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 16^th 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!

MVC Indoor Championships Week and reactions to my ideas to change college track

It’s MVC Week!

If you came here to read my blog about how I would fix college track and field go HERE. Some of my comments on the reaction to it is down below the MVC stuff.

And now onto …

The MVC Indoor Championships

This is the biggest week of the indoor season in terms of our team goals and we are very excited to be heading to the University of Northern Iowa for this weekend’s MVC Indoor Meet.

And it looks like it will be a real barn burner.  For those of you who won’t be there in person you can catch it on ESPN3 Saturday and Sunday.

Women

All year long it has looked like it will come down to a close meet between Wichita State and Indiana State and I still think those are the two teams that it will eventually come down to.  However, there are some other teams starting to creep into the picture.

I sat down and took my best guess at the scores and this is what I came up with:

Indiana St 120, Wichita St 115, Northern Iowa 94, Illinois St 87, Southern Illinois 67, Drake 57, Missouri St 55, Bradley 47, Loyola 21.

On paper, according to this it looks like a dead heat (5 points is nothing on paper), but UNI and Illinois St has taken advantage of the more evenly matched nature of the MVC this year and could sneak in there if us or Indiana St slip up.

There are injury question marks for several of the top teams so we are going to go into the meet as underdogs in our mind.  We have a very balanced team that can score in just about every event and it will take a total team effort to win this weekend.  Our ladies are usually very tough at the MVC meets and I think we will give a great effort!

Men

Our men have been snake bit at the MVC Championships.  We’ve been second for SEVEN MVC meets in a row!  So here’s how it looks on paper for this one …

Wichita St 134, Indiana St 109, Northern Iowa 107, Illinois St 95, Southern Illinois 95, Bradley 55, Loyola 37, Drake 31.

So it looks like we have the advantage right?  Well yes and no.

We are definitely excited to be the favorite and we have a great all-around team.  We appear to be as healthy as we’ve been all season and I think our guys are ready to go and win this championship.

On the other hand there are four other quality teams that are sitting there and waiting for us to falter.  The MVC is a very good league – just take a look at the latest TFRRS lists and you’ll see quality athletes in all of the events so we need to be focused on doing what we’ve been doing all season long.

I am glad we are the favorite on paper but we are not going to take that for granted – especially after being second the last seven times.  Our guys are hungry and determined to bring home the big trophy Sunday!

Reaction to my blog from last week

If you didn’t read my blog last week and you’re curious go check it out.  It’s the second most read blog I’ve ever had behind No Selfie September, haha!

Surprisingly the reaction to it has been almost 100% positive.  Actually there have been three categories of reaction:

The first are people (about 60%) who overwhelmingly think my idea is a good one.  They are frustrated with track and think I am onto something good.  I’ve even had a couple of T&F’s top national journalists thank me and tell me the same.

The second group of people (about 20%) liked the concept of it but didn’t understand all of the details.  I think I need to go back and get a little more specific for that group of people (coaches).

The final group (about 20%) were distance coaches.

It was funny to see the reaction from distance coaches.  I even made a point to call a few of them to see if I could get them to argue with me but to no avail.  Either they didn’t take it seriously or they have respect for my opinion (right! Haha).  Most of them actually liked parts of it but never thought it would have much of a chance to go anywhere.  We’ll see.  I’m glad I put it out there.  Hopefully more to come at a later date.

Next time

I will recap the MVC Indoor Championships for everyone and hopefully it’s a good one!  The meet concludes on Sunday so it may be a couple weeks until I post again.

Until then, thank you for reading and Go Shocks!

We lost a tough battle but it builds character right? (and other things we try to tell ourselves to feel better about losing)

“That's what learning is, after all; not whether we lose the game, but how we lose and how we've changed because of it and what we take away from it that we never had before, to apply to other games. Losing, in a curious way, is winning.”  --- Richard Bach

“They say losing builds character. I say losing sucks. That’s what I think.”  --- Ben Wallace

MVC Indoor Championships

I guess you can probably assume what happened this weekend by the above quotes.  I’m not sure how I feel because I agree with both quotes.    I don't like losing, never have.  I've been in sports my whole life and am still as competitive as I was as a youngster.  It feels awful and hurts badly.  I hope I don't feel this way again in May.  Losing really sucks but it’s not always as black and white as it looks.

