Kansas Triangular and Shocker Prelude recaps and a long home winning streak for WSU

It was a busy weekend of track and field for the Shocks …

The WSU-KU-KSU Triangular

The second annual triangular between the three D1 schools in Kansas was a heckuva meet.  Here were the team scores:

Men:  Kansas 126, Wichita St 110, Kansas St 109

Women:  Kansas 128, Kansas St 125, Wichita St 95

Looking at the team scores you might think that we struggled but, overall, I think we did pretty well.  On the men’s side we were without four athletes that could’ve made a difference in point scoring (Shazz-Michael Lindo, Tate Annis, Jake James, Kaden Griffin).  With those kids I think we would’ve been very close to winning the meet.  On top of that KU and KSU have really good teams this year.  I think KU has their most well rounded team since I’ve been at WSU (10 years).  I expect both teams to battle Texas for the Big 12 titles this year.

I mentioned last week that Nikki Larch-Miller wouldn’t be competing for the women.  With her it would’ve made it much closer as well.  Did you see our men’s basketball team play without Fred VanVleet earlier this year?  Well our women have a similar type need for Nikki.  Hopefully she’ll be ready to compete again soon.

In the two years of the meet we have found that the host seems to get a big bump in scoring – which makes sense.  Next year we host this meet and we expect to see the same kind of bump for WSU.

Our kids competed hard and had a lot of good early season performances.  The coaches have talked about how having this meet later in the indoor season might yield even better marks but it appears that it will continue to be in the middle of January for the foreseeable future.

It’s a fun meet and a good way to get our season really rolling.

Shocker Prelude

After competing in Lawrence Friday night, we got home to Wichita around midnight and then was back up and at it Saturday morning hosting the Shocker Prelude.  The coaching staff was a little bleary eyed at 8am as we were setting up the facility but fortunately the kids on the team came rested and ready to go.

We had several athletes double back from Friday to compete in one event, but mostly it was athletes who didn’t compete the day before.  It was a great chance for some of our developing athletes to place high and be relied on for scoring.  We had a strong field on non-D1 teams and this is how the scoring came out:

Women:  Wichita St 216, Emporia St 171, Oklahoma Baptist 166, Angelo St 122, Friends 121

Men:  Friends 147, Wichita St 132, Oklahoma Baptist 122, Emporia St 111

Even though many of our top athletes weren’t competing we were still trying to win the meet.  Most D1 schools in this kind of a meet wouldn’t have scored it because there’s a possibility they would lose but that’s not how we like to do things.  We think all meets should be scored and an effort to cover the events should be required by all teams.  It makes it more fun for all involved.

Take this meet for example.  Friends University has done a great job building a terrific NAIA team and winning this meet has got to put a pep in the step of everyone associated with their men’s team.  If it was a non-scored meet then we would’ve just been standing there watching some events and hoping for some fast times.  Coach Rainbolt noticed we were losing the men’s meet late in the day and tried to get me to consider not scoring the 4x800m relay (we didn’t have a team).  He was joking but even in a situation like this he’s a competitor and doesn’t want to lose.

Congrats to Friends on a great meet and good luck in your upcoming KCAC and NAIA meets!

I have a lot of other thoughts on how track and field should be run but that’s for another time. J

Women’s winning streak

We started hosting track meets in the Heskett Center in 2009.  Since then we’ve had 13 scored meets (usually one in January and one in February).  Our women have won all 13 meets, defeating 54 opponents in the process.  There have been some really good teams come to the Heskett Center over the years and our ladies have defeated all of them, as well as winning a couple of Shocker Prelude meets with our developing athletes.

I think that’s a tremendous accomplishment.  If we are able to defeat another group of good teams on February 13 in the Herm Wilson Invitational (UT-Arlington, North Texas, Oral Roberts, UMKC), we would head into next year’s Kansas Triangular with an interesting motivational tool. 

The closest meet our women have had was winning by 18 points in last year’s Shocker Prelude.  Our men have won 9 of the 13 meets.

If you were to make it a won/loss record total, our women would be 54-0 at the Heskett Center and our men 44-4 (losses to Sam Houston St, UT-Arlington, Emporia St and Friends).

Cool stuff!

