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

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

Double gold medal in Rio for Deja Young

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

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

Shocker Track Update

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

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

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

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

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

Travel

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

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

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

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

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

Movies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next time

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

Until then, thanks for reading and Go Shocks!

Fall testing, Bolt plays 58 holes of golf and the Tallgrass Film Festival hits Wichita

Well I haven’t been able to write much recently because I’ve been pretty busy.  October is a very busy but great month for me.  Here’s the halfway recap:

Shocker T&F makes fall transition

I tell people that October is the best month for weather in Wichita and this year has not disappointed.  We haven’t had to go indoor for any practices yet and the forecast continues to look good for the rest of the month.

We have finished our early season conditioning and have moved into the first part of our specific preparation phase.  In the middle we did some testing to see how our athletes are progressing.  Over the years we have done many different tests but have settled on seven in the past decade or so.  I created a scoring chart for each event and we make a “Heptathlon” competition out of it to create some fun and to see how an athlete improves (or occasionally doesn’t) from year to year.

The top scores are usually around 6000 points.  Heptathlete Nikki Larch-Miller broke our all-time record with a score of 6348 while jumper Shazz-Michael Lindo won the men’s competition with 6043 points.  It’s fun to have something that all the event areas (with the exception of throws and distance) can compete and get intense with in the mid-fall time period.

Overall our men had an average improvement of 56 points per person.  We had two guys who went down significantly because of injury or our average would’ve been around +120.  Our women averaged around +150 so they had some great testing results.  Of athletes who had testing in previous years, 26 out of 34 improved.  Of the eight who didn’t improve, injuries were the main reason and a few only went down a few points.

What do the testing results mean?

Testing shows us two things:  1) Where an athlete is strong or weak in specific areas and 2) How well they have prepared for the track season.

What it doesn’t tell us is how good of a season someone will have.  It can give us clues but the real work is still ahead of us in the specific preparation phases and, of course, track meets.

But overall I would say we were pleased with how the fall conditioning period went and are excited about the 2016 season!

What is the rest of the team doing?

The throwers recently completed their own testing that involved some jumping and explosive throwing events.  Coach Hetzendorf does this the first week of practice as well as after Fall Break (which was last week).  Next weekend (October 24) is the annual Throws Pentathlon in which our throwers (and others) can compete in all five throwing events (Shot Put, Discus, Hammer, Javelin and Weight Throw) in a Pentathlon-type scoring competition.  It’s a great chance to see a preview of our throwers – we have some great ones!

Cross Country has been up and down in their last couple of competitions but looks poised to finish strong at the MVC Championships.  They went over to Arkansas and ran really well placing 3^rd (men) and 4^th (women) overall with several very good performances.  This weekend they struggled a bit at the Pre-Nationals in Louisville placing 36^th (women) and 37^th (men) overall in the seeded race of over 40 teams.  We are excited to head to Evansville, Indiana, in two weeks to see how we stack up with the rest of the Valley!

Coach Rainbolt’s crazy golf-a-thon

For the 2^nd year in a row, Coach Rainbolt did a birthday challenge that involved golf and raising money for Shocker T&F.  As he will be turning 58 years old soon, he WALKED 58 holes of golf.  It took 11 hours and he covered over 23 miles!  So he basically did a marathon while playing golf.  Here is a video that was put together about his day.  HERE IS THE VIDEO.

Morning workout video

Another video that was done by one of our decathletes Seth Buck has become pretty popular.  It’s about our early morning Friday workouts we do in the Fall.  Thanks to Seth for putting this together – cool stuff!  HERE IS THE VIDEO.

Recruiting

October is a very busy month in recruiting as it seems we have potential Shockers on campus almost every day of the month.  The early signing period is less than a month away so we are working hard to get kids in on visits.  So far we only have one verbal commitment but we expect to have several more in the coming weeks.  Because of NCAA rules I can’t speak specifically about who we are recruiting or signing until they actually sign so there’s not much more I can say here.  Although I can say I’ve been on the road a few times to talk with lots of coaches and athletes and it’s one of my favorite things to do besides coaching!

This guy turned 41 last week!

Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday or was part of the festivities!  Even though I’m 41 years old I only feel like …. well probably 41.  However, I’ve been told I act younger - not sure if that’s good or bad but I’m going to take it as a compliment. J

Movies!!!