I’ll start with the facts and then go into some detail about some of the behind the scenes details.

Final team scores

MEN – Indiana St 141, Wichita St 117, Loyola 108, Southern Illinois 102, Illinois St 72, Northern Iowa 65, Drake 33, Bradley 24

WOMEN- Indiana St 122, Southern Illinois 119, Wichita St 103.5, Northern Iowa 77.5, Illinois St 77, Missouri St 58, Bradley 47, Drake 34, Loyola 24

Observations

Obviously our goal was to win both championships and we came up 24 and 18.5 points short on each side.  We had our chances to win both meets but ultimately we didn’t get it done and all we can do is learn from this and move forward with a determination to win the outdoor titles.

Going into the meet we had the projections like this:

MEN- Indiana St 130, WSU 120, Loyola 115, SIU 101

WOMEN- Indiana St 126, WSU 120, SIU 107

You can see how close the final scores came to what we had predicted heading into the meet.  And the line between winning and losing when the scores are this close is paper thin.

Both Saturday and Sunday we started out with very good momentum cutting into the lead and looking like we were headed towards winning but the last couple of events each day didn’t go our way and we came up short.  It was a very intense weekend of track and field and Indiana State is a deserving champion.  We threw a lot of quality performances at them and they fought back and earned the team titles.

With five events left in the women’s meet we had the top three teams all within five points and obviously we knew we had a chance.  At the same point in the men’s meet we were down a projected 10 points but were +5 in the triple jump heading into finals.  After some crazy back and forth jumping we only picked up one point.  There were events like this all weekend long.  In the men’s 800m our top guy got tangled up with an Illinois State runner with 50m to go, then an Indiana State runner passed them both and it ended up being an 11 point swing in the last 50m of the race.

These are the little dramas that happen all around a conference championship that often make the difference in winning and losing.  It’s very exciting to be part of it and is always the highlight of my season.  Losing the battle is gut-wrenching but being in the battle is exhilarating.  I’m proud of the way our team fought and we feel optimistic that our outdoor teams have a better chance of winning for the simple fact we add the Javelin.

I have to mention the out of this world effort by one athlete this weekend – Nikki Larch-Miller.  I remember flying out to San Diego three years ago to meet Nikki and her sister Taylor to try to convince them to consider Wichita State.  Never did I think that a couple years later Nikki would’ve been the MVP of the MVC and break our 60m and 60m hurdle records in the process.  She put us on her back and almost carried us to a title.  I’m hoping outdoors we’ll be able to give her some more help and win an overall team title.

You can re-watch the meet on ESPN3 or with the Watch ESPN application on your smartphone.  I saw a little bit of the replay on the way home last night and it looked like a very professionally done broadcast.  Kudos to the MVC for putting that together.

What’s next?

For the first time in a while we won’t have any athletes at the NCAA Indoor Championships.  It has been said that the NCAA Indoor meet is the toughest meet to qualify for in the world – and I think that’s probably true.  I’m not sure you’ll find any meet (including the Olympics) where almost 20 guys who broke 4:00 in the mile don’t get to compete (it took 3:58.25 to make NCAA Indoor this year).

I’ll give my group a few days off to recover and get refreshed before beginning the outdoor portion of our season.  There are some kids who didn’t compete on the indoor MVC team that will go ahead and keep training but for the most part this week is light.  It also gives them a chance to catch up on any academic work they might be struggling with.  We got home around 3am this morning (Monday) so they deserve some down time.

The time between indoor and outdoor is always unique.  We backed off quite a bit the last couple weeks to get ready for the championship and now we have to increase our volume and get back into some tough training again.  Although the outdoor season comes around quickly, we’ll be competing at Arkansas in less than four weeks in our first meet.

