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!