Next week

This week we head to Lincoln, Nebraska for two meets.  Friday we compete in the Nebraska Wesleyan Invitational held on the campus of Nebraska which we’ll use to give some kids the opportunity to compete on back to back days again.

But Saturday will be the main focus in a scored quad meet with Nebraska, Colorado St and MVC opponent Illinois St.  Speaking of streaks, I’ve never been part of a team that beat Nebraska in a scored meet like this (and we compete against them every year).  They have one of the most consistently well rounded and deep teams in the nation every year and have just been too tough for us.  We had one meet around 2009 that we got within 10 points but usually it has been a pretty humbling experience in Lincoln.

Colorado St and Illinois St both have really good teams as well so it should be a great meet!

Movies!!!

It was a very busy week so the only movie watching I was able to do was on my DVD player – and usually while working!  I did happen to see an early Paul Walker movie called Joy Ride that probably paved his way to the more well-known Fast and Furious franchise.  It was a pretty solid road movie about two brothers who get constantly stalked by a crazy guy driving a semi.  It reminded me of an old movie directed by a young Steven Spielberg named Duel.  That was a great and simple movie that is available to watch for free on YouTube.

I have not seen the new Star Wars movie and probably won’t.  I’ve heard it’s good but has only made $1.5 billion so far.  Slackers.

Next time

I’ll probably do the usual and recap the week!

Until then, thank you for reading and Go Shocks!

Track is underway, Kansas rivalry renewed this week and oh my Bengals

The track season is underway!

Wichita State Track & Field got the season started Saturday as we traveled up to Kansas St for the Wildcat Invitational.  I would say about half or slightly less of the teams in the country opened up this weekend.  We used to wait one more week but because of our meet next week (see below) we have started earlier the past two years.

As with all season openers we had some good, some average and some bad – and probably evenly split between those three.  We’ve had four days of practice and there is a lot of rust to shake off after three or four weeks of kids training on their own.  I think you especially see this in the technical events where athletes aren’t able to work on those events over the break as much (as well as not having coaching).

But overall I think we were pretty happy with it.  Most of the MVC didn’t compete this week so we’ll know a little more about our team and the conference after next week.

Second Annual WSU-KU-KSU Triangular

Friday we will head to Lawrence, KS, for a battle with our in-state Division I rivals.  Last year was the first time we’ve ever been able to get this meet together (K-State won at home, we were second).  Next year we will host this meet at the Heskett Center!

We basically play by Big 12 rules for this meet.  26 athletes per gender compete in the Big 12 Indoor Championship events (except 5k and multi).  That means events like the 600 yards and 1000 meters are contested besides the regular NCAA events.  That probably puts us at a slight disadvantage but we still feel like we have a chance to compete well.

We will probably be without Nikki Larch-Miller this weekend, who is getting back to being healthy after a minor injury.  But even without NLM we should be strong in all the events.  It’s so early in the season that it’s hard to prognosticate a team score.  KU and K-St hasn’t competed much either so we don’t know what they have.  Our goal will be to win the meet and we hope a lot of Shocker fans will be there to cheer us on Friday evening!

Shocker Prelude

The next day we will be hosting the Shocker Prelude where the rest of our team (and some from Friday as well) will compete in a scored meet with D2 schools Emporia St, Oklahoma Baptist and Angelo St as well as NAIA Friends University from across town.  This should also be a fun meet to see some of our developing athletes run to the front and gain confidence.

Last week we got the season started but this week we really get our team going.

Oh my Bengals

Most of you know that I grew up near Cincinnati and, thus, I’m a fan of the Cincinnati Bengals.  And I’m sure most of you saw the debacle at the end of the game where they lost to Pittsburgh in the playoffs.  Years ago I made sure to emotionally detach myself from the outcome of games I’m not actually a part of so, while a devastating loss, I am largely unaffected today.  Many of my Facebook and Twitter friends seem to be largely affected.  To all of them, they don’t pay you any money to play so don’t get so upset.  I agree it was a terrible way to lose but if it you watched it like a movie or a Broadway play then you would’ve been very entertained!

However, you better believe I’ll be talking about it with the kids I coach in how to handle (or not handle) adversity when it comes in the most important times.

Movies!!!

It’s been a while since I’ve chatted about movies and I’ve seen a few recently.  Here are my thoughts on what I’ve seen since Thanksgiving …..