I’ve really been watching a lot of movies lately – and this weekend was the annual Tallgrass Film Festival, so I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.  Here’s a recap:

I was able to see the 1974 sci-fy classic 2001: A Space Odyssey on the big screen about two weeks ago.  I had seen bits pieces of the Stanley Kubrick movie online but never had watched it all.  My initial reaction was mixed.  It looks great and for a movie that was made over 40 years ago, it holds up extremely well in terms on what a realistic portrayal of outer space might be.  It’s just really, really, REALLY slow at times.  I’m glad a saw it, I just probably won’t try to sit through it again.

Ironically enough, the next movie I saw was also about outer space, The Martian.  It stars Matt Damon as a man that gets left behind on Mars and has to figure out how to survive for several years before he can be rescued.  I thought it was a good movie.  It had a good sense of humor and was creative in how Damon’s character fought for his life.  It was a little long but overall I recommend it.  It’s killing it at the box office as well so it’s been a very successful movie.

Next I saw the drug/illegal alien/drama movie called Sicario.  This was the best movie I’ve seen in quite a while.  It stars Emily Blount as a FBI agent that joins a task force led by Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro that is fighting the drugs wars between the US and Mexico.  It’s an intense movie from start to finish and Del Toro is definitely the guy who steals the show.  What I really liked about the movie is that you never really know who the good guys or bad guys are.  And even after the movie you’re left thinking about how you might handle the same situation.  If this is an accurate description of the current state of the drug wars then there is no simple solution that any politician running for president can figure out.

This weekend the Tallgrass Film Festival rolled into town with over 200 movies around the city of Wichita.  This is a great thing for our city and I try to get out and support it as much as possible if I’m in town.  Luckily this weekend I was!

The first movie I saw was called Uncanny and was about the world’s first perfect Artificial Intelligence robot and the way it interacted with a reporter that came to do a story about him and the scientist who created it.  I thought it was a really good movie and an example of how there are so many good movies out there that never see the light of day in terms of commercial success.  The director of the movie was in attendance and answered questions afterwards.  I was amazed to find out it was done for only $200,000 (I guessed $2 million) and filmed in only 12 days.  This is why I often don’t go to see big budget movies that were made for over $100 million.  I wish more people were able to see great small budget movies like this and created more demand for them by mainstream movie theaters.

One of my favorite things at these movie festivals is watching the “shorts”.  Shorts are movies that are generally less than an hour (usually 10-20 minutes).  They will group several shorts together to have a 90 minute to two hour long show.  I won’t go into detail about all of them (I saw 16 short films over two different shows) but there are two that stuck out.  If you can ever find Texting: A Love Story or Larry Gone Demon you will not be disappointed.  It was also cool to see that five of the movies were made in Kansas and one in Wichita.

I also saw a great documentary called Bounce: How the Ball Taught the World to Play.  Basically, it was about how sports (and balls) have evolved and been a common centerpiece through history in teaching all of us to have fun through competition and games.  They did a great job with talking about a lot of different sports and a lot of different points of history.  I imagine this documentary will make its way onto Netflix or something in the not too distant future so check it out if you get a chance!

Next time

My head is spinning at the moment so I don’t know what I will talk about in the next blog.  If it’s in two weeks I am hoping to talk about a great MVC Cross Country meet and how the Bengals are 7-0!

Until then, thanks for reading and Go Shocks!

What a verbal commitment means, European Soccer Hooligans, Shocker Basketball is 34-0, Brian Grant's battle with Parkinson's

Track

Being the week after the MVC Indoor Championships, it was very low key and relaxing.

Once we got back from Northern Iowa late Sunday night, we gave our athletes some time to relax, recuperate, and focus on their academics.  Each coach has their own schedule for what they do on weeks like this:  Coach Yost, Coach Wilson, and I gave our groups the whole week off except Thursday and Friday where we did some voluntary working out with those kids who wanted to get together.  Coach Hetzendorf was busy in the throws circles, as his group has been chomping at the bit to throw the Hammer, Discus, and Javelin.  Coach Rainbolt’s multi-event group was back at it by Wednesday because they will be heading to Rice University for a Decathlon/Heptathlon next week.  And Coach Hunter … well the distance kids never take any time off.

When I was a younger coach, I would’ve been much more structured on a week like this and dictated what each athlete needed to do but something I’ve learned over the years is sometimes taking a break, both physically and mentally, is the best thing an athlete could do.  I expect the group to be refreshed, feeling healthy, and ready to go at practice this week!

