USTFCCCA Convention recap

I’ve been bad at blogging in the last few months because of a variety of reasons but I will try to do better!  I’ve had several people ask me to keep it up so for my loyal followers (about 10 of you) I will do my best.  I have a lot of things I would like to write about and I’m not sure where to start.  With the holiday break coming up I will probably write several blogs about a variety of topics but for this week I will keep it to ……

The USTFCCCA Convention

Every year the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) holds their annual convention where track and field coaches from all levels, divisions and from all around the country converge for a week of learning and discussing our favorite sport.

A lot of people ask me what goes on at this convention so I will keep a “sort of” journal of the happenings.

Here goes …..

Monday

With the convention being in San Antonio this week, most of our staff decided to make the 9-hour drive from Wichita together (Coach Rainbolt went down early).  We have five of our full-time staffers on the trip so the 15 passenger van wasn’t too crowded.  We rolled out of WSU at 8:30am and headed south!

Our Director of Operations Ryan Patton took the first shift and drove us to Ardmore, Oklahoma, where we stopped off for lunch.  Being a night person myself, and waiting to pack until around midnight, I slept most of the morning.

Pole Vault coach Pat Wilson took the wheel next and gave us his thoughts on some of the best music bands of his generation.  Pat used to be a drummer in a local band so he definitely knows his stuff.  Don’t ever try to play name that tune with Coach Wilson.

I took over after dinner and we rolled into San Antonio around 8pm.  There were already dozens of coaches starting to socialize in the lobby of the JW Marriott.  After a quick run and shower I headed down to say hey and have a drink with some of my coaching friends.  Besides the WSU coaches, I saw my good friend Sean Lonergan from Stephen F Austin, Keith Roberts and Alonzo Webb from Pitt, Wendel McRaven from Texas A&M, Adam Bray from Pitt, the list goes on and on.  These late night socials create conversations from simply catching up with each other to talking about the future of our sport.

I was waiting up late to wait for former Shocker Nate Thiesfeld (who coaches at High Point University) to arrive from a delayed flight but eventually had to head to bed because Tuesday I’ll be playing in the annual golf outing and need to be up early.  The outing will be played on the very difficult TPC San Antonio which has been the host of the PGA’s Valero Texas Open.  I haven’t played golf in a couple months so hopefully I can keep it in the fairway.  Luckily it’s a scramble format so I only have to play ¼ as good as normal.

Tuesday

I woke up around 6:30am and walked over to the TPC San Antonio Oaks Course that is on the property of the JW Marriott.  It is host to the Valero Texas Open on the PGA Tour and fellow Kent State alum Ben Curtis won here in 2012.

There were about 20 teams of four playing in the coaches tournament and my team included our head coach Steve Rainbolt, former Shocker jumps coach (and now Southern Illinois coach) Terry VanLaningham and Black Hills State University head coach Seth Mischke (our ringer).  It was a fun and difficult course to play and led by Seth we shot 8-under par 64 to tie for third place.  We all took home about $300 worth of Nike golf stuff.  Good times!

Golfing took longer than scheduled and none of us had eaten lunch so I went with Terry and Seth to get some Chinese food around 3pm instead of hitting up some of the teaching symposiums.  I made sure our volunteer sprint coach Shamoya went to them and she filled me in on what happened later that evening.

After a power nap we all got dressed up to attend the USTFCCCA Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony.  The USTFCCCA does a very professional job in all aspects of the convention and especially on events like the Hall of Fame (and later this week the Bowerman Awards).  There were six men and women being honored and after a short film each of them spoke about their careers and the people who influenced them the most.  It was a long ceremony (over 3 hours) but I enjoyed listening to the legends of our sport talk track.  There were some crazy and hilarious stories told as well as some tears shed.

Around 11pm everyone was pretty tired but we met up in one of the hotel rooms and chatted with new and old colleagues until around 2am.  I finally got a chance to meet up with Nate Thiesfeld as well as hanging out with other High Point and Stephen F Austin coaches.  I fell asleep around 2:30am.