The first one I saw wasn’t actually a movie but a musical called The Book of Mormon.  It’s one of the most successful Broadway musicals of all time so I thought I would see what all the fuss was about when it came to Wichita.  My opinion?  Awesome.  I’ve been to a few musicals in my life and, while impressed with the singing and show, I wasn’t always entertained.  But with The Book of Mormon I was entertained throughout.  Without going into detail about it, basically it makes fun of the Mormon religion, and to an extent, all organized religion.  I’m not sensitive to crass humor so I found it hilarious.  Being in Wichita I’m sure a few in the conservative crowd may have been offended, but even still it was very well done and, most importantly, entertaining the whole time.  10/10

Next I saw the movie Creed, which is the seventh installment of the Rocky series.  This time it went a little different route to follow the illegitimate child of Apollo Creed from the first four Rocky movies.  I wasn’t sure if this new path in the series would be successful but it was!  Rocky becomes the trainer for young Creed and helps him through the lower ranks of boxing until the ultimate final big-time fight.  It was also financially successful so I’m sure there will be a Creed 2 coming out again in the future.  8/10

Around Christmas I saw the movie Trumbo in small art house theater in Cincinnati.  It’s the story of Dalton Trumbo (played by Bryan Cranston of Breaking Bad fame), who was Hollywood’s top screenwriter until he and his fellow artists were jailed for being communists.  First off, it was a good movie.  It was fascinating how this true story played out in a time just after WWII.  Secondly, no matter your political beliefs you should try to find this movie since freedom of speech is such an important part of our country’s fabric.  8/10

Around New Year’s I saw The Big Short, which was about the housing market collapse of the mid-2000s.  Starring big names like Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Christian Bale, I thought it was a pretty good movie.  A person who understands finance might not have been lost at all but it lost me from time to time for that reason.  Nevertheless, it was still really good and helped explain what happened to our economy in 2008.  An interesting tidbit is that it was written and directed by Adam McKay, who is more known for Anchorman, Step Brothers and Saturday Night Live.  I wouldn’t consider it a comedy but it had enough humor to keep it going through the more complex financial scenes.  7/10

The last movie I saw was Concussion starring Will Smith as a Nigerian doctor who discovers significant brain issues with former NFL players and then fights to have his research heard by the NFL.  While a bit slow in parts, I still liked this movie overall.  It was set in Pittsburgh and used named and video of real NFL players so it gave it a legitimate feel.  It’s a hard topic to explain but I thought they did it pretty well.  I feel terrible for what head injuries have done to these former players and hopefully this movie helps the sport to become safer.  Unfortunately I don’t see that happening unless the rules of the sport are changed dramatically.  Our heads just weren’t made to bang together at high speeds.  7/10

Next time

I’m sure there will be a lot to talk about with the Kansas Triangular and Shocker Prelude.

Until then, thank you for reading and Go Shocks!

Goodbye 2015 ... Hello 2016!!!

2015 was a great year and I am optimistic 2016 will be even better!

Looking back at 2015

As I’ve gotten older I’ve learned not to look back much in life but since it’s the first day of the New Year I guess a brief review of 2015 in WSU Track & Field would be appropriate.

We won only one MVC title last year (Women’s Outdoor) but was in the hunt for all four finishing second in both the men’s indoor and outdoor championships as well as a close third (lost by 18 points) at the women’s indoor meet.

A lot of teams around the country would’ve loved to win “only” one title in 2015 but our expectations are always much higher.  We don’t take for granted how hard these titles are to win and we know there are a lot of terrific coaches around the MVC that know how to get their teams ready to battle.

Besides the team accomplishments, I had a couple of notable things that I happen to be fortunate enough to coach:

Our women’s 4x100m relay team qualified for the NCAA Championships – a first in school history – and smashed the preview school record by almost one second in the process (44.30).  The girls earned Second Team All-American honors for their efforts.  There are a few reasons why getting a relay to the NCAA Championships from a school like WSU is difficult so I was very proud of these ladies pulling together and getting the job done.  It was a great experience for them and I had a blast along the way!