Except for the multi-event crew, the rest of the Shockers won’t compete until March 29 at Emporia State, so that gives us some time to get back to the basics and put in some hard work for the next month.  After running on indoor tracks for the past three months, it will be a much needed competition break to get accustomed to being back outdoor.  The weather looks great this week and for athletes in outdoor events like the 400m hurdles and 4x100m relay, it will be an important time to work on improvement.

We do have one athlete still competing this indoor season.  Heptathlete Austin Bahner will head to Albuquerque, New Mexico this week to compete in the NCAA Indoor Championships.  He is currently ranked 10th in the country and will be competing in his third national meet of his career. 

As for recruiting, things are starting to clear up a few weeks after the beginning of our signing period.  We had press releases on our website announcing 15 new recruits (we’ve signed one more since).  So far we’ve signed 10 women and 6 men.  As of today, our recruiting efforts for the men and women look very different.  We brought in 5 new men at January and that chewed up a significant portion of our scholarship money for next year so at this point we are almost done with recruiting on the men’s side.  We are hoping to sign a couple more guys but are basically at the end of our scholarship allotment.  This is the earliest we’ve ever been close to the end of recruiting at this time of the year.  We will continue to work on bringing in some walk-on type athletes but the focus will shift to looking at juniors for next year’s class.

It’s a different story on the women’s side.  Due to a variety of circumstances, we didn’t use all of our scholarship money this past year.  Basically we had some athletes who had committed to Wichita State but backed out or weren’t academically eligible.  So with the 10 girls we’ve signed so far, we still have some scholarship money left and will continue to sign about 5-6 more athletes.  It should be noted that the NCAA allows 18 scholarships for women as compared to 12.6 for men so usually the men’s scholarships go more quickly.

Personally my recruiting this year has been interesting to say the least.  I was able to sign three kids so far that I’m very excited about but had three other athletes commit verbally but back out at the last minute because they got more offers.  In this day of recruiting, athletes giving “commitments” and then changing their minds are very frequent.  You see it all the time in football where athletes who give a verbal commitment is basically the same as them saying that school is “in the lead” at the moment.  I really don’t like the term verbal commitment in this day and age because it isn’t an accurate statement for lots of these kids.  The definition of commitment in the dictionary is: a pledge or a promise, an obligation.  I don’t blame the kids for trying to find the best situation because it is a very important decision, but this generation of young people has significant problems with being committed in many areas of their lives.  We keep a list of our recruits on a big white board in my office and whenever an athlete gives a verbal commitment we list it in red until we get their signed paperwork as a reminder that they are not Shockers yet.  I generally enjoy the recruiting process very much but if you are the parent of a child that is getting recruited please do not let them “commit” to a school until they are 100% sure of their decision.  When we offer a scholarship to an athlete we are clear about what that means, and even if an athlete gets injured and has a season ending situation, we would stand by our word and keep that scholarship available to them.  Let’s help this generation of young people understand this – especially if I’m recruiting them! Haha!

Our biggest recruit of the signing period so far is a young man named Kord Ferguson, from Ottawa, Kansas.  Kord was the only recruitable athlete in the nation that was ranked in the top-10 in the nation in both the Shot Put and Discus.  Coach Hetzendorf did a great job in the recruiting process and Kord has been quoted as saying how much he enjoyed the team atmosphere and philosophy he encountered on his visit to WSU.  We’re very excited about Kord as well as all of our signees!

Movies

I didn’t get out to the theater this week but we did have a movie watching night at Coach Rainbolt’s house this weekend. In honor of the late Harold Ramis, we watched the classic comedy Stripes, starring Ramis and Bill Murray.  This 1981 comedy was about a couple of slackers who join the Army and then cause all sorts of trouble before finally saving the day.  It’s not the perfect movie but it’s very funny and we had a fun night of socializing during this movie.  Coach Rainbolt has an awesome movie watching basement that can seat around 20 people.  It was nice to have a relaxing weekend for once!

Other than that the only other film I watched was a documentary about European Soccer Hooligans.  There are several of these documentaries online to view as well as a reality TV show on the BBC.  I have no idea why I started watching this although we talk about it from time to time with our European athletes.  Soccer teams all across Europe have organized “hooligans” who fight other team’s hooligans outside of the soccer stadium.  I’m not sure how it all started or what point there is to it but it’s something that has gotten out of control in some areas and resulted in deaths.

