California recap, a problem with our sport and it's time to host KT Woodman!

We’re in the middle of one of the busiest times of the year – and I’m loving every minute of it!

California

We took 55 athletes to the West Coast this weekend to compete in three meets (Sacramento St, Stanford and San Francisco St).  The athletes I work with only competed at Sacramento St and we were able to have a successful weekend.

The meet was scored and we came up a little short in that department.  Here are the team scores:

MEN: Sacramento St 204, Wichita St 158, North Dakota St 117, Cal St-Northridge 66, Fresno St 66, Utah St 43

WOMEN: North Dakota St 139.3, Cal St-Northridge 139, Wichita St 135, Sacramento St 116.3, Utah St 77, Fresno St 66.3

As you can see there wasn’t much drama on the men’s side as Sacramento St has a very strong team and gave it to us pretty good.  This is one time where we didn’t have the availability of depth like usual (only 27 men competing) and we were very cautious with some athletes this early in the outdoor season.  But hats off to Sacramento St, they will be a tough team to beat in the Big Sky Conference.

The women’s meet was very close and we were just edged in a very exciting finish.  The Discus ended up being the final event and all three of the top teams had girls in the final.  Our girls fought hard and came up just four points short.  After the meet we talked about using it as a lesson where every point counts throughout the entire meet and the smallest of details can mean the difference in winning and being third.

I usually don’t single out individual athletes in this blog but I have to mention how fun it is to watch Nikki Larch-Miller right now.  She broke our school record in the 100m dash Saturday with a time of 11.44 that currently stands sixth in the NCAA.  Every time she toes the line she does something spectacular.  She even tried the 400m hurdles this weekend and broke 60 seconds in her debut.  With her leading the way I like our chances as we head into the MVC Championships in May.

A big problem with our sport

The Discus was the last event of the meet at Sacramento St and all of the athletes from all of the teams were gathered around watching.  Unfortunately there was hardly anyone who knew that the meet was coming down to, literally, the final throws except for a few coaches who were closely paying attention.  I don’t know how we fix this problem but it was a dramatic conclusion to a great meet that would’ve generated all kinds of spirit and cheering for the Discus throwers but no one REALLY knew what the score was.

Maybe we should make a rule where every scored meet always ends with the 4x400m relay.  That way it would be a little easier to know who the team winner is as soon as the race is over.  Obviously this would be problematic when a field event goes long and sprinters would have to wait (in this case it was over an hour) but I would be in favor of something like that.  Thoughts?

The Wichita State coaches are good friends with the Sacramento St coaches (two of the Sac St coaches used to be on our staff) and as usual we try to get together and socialize and talk about how to make our sport better.  Terry VanLaningham, who used to be the WSU jumps coach and is now coaching at Sacramento St, has put a lot of thought into making some significant changes to the sport of college track and field.  Most of the thoughts have to do with making it more of a team concept and putting a product out there that is easy to understand and fun to watch.

The longer I’m coaching, the more I get excited about team scored meets that only last a few hours against great competition.  Unfortunately not all college track and field coaches agree with me or Terry so what we end up with is a schedule full of a bunch of different kinds of meets that confuse the general public.  I think at some point, however, someone above the US Track Coaches Association (probably the NCAA) will dictate to us what a track meet, track season and track team is supposed to be – and I probably won’t have a problem with that.

Shocker Pre-State Challenge/KT Woodman Classic

After saying all that, this week we are about to host a huge carnival of a track meet that lasts four days.  I’m a hypocrite right?

One of the differences in this week is that it’s a meet that’s been going on for over 60 years and is truly a “track and field carnival” not unlike the Drake Relays, Texas Relays, etc.   It brings together great high school, college and post-collegiate athletes.  Over 2500 athletes will make their way to Wichita this week in what is one of our biggest fundraisers of the year.

Hosting a meet the size of this takes literally dozens and dozens of helpers.  We’ve been meeting with people from campus for weeks in preparation and, as long as the weather permits, we should have a great meet.

A big difference for track coaches in a situation like this is because we’re so consumed with hosting the meet it becomes difficult to do much actual coaching.  We have to do every little detail from getting the long jump pits ready to making sure we have all the officials and volunteers required to run off the meet.  I know other sports’ coaches have to do work in preparation for a game from time to time but I never see Gregg Marshall putting out chairs for players to sit on before the game haha!