Many of you might not realize it but I also coached a world champion this year.  Deja Young, currently a sophomore sprinter on our team, won the 100m gold medal at the World Paralympic Championships in Doha, Qatar, in October.  Deja, who was also part of the 4x1 team, had a whirlwind few months that opened doors for her that she never thought was possible a year ago.  My job is to help her to stay focused and healthy to make a great run at the 2016 Paralympics in Rio later this year as well as becoming a top sprinter in the MVC.

I could go on and on talking about the athletes I work with but then this blog would take hours and hours to read.  Needless to say I had a blast working with our program and the athletes in 2015!

Looking ahead to 2016!

As a team our goals are simple.  Win all the MVC team titles this year.

Our men have finish second in MVC Track & Field Championship competition SEVEN times in a row.  We’ve watched Indiana State win many of those meets (as well as SIU last spring) and are determined to make this year different.  We have a hard working group of guys that are very hungry and want to bring back the big trophy to Wichita this year.

But it won’t be easy.

Obviously, Indiana State will continue to be a force to reckon with and this year they host the MVC Outdoor Championships which should yield a few extra points for the home team.  After winning last spring, Southern Illinois made a coaching change.  Former head coach Connie Price-Smith left for Ole Miss and new coach Kathleen Raske (previously at Sacramento State) will not miss a beat in keeping SIU at the top of the conference standings.  Northern Iowa, the host of the indoor championship, made a big run last year outdoors to finish third and also have a new head coach in Dave Paulsen who will be motivated to keep the Panthers trajectory trending upward.  Another team on the rise will be Illinois State, who under second year head coach Jeff Bovee is making great strides in building a team that will be tough to beat in the coming years.  And we can’t forget about former Shocker coach Randy Hasenbank at Loyola.  Last year he had a very good team with a great group of seniors and will no doubt build it back up again.

I just mentioned five teams besides WSU that will be good in 2016.  The other two teams, Drake and Bradley, have some outstanding athletes that will win championships and make the MVC tougher, but they don’t have the overall strength to battle for a title.

Our women have been more successful at winning titles than our men recently but it doesn’t mean it will be any easier for them in 2016.  Actually it might be quite the opposite.

Our team has always been built for outdoor a little more than indoor.  We’ve been really good in the Javelin, 400m hurdles, 3000m steeplechase and 4x100m relay so you would think this year our team would be the same.  But it appears we will probably redshirt our all-everything multi-event athlete Nikki Larch-Miller for the outdoor season – let me explain why:

When Nikki was a freshman she was still a developing athlete with potential so we decided to redshirt her during the indoor season and then compete her outdoors when we would redshirt her teammate Jenny Pinkston.  The plan for the next year was to alternate them in redshirting again but things don’t always go to plan.  Nikki developed quicker than expected and we felt we needed to compete her to win a championship (which we did).

Now it’s her fourth year and she has two indoor seasons and one outdoor left.  We either need to redshirt her this year or have her for only the indoor season of 2017.  So our plan as of now is to redshirt outdoor this year and hope she can qualify for the Olympic Trials, and she’ll be able to really focus on doing well at that meet.

All the schools I mentioned earlier in the men’s summary (with the possible exception of Loyola) should also be tough on the women’s side however Indiana State will probably be the toughest.  Add in Missouri State (they only have a women’s team) and the MVC will be a good as ever once again.  It’s a great conference and very difficult to win championships.  Hopefully we can win a few!

Besides the obvious goal of getting athletes to the NCAA Championships, 2016 is also an Olympic year.  Hopefully we can have a few Shockers (past and present) in Eugene for the US Olympic Trials in early July.  I think we have the potential for a few!  In 2012 I was lucky to have three hurdlers and a sprinter there and WSU was well represented by many other athletes.

Every track and field season writes its own stories throughout the year and I’m sure 2016 will be filled with lots of ups and downs as well as plenty of excitement.  I can’t wait to get started!

The beginning of the season

Our first meet will be in one week – Saturday, January 9 – at Kansas State University.  We will take most of our crew up to Manhattan to run in a race or two to get the rust off from the holiday break.

We start back with practice this Monday and I think my group has done a pretty good job of training the past month – at least that’s what their text messages say.  We will find out for sure this week as we will dive right back into some tough training.