Wednesday

Being slightly deprived of sleep, I decided to sleep in until 9am and then catch a symposium by former Illinois sprint/hurdle coach Gary Winkler about the do’s and don’ts of training.  Gary is a great coach and I always enjoy listening to what he has to say – and usually it reinforces what we are already doing.  This symposium was no different.  Good stuff.  Also Carl Lewis (coaches at Houston) sat right in front of me for the session.

Then it was off to the “Opening Session” where everyone gathers to honor national champion coaches from 2015 and listen to the keynote speaker.  This year’s speaker was Oliver Luck from the NCAA (he’s also NFL Quarterback Andrew Luck’s dad).  He gave a lengthy speech about the issues facing the NCAA as we head into the next few years.  He didn’t talk very specifically about track and field, which was disappointing, but overall it was a good speech and we were all ready for lunch.

Later in the afternoon we had our first NCAA Division I General Session.  This is where the coaches at the DI level get together to talk about issues surrounding our sport and how to make it better.  Sometimes there are entertaining arguments but usually it’s pretty cordial and informative.  After this meeting we broke out into meetings with our conferences so the Missouri Valley Conference coaches discussed some of the same issues in a smaller forum.  One of the main discussions was should we change the outdoor 1500m race to the Mile.  The 1500m is the international distance but most Americans connect with the Mile better.  We will vote on these issues Friday morning and if they pass it will go to the NCAA for approval.  Sometimes we vote overwhelmingly for an issue and the NCAA still rejects it.

After the meetings, Mondo sponsored a fantastic BBQ dinner where we all ate way too much really good food.  They also had some fun stuff like wall climbing, skeet shooting, photo booths, etc. but mostly we just hung out and socialized with our fellow coaches.  I spent most of my night with my good friend Kevin Lucas who is the head coach at Mount Union, a D3 school in Ohio.  We went to the same high school and it is always fun to catch up with him and his wife Holly who is speaking at the convention about “Preparing for your future after coaching”.  She’s a lawyer.  Kevin did good, haha.

I also got to hang out with former Shocker coach Marc Burns (currently at Missouri) and former Kent State coach Wendel McRaven (currently at Texas A&M).  It’s always interesting to hear stories from the SEC and of course they love to hear stories about Coach Rainbolt.

Turning in around 1am tonight. Thursday will be full of activities once again including the annual Bowerman Awards, which crowns the top NCAA Track & Field athletes of the year!

Thursday

I woke up early Thursday to get some complimentary breakfast and then workout before heading to hear Virginia Tech coach Dave Cianelli speak about building track and field programs as well as Ralph Lindeman talk about the high hurdles.  There was also a lunch sponsored by Nike before heading to another of the NCAA DI General Sessions.

But the highlight of the day was the Bowerman Awards, which is basically the Heisman Trophy of Track and Field.  I’ve been fortunate to attend each of the award ceremonies since it began in 2009 and it’s always a very classy presentation.  This year ESPN’s John Anderson was the host (he was a high jumper at Missouri) and, like in previous years, he was very funny and did a great job.

Oregon sprinter/jumper Jenna Prandini and Florida jumper Marquis Dendy won and everyone had a great evening.  Afterwards I got to hang out with former Shocker coach Joe Eby (now at Baldwin Wallace) and our Shocker coaches.  I went to bed reasonably early (11pm) because Friday would be a long drive home.

Friday

The main thing that happens on the final day of the convention is voting on topics that we may or may not send to the NCAA committee for review for Division I T&F.  Here is a review of the topics and what the voting results were:

The first proposal was to add scholarships that would be designated for cross country and it failed 194-191.  This was the closest vote of the convention.  This is a very complicated proposal that is hard to fairly explain on both sides so I won’t go into great detail here but, obviously, it was split amongst the coaches.  Generally the Power 5 coaches voted for it while the others voted against.

The next proposal passed easily 331-65, where the NCAA would come up with a practice schedule for the championships.  The practice days are kind of crazy at a facility with hundreds of people trying to workout so this proposal would help alleviate some of that cluster.  Hopefully the NCAA comes up with something that works for everyone.

Another vote that passed 258-113 was to define what a track and field meet competition is.  This seems obvious but it’s the first step in helping define our sport a little bit better for the general public.  This will not change most track meets in any manner.

