lot actually.

Without going into all the boring details I’ve been doing a lot of work and a lot of traveling.  The month of November was very busy as we signed 13 recruits in the early signing period (most ever for Wichita State).  We lose a lot to graduation on the women’s side this year and have made some significant progress this fall in replacing some of those great athletes.

We had our annual Intrasquad Meet in December, which came off well.  Our kids look like they had a solid fall.

View from my room at the convention

Most of my December was spent traveling.  I went to Orlando for our annual USTFCCCA Convention, which is always a lot of fun and a lot of learning.  I saw some great speakers and got to hang out with a bunch of coaching friends as well.

Then I headed down the east coast of Florida for the next week.  I went to Melbourne Beach (south of Cape Canaveral), South Beach Miami, Key Largo and Key West and then back up the Gulf of Mexico side through the Everglades, up to Naples and then to Punta Gorda (near Ft Myers) where my mom lives.

Key West being a beach bum

After that couple weeks of sun and 85 degrees in Florida, I headed north to Ohio for a few chilly days before going back to Wichita for New Year’s.

It was a great trip to get away and put some perspective on life.  Sometimes when you are going full blast at work for months at a time it’s good to take a break before heading back to work.  And now I’m definitely refreshed and excited for the next six months of track and field!

We had a track meet at KU Friday.  We only had a couple of practices since we got back so this was a meet to kind of “shake off the rust” so to speak.  Overall it went well and next week we really get our indoor season going at home against KU and Kansas State on Thursday.

What have I not been doing?

Social Media.

I decided to take the month of December away from social media and I’m glad I did!  Except for the rare post for work, I didn’t read a thing on Facebook, Twitter or post a Snapchat story for a month.

Why?  This year’s election brought out a lot of negativity on social media and I just got tired of seeing it.  Even though I would block or unfollow much of what I didn’t want to see it was about impossible to shield myself totally from all the terrible comments, articles and crap out there.  So the ultimate “unfollow” was to never log on in the first place.

What did I do when I got bored?  If I couldn’t look at Facebook, Twitter or Snapchat how would I ever pass the time?  Well I started reading a lot more books.  I started going for walks around downtown Wichita (where I live) discovering lots of cool new places.  I started having more one on one communication with the people I was around.  To sum it up, I merely tried being a real person.

I’m going to head back to social media now but in a more limited way than before.  Hopefully most of the political stuff is gone and I can go back to seeing pictures of my friends’ pets and kids.

The end of this blog as we know it …

After a few years of pretty consistent writing, I feel like it has started to become a little redundant.  So I’m going to make a massive change in what I post.  I've always received a lot of great comments about this blog and I genuinely appreciate everyone who comes here and reads from time to time.

Going back to my thoughts on social media, I decided I want to use my platform for a much more positive message.  I have so many great people in my life that have had such a positive influence on me that I would like to try and share that with anyone who might be interested.

Instead of a weekly blog about what I’m doing, I’m going to write about a different person in my life who inspires me.  And hopefully some of those writings may inspire others.  It’s my way of thanking all of you who have made my life so great over the years.

Final thoughts …

I may throw in some track and field, movie or travel blogs from time to time but I’m going to try and make 2017 less about me and more about what a wonderful world I’m fortunate to be a part of.

I do a weekly email for anyone interested in Wichita State Track & Field so feel free to email jwise@goshockers.com if you want to be part of that mailing list to keep up with the Shockers!

I’m sure I’ll lose a portion of my readership but that’s ok.  I’m not trying to win any elections this year.  Haha.

Until next time, thanks for reading and Go Shocks!

What is a track meet anyways?

This was written on Sunday, December 22nd.

I am currently in one of the Houston airports waiting to head back to Oklahoma City (and then drive to Wichita).  It has been a great week in sunny and warm Florida but I am ready to be back home for the last week of 2013!

Like always, our convention was a very nice week full of talking about track and field with my fellow coaching buddies from around the country.  The USTFCCCA does a great job with the convention and the highlight for me every year is the annual Bowerman Awards.  This is basically the “Heisman Trophy” for track and field.  It’s a first class event that has to been seen in person to truly appreciate.  Once you are there you can be overwhelmed with the amount of talent and accomplishments in the people in the room.  Olympic gold medalists, world record holders, top coaches in the world … everywhere.  Hopefully this event will continue to grow and more people will be able to see it in the future.  Here is a replay of the event on Flotrack.  Check it out, ESPN's John Anderson was the host and he was hysterical as always!

One of the main discussions from business portion of the convention was about “defining” track meets.  There has long been a divide in the college coaching ranks about how we should “present” our sport to the public.  It’s no secret that track and field is not the most fan friendly of sports in this country (although the Olympic Track & Field meets are an exception).  The general American sports viewer has a short attention span and a long day watching a track meet usually doesn’t rank high on their list.  ANYways, this discussion has been going on forever and we are close to some changes in the collegiate meet system.  A shift towards more scored meets and less teams at each meet is the way we are heading, although this has been met with spirited debate by many coaches who feel like the way we are doing things is better.

At Wichita State, we love scored track meets with the conference meet always being our favorite.  We also love having duals, triangulars and quadrangulars and so this change won’t bother us very much, even though we will have to change some of our home meets to comply if the new rules pass next year.

The other significant portion of the week in Orlando was spent socializing with fellow friends/coaches.  My roommate for the week was Nate Thiesfeld, the sprint coach at High Point University in North Carolina.  I coached Nate in college and this is his first real coaching gig.  Every night there are opportunities to hang out and talk to pretty much everyone at the convention (probably 500 or more coaches).  Most of the time you talk about your track team and how your job is going or maybe the current events of the track world while every once in a while you get in to what’s going on with your personal life.  Usually that lasts about 3 minutes before you start talking about track again.

One of the other highlights was seeing Coach Rainbolt and Wendel McRaven (Texas A&M) debate politics until about 2am in our hotel room.  Bolt can get very spirited when it comes to politics and Wendel is the perfect foil.  After going back and forth for a couple hours we all decided to agree to disagree and see if we could throw apples into the lake out of our hotel room window.  This is what track coaches do when we aren’t able to coach our teams for a couple weeks.

At the end of the week I drove to Punta Gorda, Florida, to see my parents for a few days.  It was great seeing them and enjoying the 80 degree weather and swimming pool they have access to.  I’m blessed to have an awesome family and am very happy my parents get to enjoy their retirement in such a nice place.  I saw the movie Nebraska with my dad and I would highly recommend it!

Back in Wichita, we got word that we didn’t make it through unscathed academically and our goals of winning the Missouri Valley Championships just got a little bit tougher.  We will rally the troops, however, and like always give a great team effort when it counts.  Every year, every team deals with tough situations and disappointments and hopefully this will get ours out of the way early.  I plan on trying to catch up with the athletes I coach this week to see how their training has been going and encourage them to stay focused on the goals of the upcoming season.

That seems like enough for now.

PS - I found this interesting:  New coach at Missouri State is involved in a gender bias lawsuit