Our second weekend of the year will be an exciting one for a variety of reasons.  On Friday, January 15, we will have our second version of the WSU-KU-KSU Triangular, this year in Lawrence.  Last year we finished second behind K-State and are excited to compete against our friendly in-state rivals once again.  The next day we will host the Shocker Prelude.  This will give some of our developing athletes, who don’t make the Triangular roster, a chance to show their stuff as well as possibly doubling back a few of our top athletes from Friday.

Let’s get going!

Next time

The track season is here so that will probably dominate this blog for a while.  I have seen some interesting movies lately so I will share some of that too. 

Until then, I hope everyone has a happy New Year and Go Shocks!

We lose a heartbreaker in the battle of Kansas, the Power 5 make their first big moves and Chevy's finest movie

It was a big weekend of track and field for Wichita State so let’s get right into it!

First ever WSU-KU-KSU Triangular

It’s been a long time coming but we were finally able to get the three Kansas DI schools together for a scored and meaningful track meet Saturday in Manhattan.  Here were the final scores:

MEN:  Kansas St 117, Wichita St 116, Kansas 105

WOMEN:  Kansas St 144, Wichita St 101, Kansas 97

COMBINED (traveling trophy):  Kansas St 261, Wichita St 217, Kansas 202

                                                                                                      

Ahhhh that one point on the men’s side!  The way it worked out was the triple jump ended up being the last event going so believe it or not it came down to a battle between the fifth and sixth placed guys who were only separate by a few centimeters.  We came up on the short end but it was a great early season test for our crew and hopefully the beginning to a great rivalry on the track between the three schools.

As with most track meets only a few people actually knew how close the meet was.  We really need to work on our presentation because a close meet with a meaningful 4x4 at the end is about as exciting as a sporting event can get!

Next year we’ll be at KU for this meet and we’ll host in 2017.  I’m already thinking of ways to make it a great experience for anyone attending.  It could be a fantastic meet for spectators and possibly television!

How did we do?

Obviously we wanted to win this meet and coming up one point short was tough to take for the guys but the only reason we got that close was because of a couple of KSU DQ’s in the 200m so we probably ended up where we should’ve.  I think our kids competed well for this early of a meet and on a facility they aren’t too familiar with (and with the Big 12 events).  KSU’s indoor track is very tight and our kids did a great job turning in times that were near or better than their indoor personal bests.

From looking at results from around the MVC I would say that it looks like we did well this weekend.  It’s still too early to tell much of anything from that but I think it’s better to have a strong start and maintain a consistent level of performance than relying on a big improvement at championship time.

So far, so good.

Shocker Prelude

We also hosted the Shocker Prelude on Friday night in the Heskett Center for those kids who didn’t make the trip to Manhattan.  It was a great opportunity for some of our younger and developing athletes to win events and compete towards the front when normally they may be in the shadow of our top athletes.  I thought those kids did a great job and we’re looking for several of them to make the team and score points at the MVC Indoor Championships in less than six weeks.

What did I do with my day off Sunday?

I went recruiting.

Upcoming …..

We will be similar to last week with a small college meet on Friday and a triangular on Saturday.  Both of these meets will be in Nebraska’s Devanny Center, home of a 200 meter hydraulically banked track.  This will be the only regular season meet where we’ll run on a banked track.  Since we are not very familiar with that type of track it will be an adjustment for our kids, but once they get the hang of it they usually run pretty well.

Our opponents on Saturday will be the highly ranked Cornhuskers as well as Oral Roberts University.  We should beat ORU pretty easily but defeating Nebraska will require a significant effort.  We’ve never beaten them in a scored meet since 2006 and this year they are very strong again.  Hopefully the Shockers are ready to give them a battle!

The NCAA Power 5 make some new rules

For any of you that are interested in this sort of thing, the NCAA and the Power 5 conferences (SEC, Pac-12, Big 12, ACC and Big 10) had their convention and voted some new rules into effect.  The main one is the “cost of attendance” policy.  Basically now schools cover expenses up to the cost of attendance which is beyond what a normal scholarship allows.  What that means is that full scholarship athletes (mostly football, basketball and volleyball) can receive somewhere between $2000 and $4000 more per year to help cover things like travel and other college kid expenses.  Conferences not part of the “Power 5” can choose to apply this to their schools or not – just depends on how much money you have.