The next one was hotly debated – should we stay with the 1500m or go back to the Mile at the NCAA DI level?  Going back to the mile won 221-169.  This was interesting because usually distance coaches generally agree with each other but this one was split.  We will see if the NCAA approves it, and if so it may go into effect in 2017.

The next proposal was also aggressively debated.  It was to reduce the number of All-American awards from the current (top 8 first team, next 8 second team, next 8 honorable mention) to just the top-8 for All-American status.  It was defeated 238-160.  This topic had the most discussion of any proposal and it looks like we will stay with the same system for honoring All-Americans.

The final proposal was a minor one that passed 311-91 where teams have to have the same uniform for the duration of each day of competition.  For example you can’t have sprinters in black and throwers in gold on the same day.

After the voting we packed up and headed back to Wichita around 11am.  I drove the final leg from Dallas and we got home around 10pm.  Myself and Coach Wilson spent most of the trip talking about our team and the upcoming season.  We’re both excited to get things going in January!  I slept in until 11am Saturday.

Final thoughts

I always enjoy going to the USTFCCCA Convention and this one was no different.  Mostly I enjoyed reconnecting with friends and colleagues that I rarely see anymore but I also enjoy learning things at the symposiums and listening to the proposals that try and better our sport.

Next year we will go to Orlando!  

Next time

So many things to talk about but I’ll probably give an update on our team, how the Intrasquad Meet went and our expectations for the year.

Until then, thanks for reading and Go Shocks!

Fall testing results, birthdays, and Clint Eastwood is a bad dude

It was such a great week that this blog wasn’t able to be completed until Monday.  Sunday was used to nap, eat and watch the Bengals miss a chip shot field goal to win the game.  Well I guess the entire week wasn’t perfect.

Fall testing and what it means for the Shockers

On Wednesday and Thursday we did our annual fall training with our sprinters, jumpers, vaulters, hurdlers, and multi’s.  I explained what our fall testing was last week so check out that blog if you need the background info.  A lot of people have asked me how I thought our fall testing went and I would say it went pretty well with a few exceptions, but all it really means is that we’ve done a good job of training during the summer and first six weeks of practice.  They don’t give out any championships in October.

Without getting into crazy detail about who did what this is what I feel like our fall testing told us:  Our men are very good and our women are talented and young.

First for the men, we had very good testing in our 30m fly’s.  I tend to lean towards this test as one of the most important of the seven tests we do and, as a group, our guys performed very well.  And it wasn’t just the sprinters.  We had some very good 30m times from our jumpers, hurdlers and multi’s too.  Where did we not test very well?  Probably some of the second day plyometrics for my sprint group, which isn’t uncommon, but it does tell me we have to concentrate on our explosive actions during our next phase of training.  But like I said I think our coaches were very happy with the men – so far so good.

It’s a little different for our women although not in a bad way.  We have a lot of newcomers to the sprint group this year and we’ll need to be patient although several of those newcomers showed flashes of great potential.  When you have a younger group some of the things in testing seem pretty foreign to them (like overhead back shot put throw or hang clean) and they don’t perform like they will one year from now.  I think this group can be good but they will take longer to come around than the guys.  I’m sure some of our early season meets will be inconsistent but I do believe this group will be scoring good points when it counts at the MVC Championships.  On top of having that young group, we have a few of our studs that we held out of testing for precautionary reasons with aches and pains.  I like this group – they will be fun to coach and watch grow over the next 7 months.

Someone turned the big 4-0

Even though I have really enjoyed my 30’s I couldn’t hold back the inevitability of turning 40 on Saturday.  I got a lot of the “do you feel older now” type questions and this is what I tell folks:  I feel great, my 30’s were much better than my 20’s so I am assuming that my 40’s will be better than my 30’s.  And I totally believe that!  I think the experience you gain with age outperforms the struggle you might start to have physically and if you can pay a little bit of attention to your health you should feel pretty good by 40.  Now the other side of that is I’m not married and don’t have any kids so the level of stress in my life is probably lower than most, so you tell me?  I’m excited for the next decade and hopefully I can say the same when I turn 50!

As for the weekend, me and fellow coach (and new 40 year old) Pat Wilson hosted a gathering of friends.  It was a great time and I wanted to thank everyone who wished me well in my new old age!