Track coaches accept this as part of our job but sometimes it seems odd that when one of my athletes are running the 100m dash that I’m just as concerned with if someone is reading the wind gauge properly as I am about their performance.

Next week

If I survive I will try to recap the week that was KT Woodman.

Until then thanks for reading -- Go Shocks!!!

Outdoor season begins, Shocker Basketball beats KU and what it means to coach at a non-BCS school

It’s been a few weeks since my last blog so now that the outdoor season has started I thought I’d get back at it.

What have we been doing?

Most of the group has been off from competition since the MVC Indoor Championships with the exception of a few multi-event athletes that went to Rice University over Spring Break for an early season Heptathlon/Decathlon.

For everyone else – we gave them about a week of light activity to heal some aches and pains as well as refresh mentally.  We took a couple days off for Spring Break and then got back at it pretty hard.  We’ve gone back to some more significant volume as well as keeping the intensity at a moderate level as we build towards the outdoor season.

Another thing that myself and Coach Heidi Yost has been doing is having individual meetings with all of our athletes.  We have a lot of crossover in the sprint/jump group so we both met with each athlete – around 40 total – and getting the chance to sit down, review goals and have some heart to heart discussions was very productive.  It took three weeks for us to meet with every athlete but in the end we felt like it was a great way to get back and focused for the outdoor season.

The thing we took away from most of the meetings, especially with the younger athletes, is how poor their nutrition and sleeping patterns are.  I think we came away making a positive impression and now it’s in the athletes hands if they want to make some changes for the good from here on out.

Season opener in Arkansas

Our team made the short trip over to Fayetteville, Arkansas, for the Arkansas Spring Invitational Saturday and had mixed results.  Season openers, whether indoor or outdoor, are always up and down in terms of results.

 

We ran very well in the 4x100m relay and 400m hurdles, which are different events from the indoor season so that’s a good sign.  We came away from the meet healthy which is also a good sign.  Now we just have to grind away for a few weeks and get better – before you know it the outdoor season will be over!

Watch the replay of the meet on ESPN3 here.

Throwers come out strong

While most of the team went to Arkansas our throwers (and Pole Vaulters) made the short trip up to Emporia to open their season.  We don’t like to split the team up but the situation for throwing at Arkansas is not very good and we have a lot of good throwers that needed some quality competition.

And the results were terrific!  Big throws from several freshmen and newcomers in the Javelin and Discus shows that Coach Hetzendorf is building quite the group for the future!  On top of that our veterans who did well during indoor kept that momentum going. 

Heading West next week

Usually once a year, during the outdoor season, we take a big trip with a large portion of our team.  This week we’ll be heading to Sacramento, California, to compete at Sacramento State University in the Mondo Mid-Major Challenge with some of the best non-BCS school in the West.  It’ll be a great meet on an outstanding facility (Sac St has held multiple NCAA and Olympic Trials).

Shocker Basketball ends another great year

I haven’t written much about the Shocker Basketball team this year but it doesn’t mean they haven’t been doing well.  As most of you probably know, WSU lost to Notre Dame in the Sweet 16 this week to end their season with a record of 30-5.  The highlight of the year is undoubtedly their NCAA Tourney win over in-state rival Kansas by a score of 78-65.

I don’t need to go into the details behind the “WSU/KU not playing each other thing”, but needless to say the fans of Wichita were very excited about just having a chance to compete against KU in the tournament.  The track team felt the same way, and ironically enough, earlier this year we were finally able to compete against them (as well as K-State) in a real, scored track meet.  As you might remember we were also able to beat the Jayhawks on both the men’s and women’s side.

Perspective of being at a non-BCS school

I’ve been an athlete or coach at a non-BCS school (previously Kent State) for 19 years now and whether it’s Ohio State when I was an athlete or KU/K-St now as a coach, all we want is the chance to compete at the highest level.  Honestly I’m glad I coach at a school like WSU because it’s not JUST about winning and losing, it’s about helping kids reach their potential in athletics and life – and doing it for the Shockers is about as rewarding as it can be because we have the balance of being a Division I school while also not being the most highly recruited athletes in the nation.

And oh by the way we REALLY want to win too.

Next week

I’ll let everyone know how our California trip went as well as looking forward to our big KT Woodman Classic at Wichita State!