I’m not going to go on a rant here but if you want to know how I really feel about this feel free to meet me at a local establishment and we’ll talk about it over a beverage.

There were some other things established but nothing that is too interesting for here.  I’m sure this is just the beginning of what should probably be referred to quasi-amateur sports (football and basketball college athletics).

 “V” Movies

This is the 21st of a 24 part series (we’re almost done!) 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 only own four “V” movies, here is the list from best to worst …..

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

Vacation (1983, 93 min, R, 7.4, $61m) – The original that started it all and spawned at least three sequels starred Chevy Chase and was directed by Harold Ramis.  This is probably Chevy Chase’s most recognizable role as Clark Griswold and has classic scene after classic scene.  The only sequel, in my opinion, that is close to this one is Christmas Vacation, but even it doesn’t come close having the amount of laughs as this one.  Did you know the original ending didn’t involve the theme park and rollercoasters?  Originally Clark goes to Roy Wally’s house with a BB gun and then on the plane ride home (which is the wrong plane) Clark snaps and hijacks the plane.  Apparently the test audiences didn’t like it and the theme parks scenes were hastily shot.  Great movie, lots of laughs and Chevy Chase at his best!

VHS (2012, 116 min, R, 5.8, $100k) – This (and its two sequels) are referred to as found footage “horror anthology” because it’s a collection of short films put together to make a feature length movie.  In VHS there is also a wraparound story that supposedly ties everything together.  The plot is a group of young punks are hired to rob a house and get a rare VHS tape and when they watch the tapes they get more than they bargained for.  I thought it was such a cool idea for a movie that I bought #2 (see below).  If you get tired of one part of the movie, don’t worry it’ll be over soon and another original story is soon to follow.  I don’t know how this movie didn’t get popular enough for a national release but unfortunately it didn’t so not too many people have seen it.

VHS 2 (2013, 96 min, R, 6.1, 21k) – I could easily put this one ahead of the original, and in many ways it’s superior, but it’s basically the same idea.  There are fewer short films in this one (four compared to six in the original) but they are of a little better quality because they probably had a little more money to work with.  The great thing about these movies are the parts are so short it’s easier to be creative because you don’t have to stretch the idea for 90 minutes.  Also each different section of the movie is made by a different film maker so it keep the movies very fresh.  If you like horror movies and haven’t seen any of these make sure to check one out.

Vegas Vacation (1997, 93 min, PG, 5.9, 39m) – This was the final of four “Vacation” movies (although there was also Hotel Hell Vacation in 2010 that was only on video and some sort of new version of the original Vacation being released this October).  This version was decent but by 1997 Chevy Chase’s popularity and comedic skills had deteriorated.  This was basically a family movie as compared to the more adult humor of the original.  It’s not a bad movie, and some of the parts are quite funny (especially gambling at the cheap casinos) but the best parts probably include Randy Quaid as Cousin Eddie.  I acquired this move in the Vacation DVD pack so I’d say it was worth the $5.  For lovers of the series it’s a bit of a letdown but as a cheesy family film it’s not too bad.

Next week

I’ll be back to report on our first overnight trip of the year to Lincoln, Nebraska, as well as talking about six “W” movies that include one of the best track movies of all time, a professional wrestler and a wolf.

Until then, thanks for reading and Go Shocks!

Shocker T&F opens the season and a preview of the first ever WSU/KU/KSU Triangular

The indoor season has begun and we have a lot going on already!

Bill Easton Classic

The Shocker Track & Field crew got the season started at the Bill Easton Classic at the University of Kansas Friday.  Normally we don’t compete this early in the season but for multiple reasons our staff decided to have our team come back a week early compared to previous years.

We only had one regular team practice before the meet so our marks were almost entirely a result of how well our kids trained over the holiday – and after having a chance to look over the results I’d say our team trained well on their own.

There were team scores kept although I’m sure none of the teams entered the meet in a way to try and maximize their point totals.  For what it’s worth here were the top teams in the DI scored portion of the meet:

MEN:  Wichita St 226, Kansas 191, Kansas St 138

WOMEN:  Kansas 205, Wichita St 192, Kansas St 170

Those three teams will square off in another scored meet this week, more on that below.