Someone else is having a birthday too and he might be crazy

Our head coach Steve Rainbolt is turning 57 soon.  When Bolt has a birthday he doesn’t mess around.  Some of you may remember when he turned 50 he did a one-man 50k jog-a-thon (about 31 miles) on our indoor track for a WSU Track and Field fundraiser.  Five years later he did 55k (34 miles) on our outdoor track for the same reason.  After that 55k, which he admitted he hadn’t prepared well for, he said he’ll never do that again (it took over 9 hours).  So this year Bolt, an avid golfer, has decided to play 57 holes of golf in one day for another fundraiser.

While that is a lot of golf most people might not think of it as a huge challenge, but here’s the tough part – Bolt will walk the entire way which will end up being around 24 miles.  There is only about 12 hours of daylight so he will need to hustle.  If anyone is around Willowbend Country Club on Wednesday, stop and walk nine holes with Bolt – it should be an interesting event!

“G” Movies

This is the seventh of a 24 part series (if I don’t bore you all to death) 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 159 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.

For some reason I don’t own many movies that begin with G so here is the short list from best to worst …..

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

Gran Torino (2008, 116 min, R, 8.2, $269m) – I’ve grown up watching Clint Eastwood in movies like Dirty Harry, Heartbreak Ridge, and Million Dollar Baby and this may be one of my favorites. Some like to think this character might be and retired version of Dirty Harry.  It’s classic Eastwood, darkly funny and dramatic throughout.  I doubt he will make many more movies so it’s great to see him act and direct such a great movie at the age of 78!  “Ever notice how you come across somebody once in a while you shouldn’t mess with?  That’s me.”

The Grudge (2004, 92 min, PG-13, 5.8, $187m) – This is the American remake of the original Japanese movie Ju-on: The Grudge.  I’ve actually seen both movies and it gives an interesting perspective on what the differences are in what Japan likes and what Hollywood thinks we like.  Both were directed by Takashi Shimizu and the Japanese version is a little more subtle and realistic while the American version is more of a horror movie.  Both are well made and, in some places, identical shot for shot.  If you’re a horror fan you can’t go wrong either way but I like the original a little more.

Next week

I’ll be talking about our first week of “specific preparation” as well as letting you know how Coach Rainbolt’s golf-a-thon went.  I have five movies that begin with H – and all of them are very interesting and unique!

Until then … go Shocks!

Chile Pepper, fall testing, and Fargo gets the nod this week

There’s a lot happening in Shocker Track and Field so I’ll just get right into it.

I traveled over to Fayetteville, Arkansas, with my fellow assistant coach Pat Wilson to watch our cross country teams compete at the Chile Pepper Cross Country Festival on Saturday.  It was the first time I’ve been to this meet and was quite impressed with how well run and organized it was.  I would estimate there were around 40 colleges and at least twice as many high schools competing.

 This was our cross country teams’ first significant challenge of the season as both our men and women had won their previous two meets.  Our women finished fourth and our men ended up fifth.  I sat in for the team meetings the previous night and their goal was to finish in the top-3 so I know there was a little disappointment afterwards but I thought our group looked very strong and worked well together.  They’re a great group of kids that really seem to like and respect each other – that should help them come championship time, which is rapidly approaching!  The Shocks will head to Pre-Nationals in two weeks and in four weeks the MVC Championships will be at Southern Illinois.  The fall season is flying right on by!

On the track, this past week was our last full week of what we call “pre-season conditioning” where we are limited to eight hours of practice per week.  The next two weeks are “testing and regeneration”.  After a normal Monday practice and Tuesday off, we will do our annual fall testing on Wednesday and Thursday.  We do this every year to see how our athletes have improved from year to year.  With not having a competitive fall season it also helps to give our athletes something to look forward to in terms of a competitive effort.  We do this with all the sprint, hurdle, multi, and jumps athletes – basically everyone except the throwers and distance runners (the throwers have already done testing of their own).  Our testing goes like this:

Day 1 – 30m fly (with a running start), 30m acceleration (from a 3-point start), and then a long sprint of 150m, 300m, or 600m depending on what event the athlete runs.  We do all of these tests at our indoor track so that weather and wind won’t play a factor in comparing times from year to year.