Until then thanks for reading -- Go Shocks!!!

Festivus, Holiday Movies, and Winter Training

It’s been a pretty quiet Christmas week for me but there are always things to do and talk about, so here goes …

When I landed in Oklahoma City last Sunday I was greeted by some of the craziest ice I’ve ever had on my car.  In fact it was so severe that there were parts of the ice I just couldn’t remove.

Any icy car greeted me in OKC

  Luckily I was able to get enough of it off to safely navigate my way back to Wichita and hang out with former Shocker sprinter Jared Foley that evening.  He currently works  at a winery near Sacramento, California so you know where I’ll be during the USA Championships in late June!

Monday was “Festivus”, made popular by my favorite sitcom of all time Seinfeld.  I’ve unofficially made Festivus my favorite part of the holiday season since I’m not very into the materialism of Christmas.  If you don't know about Festivus please check out this website:  Festivusweb.com. I didn’t have much in the way of “airing of grievances” and I didn’t have a “feats of strength” contest but it was definitely a very good day.  Christmas was a good day as well but I mostly enjoyed hanging out with friends and having some down time at home.

I did happen to make it to the office a couple times this week but like most years this is a quiet time around Koch Arena (except during basketball games).  In fact the only people I did see on Thursday or Friday was a couple of the basketball coaches.  Most of our coaches are not from Wichita originally, so it’s one of the only times they can go “home” for a few days with their families.  We know this will be our last time to have off before the grind of the track season begins.

I need to give our basketball team some props right now for their incredible success of late.  Everyone knows they made it to the Final 4 last year but I’ve been just as impressed with their 13-0 start and top-10 ranking this year.  They carry a lot of pressure around here with that target on their backs and sports like track and field definitely benefit from their success.  It’s nice to call recruits from all around the country and have a better chance for them to know who Wichita State is before I have to explain it.  We’re also very lucky we don’t have a football team but that’s a discussion for another day.

As for our current recruiting, we are working hard at bringing in some talented athletes in January to help our team. I’m not able to make any specific comments here (NCAA rules) but hopefully we’ll have a press release coming out soon detailing our new Shockers.

DJ Lindsay shoveled his track
to get his workout in this week

I was able to touch base this week with all of the sprinters and hurdles I directly coach (27 of them) and it seems like training is going pretty well.  Our indoor track is closed between Christmas and New Year’s so this week is the final time many of them will need to tough it out in the cold weather before having the Heskett Center’s mondo track available again.  Check out the picture to the right of what one of our sprinters (DJ Lindsay) did to get his workout in.  The origins of this picture was from years ago when Chris Dickman and Jordan Zerr did the same.  We've used it for motivation ever since and I've actually received three of these pictures during the break this year.  Awesome stuff.  We’ve had some pretty good weather this past week so it looks like we shouldn’t have any excuses for not being ready when practice resumes in a couple weeks.  We won’t officially start back up until January 12 but most of our athletes will be back in town before that getting ready for our season opener at home on January 17-18.

If you know me very well you know that I’m a bit of a movie buff.  My collection of DVD’s is significant and diverse and I tend to have an affection for movies that aren’t always in the mainstream.  Last week I mentioned that I saw the terrific movie Nebraska and this week I was able to see three movies; Grudge Match, Anchorman 2, and American Hustle.  Grudge Match wasn’t my idea (date) but it was decent nonetheless.  I love (and own) the original Anchorman so obviously I had high expectations for the sequel.  As with most sequels, it wasn’t nearly as good as the original but I did find myself laughing quite a bit.  American Hustle was a different kind of movie, kind of a cross between Goodfellas and Oceans Eleven, and it kept me entertained throughout.  I give Grudge Match a 6/10, Anchorman 2 and American Hustle 7/10 and Nebraska 9/10.  If you can find Nebraska in your local theatre go see it.

The upcoming week will be relatively quiet (except for New Year’s of course) and our staff will back in the office by the end of the week.  I’m looking forward to getting all the way caught up on work and getting totally refreshed!  Our first meet is less than 3 weeks away!

For your reading:  Here's an interesting article I found about how much money universities are spending on college athletics (mostly football).  I don't agree with all of it but I agree that most places spend a ridiculous amount of money trying to keep up with the status quo.