As for this season opener, I think our throws coach John Hetzendorf put it best – it was a 50/50 kind of meet.  What he meant was 50% of the team had a good meet and 50% of the team definitely has some things to work on to be ready for a higher level of competition.

As for my group of sprinters I’d say I agreed with “Dorf”.  There were some terrific performances for so early in the year but it left us knowing how much work we have to do to be ready in late February for a run at a couple of MVC championships.

Overall as a team we had 13 new personal records set Friday, four of them came from the sprint/hurdle group.

Good first meet for the Shockers, now let’s start progressing!

First ever WSU/KU/KSU Indoor Triangular this week!

We have two meets on the schedule this week and I will start with the second one, the WSU/KU/KSU Triangular, this year hosted by Kansas State University.

For years Coach Rainbolt has tried to get the three DI Kansas teams together for “The Battle of Kansas” so to speak.  The head coaches at each school have never been able to make it happen but late last spring everyone finally came to an agreement on a three year series that would rotate between the schools.  Kansas will host in 2016, Wichita State will host in 2017.  Hopefully we will continue the series after 2017.

 

Kansas, Kansas State and Missouri used to have a triangular that ended around 2006 so adding Wichita State and creating this meet seemed like a no brainer.  I’m not sure why it took so long to happen but nevertheless we are excited to be part of it.  Last year during the outdoor season we actually had a similar meet at Kansas State but it also included Air Force Academy so it wasn’t a true Kansas triangular.  We think this is the first meet with all three schools competing like this.

Here are some of the rules for the meet:

--Limit of 26 men and 26 women in the meet

--Big 12 meet events (so that means we will add the 600 yards and 1000m to the regular events)

--Scoring will be International style – top two for each team score 7-5-4-3-2-1

--Separate team scores will be kept for each gender but a traveling trophy will go with the team with the best combined (men and women) score

With only 26 athletes per team competing we will be making some tough decisions on who to take.  It’s different than picking the MVC team because of 1) the two per scoring style and 2) there is no Pentathlon/Heptathlon of which we have many quality athletes.

Can we will the meet?  I don't know.  We won the outdoor meet last year but it was a different scoring format and our team is much stronger outdoor because of the Javelin and 400m hurdles.  We respect Kansas and Kansas State tremendously and will be trying our best to take home the trophy.  It should be a great afternoon of track and field!

I would hope anyone who is in the vicinity of Manhattan, Kansas, would come to the meet Saturday.  There will be lots of home grown Kansas athletes and it’s a short time schedule.  The field events begin at 11am, running events at 1pm and the meet will be over around 3:30pm.

Come support the Shockers as we try to take down our friendly rivals from the Sunflower State!

Shocker Prelude

For those athlete who aren’t competing at Kansas State Saturday we will be hosting the Shocker Prelude at the Heskett Center on Friday.  We have a lot of terrific athletes that won’t go to K-State so this is definitely an important meet for them in terms of trying to progress from last week and make the MVC team.

We will have competition from Emporia State, Fort Hays State, Friends University and Butler County.  We’ll live stream the meet so go to GoShockers.com for all the info!

Hopefully we will see a lot of Shocker fans either Friday in Wichita or Saturday in Manhattan!

 “U” Movies

This is the 20th of a 24 part series (we’re almost done!) 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 only own one “U” movie but it’s my all-time favorite …..

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

Up in the Air (2009, 109 min, R, 7.5, $166m) – I’m not shy to tell people that this is my favorite movie.  I don’t expect everyone else to think it’s awesome because I think each person’s favorite movie is their favorite for specific reasons to them.  The reasons I love this movie are plentiful but before I get to that here’s the IMDB synopsis: With a job traveling around the country firing people, Ryan Bingham enjoys his life living out of a suitcase, but finds that lifestyle threatened by the presence of a new hire and a potential love interest.  Bingham is played by George Clooney, the new hire is Anna Kendrick and the love interest is Vera Farmiga.  First of all this is just a flat-out funny movie – not the laugh out loud kind of stuff but the clever, subtle comedy that also gives the opportunity to have deeper scenes of a serious nature when appropriate.  Also, it doesn’t have a typical, predictable ending and I always appreciate when a movie doesn’t take the easy way out.  But most significantly the reason this is MY favorite movie is because of how closely I can relate to Clooney’s character.  Without going way to long into explanation let’s just say I can relate to his love of traveling and his single, non-married and no kids lifestyle and perspective on life.  The happy, yet single adult male genre is almost exclusively ignored in our society in terms of media because to be happy we all have to find that special someone and procreate – without that what purpose do we have on this planet?  This movie is about living life each day and loving who you are even if it doesn’t fit in to our societal norms.  I recommend anyone to give it a watch and even if you don’t love it for the same reasons I do, I’m sure you’ll get plenty of chuckles and appreciate what you have in your life.