Day 2 – Standing long jump, standing triple jump, overhead back shot put, and the Olympic lift hang clean.  We try to do these at our outdoor track because the weather doesn’t significantly affect these tests.

A few years ago I created a scoring system for each event so at the end we have a total score much like a Heptathlon or Decathlon.  I’ve seen all kinds of testing competitions like this and after many years of trial and error we have landed on this system.  It’s fun for the kids and very informative for the coaches.  We can narrow down where an athlete needs to make improvements as we head into our specific preparation phase – which starts October 15.

Besides our annual Intersquad meet in December, this is one of my favorite weeks of the fall semester.  The upperclassmen, who have been through our fall testing before, get very enthusiastic and create a fun atmosphere.  The newcomers are mostly nervous and a little intimidated by the scene – which is usually good, because it’s an introduction to what will happen when the actual track season begins.

After testing is over we give our athletes several days off (which coincides with our fall break) before gathering back up October 15 for our next phase of training.

As for recruiting, October will be a very busy month. We will have lots of official visits on campus as we lead up to the early signing period in November.  In fact I need to finish this blog so I can meet a recruit later today!

All of that and I will be turning 40 Saturday!  The best birthday present I can get will be some great test results from our athletes!  (And I also like cash)

“F” Movies

This is the sixth of a 24 part series (if I don’t bore you all to death) 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 157 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.

F seems like a popular letter for movies so here is the list of my 11 “F” movies from best to worst …..

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

Fargo (1996, 98 min, R, 8.2, $60.6m) – I love the Coen Brothers’ movies and this is one of their best.  Fargo is crime drama that shows perspective from both the criminals and the police trying to solve the crime.  Interesting and funny throughout, it won two Oscars for best screenplay and best actress.  If you haven’t seen it you won’t be disappointed – “you betcha!”

Full Metal Jacket (1987, 116 min, R, 8.4, $46.3m) – The first 30 minutes of this Stanley Kubrick war movie is some of the most intense cinema I’ve ever seen.  It’s really two movies, the first part is about basic training and the second part is the actual fighting in the Vietnam War.  R. Lee Ermey plays the king of all drill sergeants – I would quote him here but none of his lines are suitable for this blog!

The Fighter (2010, 116 min, R, 7.9, $129m) – Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale play professional boxing brothers Micky Ward and Dicky Eklund in this based on a true story movie about the early years of Micky Ward’s life.  I’ve always enjoyed movies that are based on a true story and Ward’s life is a more recent version of Rocky.  Great movie and Christian Bale is pretty incredible as a former boxer turned to a waste of space brother.

Friday (1995, 91m, R, 7.3, $28.2m) – One of those movies that crosses racial and ethnic lines because it’s just so funny.  Chris Tucker and Ice Cube (who also wrote the movie) star in what happens on a typical Friday in the hood.  It spawned several sequels but none could capture the magic of the original.  This movie is still as funny as ever!

Friday Night Lights (2004, 118 min, PG-13, 7.3, $61.9m) – Another based on a true story movie about Permian High School (Texas) football.  The book was controversial and very popular because of all the inside info the author let loose and obviously it made for a good movie as well. Billy Bob Thornton plays the head coach who tries to keep his team together through tumultuous times.  Really good movie, I imagine it hits home for many people who look back at their high school athletic career.

Footloose (1984, 107 min, R, 6.4, $80m) – This is one of those cheesy 80’s movies that just seem to never get old.  Kevin Bacon plays a teenager who moves to a small town where music and dancing have been banned.  I’m sure Bacon is embarrassed to watch some of the scenes nowadays but that’s what makes this movie so enjoyable.  And whenever the theme song comes on Coach Yost starts dancing like crazy.

Fletch (1985, 98 min, PG, 6.9, $59.m) – One of Chevy Chase’s classic flicks from the 80’s with classic lines and scenes that anyone my age remember like it was yesterday.  Upon more recent viewings this movie doesn’t stand up as well today so if you’ve seen it before I would recommend just watching the funny parts on YouTube.  “Awww, come on guys, it's so simple. Maybe you need a refresher course. [leans arm on hot engine part] Hey! It's all ball bearings nowadays. Now you prepare that Fetzer valve with some 3-in-1 oil and some gauze pads.”