In America, we have our own problems with violence – particularly with guns, but I will say that the sporting violence here is at a much lower level than most places around the world.  I was in Europe this summer for two weeks and was witness to some late night violence on the streets of Dublin.  Now before my parents read this and get worried, I want to explain how street violence in places like Dublin are very different than that in the USA.  The biggest difference is these countries don’t have access to guns like we do so the worst thing that usually happens is a pretty innocent fist fight that gets broken up fairly quickly.  It’s mostly just some immature shouting and guys blowing off steam (usually due to alcohol) at the end of the night.  This might be related to the Soccer hooligan stuff I talked about earlier.  Without getting political, if the USA had these hooligans it would turn tragic more often than not.

DVD choice of the week (from my collection):  Since the baseball season is well into Spring Training, let’s go with the 1988 comedy Bull Durham starring Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon.  It’s a movie about a career minor-leaguer (Costner) and his struggle to stay in professional baseball that collides with a young hotshot, played by Tim Robbins, who is on his way to the major leagues.  It’s one of those movies with a ton of hilarious scenes but in the end it’s a very deep and meaningful movie.  There are many aspects of this movie I can relate to as an athlete who was pretty good but not quite good enough to be at the top of his profession.  The beauty of this movie is that Costner is not a perfect person and he doesn’t always make the best decisions, and we can all relate to that.  It was directed by Ron Shelton who played minor league baseball himself.  It’s hard to believe this movie is 25 years old because it’s still totally relevant.  I imagine it will be in 25 years from now as well!

Everything Else

I might as well just name this section “Shocker Basketball”.  The Shockers won the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament title this weekend, finishing the pre-NCAA Tournament portion of the schedule at 34-0.  Believe it or not, Wichita State had not won the MVC tourney since the 1980’s and they’ve never won it since it moved to St Louis a couple decades ago.  They now have a week off while the rest of the college basketball world plays their conference tournaments this week.  In one week they will find out what their NCAA bracket looks like and I assume they will be getting a #1 seed.  The whole city of Wichita has Shocker fever right now and I hope that continues for about another month.  Nothing is guaranteed, however, and even if they lose early in the tournament (which I don’t think they will) this season has been nothing short of remarkable.

Something happened in today’s game that shows what kind of kids are on this team and representing our university.  Near the end of the game a player named Jake Odum, who plays for Indiana State and has been a thorn in the side of WSU for the past four years, fouled out.  While he was walking off the court for the final time in his career, Ron Baker (sophomore for WSU) went over to him and grabbed his arm while motioning to the Wichita State crowd to give him a standing ovation.  I thought this showed tremendous maturity and class by a young person who could have easily been caught up in his own moment of being 34-0.  More and more things like this are what makes me realize how good college athletics are and how much of a positive influence it has on a young person’s life.  There is hope for our youth after all!  Haha!

I saw a video (that I've linked down below) about former NBA basketball player Brian Grant and his battle with Parkinson's disease.  I knew Grant a little because he was a senior when I was a freshman and played for our rival high school in Georgetown, Ohio.  I played a lot against his little brother Brandon and we were on the same AAU summer team in 1990.  He was definitely the hometown hero for people of Brown County and we all have been very proud of his accomplishments as a basketball player.  It's tough to see him struggling now with Parkinson's but to see him working hard alongside Michael J. Fox in raising money for the disease is motivating.  Kudos to Brian for his effort and positive attitude!

One other note, I often have the drinks named Naked smoothies and have liked every flavor I’ve ever tried.  This week I tried the “Kale” flavor.  No good, not even a little bit.

Website of the Week

www.rottentomatoes.com

The website RottenTomatoes.com was launched in 1998 as a place for critics and fans to review movies.  Gaining a rating of 60% determines a movie to be “fresh” while anything under that is considered “rotten”.  It got its name from the notion of people throwing a tomato at the screen of a movie they don’t feel is any good.  It‘s just another example of a website that started out with one man and his passion for movies, particularly Jackie Chan movies to be exact.  What started off as a website that got around 500 hits per day now is over a million visitors daily.  While I don’t usually see a movie based off a move critic’s opinion, it’s fun to see what certain movies are rated – and usually it’s a pretty good indicator on how good a movie is.

Interesting articles and videos to waste some time with

Putt-Putt Perfection - A Grantland Short (video 7:04) 

The Amazing Pace - for basketball stat junkies 

USATF and TFAA talking about the USA Indoor DQ's 

The Alan Webb Story - very good video about Webb's career and retirement (video 12:23) 

Brian Grant's battle with Parkinson's (video 17:53)