Here is a clip of my favorite scene in the movie. (warning adult language)

Next week

Hopefully I’ll be back to report on how we beat KU and K-State but even if we don’t win the meet I’ll let everyone know how it went in Manhattan as well as the Shocker Prelude.  I’ll also be previewing our first overnight trip of the year to the University of Nebraska.  Next week will be “V” movies.  I own four of them and two might have to do with Chevy Chase.

Until then, thanks for reading and Go Shocks!

Back for some blogging (I hope)

I used to do a pretty regular blog back in the Trackshark days but really haven’t been able to in a long time.  With there being a little break in our upcoming schedule I thought I’d try to get back into the groove. If Joe Eby has time to do it then so do I!  I also don’t get to see my family very often and hopefully this can keep them up to date.

I’m not going to give a long, wordy recap the previous 38 years of my life.

In a nutshell …  Years 1-18:  Brown County, Ohio, sports geek, grew up on a farm, was known as the fast white guy.

Years 19-28:  Kent, Ohio, Golden Flash athlete and coach, love my alma mater, best decision I could’ve made, lucky to make lifelong memories and friends.

Years 29-31:  Back to Southern Ohio, coached HS track and was self-employed, finally learned what I wanted to do in life (coach track and field), great experience, humbling.

Years 32-present:  Wichita, Kansas, Shockers, reunited with my former coach Steve Rainbolt, unbelievably lucky to fall into a great job, living the dream in the Great Plains.

Other than that I generally make every decision in life so that it will result in happiness.  Money isn’t a great motivator in my life and neither is the passion to procreate.

Want to know anything else?  Just ask.  This is beginning to feel like an online dating profile.

I’m hoping to be pretty open and honest about what I do and what is going on here in Wichita.  The only thing I am limited by is there are NCAA rules that us coaches have to abide by.  For example I could never mention where I’m going on a recruiting trip.  I also love my job and don’t want to get fired!

Ok so on to more current topics!  We just had our annual end of semester track meet yesterday at the Heskett Center.  This year we called it the Shocker Prelude instead of the Intersquad Meet (one of those NCAA things).  Overall it went very well, I think as a team we looked as good as we could in an early season meet like this.  We had a great atmosphere created by our team and it inspired some good things to happen.  As is always the case with track and field, there were also some below average performances but as long as our athletes use this as a motivator to get better they will be fine.

We’re not sure how good our team will be this year but for the past several years we have always been in the hunt for the MVC Championship on both the men’s and women’s side.  Our men have more returning points and the women are young and talented.  Yesterday gave us an indicator about a few things but we really won’t know how we stack up for at least 6-8 weeks.  The MVC is a very good conference and just looking through some early results it appears this will be another tough year to win a title.  A new team, Loyola, has been added the league and they will give us fits in a lot of places (for me it’s the sprints and relays).

After the meet we had our annual track banquet to honor last year’s seniors and teams.  This is always one of my favorite weekends and last night was no different.  Over 300 people were in attendance and a great time was had by all.  Afterwards we were able to have a fun night with our alumni.  The track season has officially begun!

This week will be low key as our athletes finish up their finals and head home for the holidays.  They have over a month of training on their own so this time will make or break our indoor season.  What other sport would take a month off right before the season begins?  Everyone is in the same boat so we just need to do our job and be ready for practice when we get back in January.

If I’m able to do this weekly then the next time I post I will be on my way to Orlando for the annual USTFCCCA convention.  Since it’s 25 degrees in Wichita today I will definitely be looking forward to that, as well as seeing a bunch of coaching friends from across the country.

Since this past week has been hectic and exhausting, the rest of the weekend will be spent watching football and Shocker basketball.  And sleeping.