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994, 117 min, R, 7.1, $245m) – This was Hugh Grant’s coming out movie and a very good one at that.  The title explains the plot as it follows a group of British friends one summer.  This is how romantic comedies should be – funny!  I think Hollywood forgot the “comedy” portion of that genre.  I think the Brits make funny movies, I only wish more of them made it over the pond so we could see them!

The Fall (2006, 117 min, R, 7.9, $3.6m) – I stumbled onto this movie through one of my weird friends on a weird night.  It’s a super artsy film but something about it kept me intrigued.  It’s one of the most visually appealing movies I’ve ever seen but most of my friends who I’ve tried to get to watch it usually fall asleep.  That must be why it only made $3 million dollars at the box office.

Friends with Benefits (2011, 109 min, R, 6.6, $149m) – They took two good looking people (Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake) and had them try to avoid every Hollywood cliché possible but in the end you knew they were going to get together.  It’s not a bad movie, I was just hoping they would be more creative with the ending for a movie with this kind of subject matter.

The Fountain (2006, 96 min, PG-13, 7.4, $15.9m) – Another super artsy film starring Hugh Jackman and directed by Darren Aronofsky (who also directed Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan) about death, love, spirituality, and uhhhhhh yeah I kind of got lost halfway through.  It does have a pretty cool ending so if you can hang in there it’s almost worth it.

There are a whole lot of great movies up there, you really can’t go wrong with any of them except maybe The Fountain.  I only have two “G” movies so next week will be a short review.

Until then have a great week 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) 

First road trip, Machete Kills Again, and Dorf got engaged!

It was another busy week in Shockerland …

Track

Last weekend we had our season opener at home so this week was our first road trip of the indoor season.  Coming off a competition for the first time all year presents several challenges.  The athletes are a little more sore and fatigued than after a typical weekend so we have shifted to a lighter Monday of practice than we used to.  While it’s great to give those athletes a little more recovery time it makes for a difficult organization of the practice week, especially when you compete on Friday and Saturday the following week.  Sprinters and explosive athletes have to have time to recover from the intensity of competing or, over time, fatigue will take over.  As coaches we are always trying to get a little more out of each workout when sometimes the best thing to do is rest.  It’s a truly difficult thing to balance, something that I struggle with all the time.  The beginning of the competitive season always makes this difficulty come to light.

We were able to have a good week of practice, however.  The good thing about having our first official meet of the season last week is that it motivates the athletes with direct results.  That’s the great thing about our sport – there is your name with a performance next to it and you can’t blame anyone else if it’s not what you wanted.  You can only come to practice the next day motivated to get better – at least that’s the way highly successful athletes react.  Our workout on Tuesday was probably the best one we’ve had all year.  It usually takes a couple weeks to see the benefit of a workout so I assume when we go to the Air Force Academy in 2 weeks we’ll run very well.

We traveled up to Lincoln, Nebraska, for our traditional 2^nd meet of the year.  We competed in two meets, Friday was a small college open meet and Saturday was a scored quadrangular against Nebraska, UT-Arlington and Oral Roberts.  Having athletes compete on both days gives them the experience of what it will be like at the MVC Championships later this indoor season as well as giving the younger athletes a little bit of transition into collegiate competition.  Overall the weekend went pretty well, on Saturday both our men’s and women’s teams finished 2^nd behind Nebraska and outperformed our pre-meet scoring projection.  This is the first of three consecutive scored meets for our team.  Having team scored competitions helps us get ready for the most important scored meet of the year – the MVC Championships.

The other great thing about heading out of town for a road trip is the team bonding that naturally happens.  Traveling on a bus, staying in a hotel, going out to dinner – all of these things contribute to our team becoming more of a “team”, which is critical to our success later in the year.

Next week we’ll be home again in a very good team scored competition against Stephen F. Austin, UT-Arlington, Missouri State, Oral Roberts, Iowa Central and Butler County.  If you live anywhere close to Wichita you should try to make it, it will be a terrific college track and field meet!  If you can’t make it be sure to watch live on UStream.com, search “Shockertrack”.