Our staff will get together and evaluate our team this week and see what we can do to be better.  Then we’ll quickly move on to the next goal.  That’s what you have to do in this business – you can’t take too much time celebrating your victories or drowning your sorrows.  We have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and get back at it right away.

Next week

Since we have a couple weeks off I will probably take a week or so off from blogging as well.  I appreciate everyone who stops by to read and I’ll be back soon to start talking about the outdoor season.

Until then -- Go Shocks!!!

It's MVC week!

We are one week away from the biggest meet of our indoor season!

K-State Open

The last meet on our regular season schedule was to help determine our 32 man and 32 women roster for the MVC Indoor Championships as well as serve as a “tune-up” for several athletes who are needing an extra competition leading up to the MVC meet.  Different teams do a wide variety of things in the week before a conference meet.  Generally we rest our distance runners and horizontal jumpers (and some sprinters) while most of our field event athletes like to keep the rhythm of competing each week.

The KSU Open is a tough meet to have great performances at because it’s a very low key atmosphere – literally.  The lighting at Ahearn Field House is similar to what a movie theater feels like during the coming attractions.  Needless to say we had an up and down evening but overall we head into our championship meet healthy and feeling strong.

Picking the team

Last year I detailed what goes in to picking our 32 person roster for the MVC Championships.  If you are curious about that process click HERE for that blog.

As of writing this on Sunday afternoon, we haven’t made our final decisions but we are close.  We will gather as a staff tomorrow morning to sort through the last couple spots.  For the athletes who are waiting to see if they make the roster, it can be a long wait.  With a roster of around 65 athletes on each side only about half of our team will make the meet.  We wish we could take them all but that’s how it goes.  Each conference is unique – the Big 12 only allows 26 athletes per team.  It’s a very competitive environment, much like the real world, and our young people begin to understand that you have to earn everything you get in life.  Track and Field is a builder of character that way.

MVC race

Let’s start with the men.  I think as many as four teams have a shot to win the MVC title next week and that should make for a very exciting meet.  Indiana State should probably be listed as the favorite since they won both indoor and outdoor last year and return a strong team.  But I don’t see them as a huge favorite with Wichita State, Loyola and Southern Illinois not far behind.  Northern Iowa appears to be solid in fifth with Illinois State, Drake and Bradley following.

On the women’s side I think any of three teams could win between Wichita State, Indiana State and Southern Illinois.  Beyond that I would go with Northern Iowa in fourth followed by Missouri State, Illinois State, Bradley, Loyola and Drake.

The preparation is almost complete, now it’s time to go and compete for a couple of titles!

The meet is next Saturday and Sunday in Cedar Falls, Iowa.  I’m told the finals on Sunday will be broadcast on ESPN3.com so if you can’t make it in person be sure to check it out online!

Armstrong inducted into WSU Hall of Fame

I got to be part of the WSU Pizza Hut Hall of Fame ceremony this weekend as we saw former Shocker hurdler Shannon Armstrong get inducted.  Shannon is our school record holder in the 60m hurdles as well as being a multiple time MVC champion and All-American.  Shannon gave a great speech and we were able to have several of his teammates comes to Wichita for the weekend.

Congrats Shannon!

Next week

With the MVC Championships final day being Sunday I won’t be able to blog until at least Monday.  Make sure to follow the meet all weekend long on GoShockers.com.

Until then, thanks for reading and Go Shocks!

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!

Notre Dame yields fast times, the MVC race heats up and James Franco cuts off his arm

Even though we had a few Shockers competing this weekend, I had a rare weekend off.  That gave me plenty of time to look at the MVC race, play golf and catch a cold!

Fast times at Notre Dame

Last week I mentioned how some of our top distance runners didn’t compete at UNI to prepare for the Notre Dame Invitational and the resulting performances were impressive indeed.

Notre Dame’s oversized track is made for running fast times and this meet is a dream for anyone wanting to run a PR.  They put together several sections of distance races, many with rabbits, and all you have to do is let the pack pull you around (and be in tip top shape haha).