We are about a week away from the national signing date so we are working hard to get the best recruiting class we can.  After the signing date, we will probably have a press release announcing many of our new recruits.  Stay tuned because there are some good ones already committed to Wichita State!

Movies

I didn’t get out to the movie theater this week for two reasons.  It was a very busy week and there’s not much out there that I want to see.  The Kevin Hart/Ice Cube comedy Ride Along is the popular movie right now so other than that I’m not too disappointed in not seeing anything.  I caught the last half of Billy Madison on cable, the part where he does the academic Decathlon.  Classic.  It’s great to be reminded Adam Sandler used to be funny.

Even though it wasn’t a movie, one late night on ESPN Classic, I caught a couple episodes of Battle of the Network Stars, a late 1970’s/early 1980’s athletic competition pitting ABC, NBC, and CBS celebrities against each other in a variety of team sports.  It was so unintentionally funny that it was hard not to stop watching at 2am on a Tuesday night.  My athletes are about 1/100 as dramatic as these actors and Howard Cosell was the creepiest announcer I’ve ever seen.  Every interview he did with an actress made for totally awkward television.  The final event of the competition was the running relay.  Oh lord, where do I begin.  I’m pretty sure the “staggers” on the track were not IAAF certified, and it didn’t matter anyways because the runners only used the lanes as a loose guide around the track.  Watching them make relay passes was akin to seeing bumper cars bang into each other at the local county fair.  It was totally awful yet better than most any reality show on TV today.  If you have ESPN Classic you gotta check it out the next time it’s on.

DVD choice of the week (from my collection):  The last few weeks I have mentioned some movies that were either critically popular or box office successful.  This week I’ll go another direction with one of my all-time favorites, Machete (2010).  One of the reasons I was initially interested in this movie was because I was actually in Austin, Texas, staying in a hotel across the street when it was being filmed.  It’s a ridiculous, over the top movie about an ex-Federale (played by Danny Trejo) who goes on a killing rampage to take down the bad guys and save every pretty girl in sight.  One of the pretty girls is Michelle Rodriguez, one of my personal favorite actresses.  Even though the movie wasn’t a critical success, it grew a big enough cult following to have a sequel (Machete Kills Again).  Unfortunately I was one of the few people who went to the theater to see that one and I doubt Machete Kills In Space will ever get made.  If you aren’t too interested in a serious plot and enjoy a little gratuitous violence then Machete may be just the movie for you.

Everything Else

We had a big event occur in our track office this past week as our throws coach John Hetzendorf got engaged to his long time girlfriend Amber McGown.  Amber, who is from Canada, was a terrific middle distance runner for Cornell and Oregon before joining the Oregon Track Club after graudation.  Most of you probably

know that “Dorf” was one of the best Javelin throwers in the United States for over a decade.  I’m assuming their kids will probably be heptathletes or decathletes.  Dorf joined our jumps coach Heidi Yost in getting engaged recently so that only leaves myself and our Pole Vault coach Pat Wilson as the bachelors of the staff.  Pat – if this is a competition for seeing who will be single the longest, then you are in trouble my friend.

As I write this, it is in the mid 60’s in Wichita.  Tomorrow the high will be 25.  It’s been up and down like that for a few weeks and will continue for another month or so.  Hopefully our athletes (and myself) can keep from getting sick!  Too many important things coming up in the next few weeks!

I talked my way out of jury duty next week.  I think the court clerk is a Shocker fan.  However, I will be making up my jury duties in March so all you troublemakers out there beware!

Website of the Week

http://www.imdb.com/

The website IMDB is to movies what Sports-Reference.com is to sports.  It’s simply the best website to find all kinds of information about any movie ever made.  Like the sport-reference site it came from humble beginnings and the passion of a movie fan.  Now it is an incredibly fun and hugely informative website to spend countless hours.  Enjoy!

Interesting articles/videos to waste some time with

The coolest president in the world

Jamaica is going to the Winter Olympics in the Bobsled!

Songs that are secretly about Track - Phoebe Wright blog 

Shocker Basketball's success is bringing out the crazy fans in Wichita

Top-10 ways to ensure you best people will quit

The most entertaining ping pong match in history 

Jonah Hill's Saturday Night Live monologue with special guest Leonardo DiCaprio