Our ladies were solid but our guys were particularly impressive running off times of 1:51 in the 800m, 4:05 in the Mile and 14:25 in the 5000m.

Now onto our final “team” meet of the year before the MVC Indoor Championships …

Herm Wilson Invitational Preview

Next Saturday (is there a better way to spend Valentine’s Day), we will be hosting the Herm Wilson Invitational, named after the former Wichita State head coach who led the Shockers to prominence in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s.  We will have a scored meet against UT-Arlington, Oral Roberts and Emporia State.

UT-Arlington will provide the most competition in the team race as we will try to improve on our #16 rankings for both the men and women in the latest National Dual Meet Rankings.  It will also be our final home indoor meet as we start looking closely towards the MVC Indoor Championships at the end of February.

We expect a large crowd Saturday so come out and enjoy the meet!  If you can’t make it in person be sure to catch the live video through GoShockers.com.

How does the MVC look?

The MVC championship picture is beginning to take shape now that most of the league’s distance runners have raced in their primary events.  Every week I take a close look at the MVC performance lists on TFRRS and track how the competition is doing.  Here’s how it looks as of now:

The men’s meet should be a battle between as many as four teams.  I think that Wichita State and Indiana State will probably be voted by the coaches as the favorites but I think Loyola and Southern Illinois have a chance at the title too.  What you can’t tell by looking at the lists are what events will the coaches enter their top athletes in while searching for the most points.  The coaches at all of these schools will no doubt be trying to figure that out in the coming weeks.

On the women’s side I think it’s going to come down to three teams:  Wichita State, Indiana State and Southern Illinois.  On paper we appear to have a small lead but we’re trying to overcome some injuries and won’t know what kind of team we’ll have until we start competing in the championships.  We have several ladies that are competing well though, and are excited about the opportunity they have at UNI.

The “Garth Brooks of Wichita”

Since I had a weekend off I got the chance to go out and see former Shocker Javelin thrower Adam Capps play a concert on the west side of Wichita Saturday night.  The reason I made the Garth Brooks reference above is that Brooks threw the Javelin for Oklahoma State while in college before hitting it big on the country music scene.  While Adam was a better thrower than Garth, he is a tiny bit behind in the music department.  He did a great job and we had lots of fun, here is a link to a new song he wrote that I think is very good.

“Number” Movies

This is the final of a 24 part series (well not quite, you get one more bonus next week) 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 179 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.

I own three movies that begin with a number so here they are from best to worst …..

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

127 Hours (2010, 94 min, R, 7.7, $60m) – This movie, that is based on a true story, stars James Franco as an adventurer who gets trapped under a boulder while climbing through a canyon in Utah.  Basically his arm get caught between two rocks and the movie deals with his desperation and if he’s going to cut his arm off to survive.  It’s a very intense movie and very well done.  It really makes you think what the human body is capable of when it comes down to survival.  Franco is great, I highly recommend this movie!

8 Seconds (1994, 105 min, PG-13, 6.4, $19m) – A very likeable movie about the life of Lane Frost, a Bull Riding World Champion in the 1980’s.  I remember the first time I went to see this movie I was a little skeptical because Luke Perry was playing Frost and Stephen Baldwin was playing Tuff Hedeman – not exactly the two actors you would think of for these roles.  But to my surprise they did a really good job.  I’m sure they added some typical Hollywood drama to the story to make it more interesting but even with that I found myself intrigued by the lifestyle of these cowboys and the rough times it created for their families. 

15 Minutes of Fame (2008, 89 min, NR, PG-13, 6.4, $??) – I spent $5 on this movie as a joke because the cover was the fakest and cheapest movie cover I’ve ever seen (see right).  This movie is a coming of age story about two guys who ….. well I don’t really know what happens.  This movie was so bad that it took me about 15 minutes of boredom before I turned it off.

Next week

I will be back to talk about the Herm Wilson Invitational as well as one final bonus section about the movies I own on VHS!  That should be interesting.

Until then, thanks for reading and 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