Recruiting heats up, Shocker XC is over and Abraham Lincoln edges Jim Carrey

The fall is flying by as we only have a few weeks left of practice before our athletes go home for the holidays.

Track

Our sprint/hurdle group continues to grind away and I can say I’ve been very happy with our progress this fall.  As you may remember I made some observations about our group after our October testing sessions that I was cautiously optimistic about this group.  Even though we haven’t had any competitions yet I can say I have been impressed thus far.

Our guy’s group works very well together and it shows in their workout results.  This group has chemistry as good as any group I’ve ever coached – and they are pretty talented too.  Our young women’s group continues to improve each week and our speed endurance workouts are evidence of that fact.  I still believe both groups will have some struggles that everyone has when we start the competitive season but I am excited even more for the season to start with each week that passes.

We are a little over two weeks from our Intersquad Meet on December 5^th at the Heskett Center.  Next Sunday/Monday, however, we will be having our Intersquad Heptathlon/Pentathlon so we will get to see some actual competition soon!

Recruiting

We’re currently in the middle of the early signing period (which runs through Wednesday).  So far we have four commitments and we expect a few more before the deadline later this week.  Next week I should be able to link to a press release about our early signees.

Recruiting has been our major focus over the past few weeks as around 30 high schoolers have made official visits to our university.  Not all of those athletes will make a decision this week but the new date of the early signing period (last year the signing period began in February) has definitely sped up the recruiting process for many athletes.

The next signing period won’t begin until April but we’ll continue recruiting every week all the way through the summer.  We know we will find athletes in April and May that we don’t know about now.  Every year we find out about athletes at the state track meet in June and try to convince them to be Shockers.  Recruiting never stops!

Cross Country

The cross country team ended their season with 12^th (women) and 15^th (men) place finishes at the NCAA Midwest Regional Championships Friday.  Our women ran much better than at the MVC meet (they were the second team from the MVC at Regionals) and Coach Hunter seemed pleased with the results.  Now that the cross country season is over the distance squad can take a little breather until the indoor season – although I saw many of them running just a few hours after returning from Regionals Saturday morning.  Distance runners never take a break!

It’s a tough season for the distance runners because of how long the competitive season is.  The only month that some of them don’t compete is usually July.  I have a lot of respect for all the distance runners in the NCAA, they are truly warriors!

Speaking of Cross Country

 

Kevin Costner has done a bunch of different sports movies throughout his career and now he can check Cross Country off his list.  He is starring in the new movie “McFarland, USA”, which tells the true story of a “high school coach from California that transforms his team into a championship contender.”  It is set to open in February.

Here’s a link to the trailer, looks interesting ….. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74eJaVQFybI

Shocker Basketball

Another exciting year of Wichita State Basketball is underway.  What an awesome time to be working in the WSU Athletic Department with all the excitement our basketball team brings.  I went to the season opening win against New Mexico State and it appears we are very good again this year.  I can’t imagine we will go 35-0 again but look for these guys to be one of the best teams in the nation!

“L” Movies

This is the 12th 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 170 movies (and growing most weeks) on DVD.

Most of the movies I own I had previously seen and enjoyed immensely.  Some are movies that I had not seen but was curious about.  Some were gifts from people with bad tastes in movies.

I own seven “L” movies so here is the list from best to worst …..

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

Lincoln (2012, 150 min, PG-13, 7.4, $275m) – This story of Abraham Lincoln is very fascinating and incredibly well played by Daniel Day-Lewis.  It’s very dialogue driven but if you are into history and great acting then you will like this movie.  Steven Spielberg directed and Sally Field played Lincoln’s crazy wife.  Seeing him deal with his family issues while battling slavery and all the other politics of the time really puts some perspective on how great of a leader Lincoln was.

Liar Liar (1997, 86 min, PG-13, 6.8, $302m) – I think this may be Jim Carrey’s best movie.  Movies like Pet Detective and Dumb and Dumber are certainly funny but this movie is vey well made as well as being hilarious throughout.  The plot, which has Carrey being a lawyer and not being able to lie, is secondary to how he totally gets into the character.  This movie is almost 20 years old but it holds up extremely well.

The Longest Yard (1974, 121 min, R, 7.1, $43m) – Burt Reynolds stars as a former pro quarterback who is sent to prison and is recruited to put together a team of inmates to take on the prison guards.  This isn’t the Adam Sandler remake (which was ok), the original is much better and Reynolds was at the top of his game, literally.  In fact Reynolds was a former football player and looked the part.  It’s hard to believe that some of the great football movies were made before the NFL became our most popular sport.

Little Miss Sunshine (2006, 101 min, R, 7.9, $100m) – This quirky movie about a family trying to get their little girl to a beauty pageant is both very funny and touching.  It was one of those little independent movies that caught a lot of momentum at the right time and made quite a bit of money on a very small budget.  Steve Carell is the most famous actor in the movie although he isn’t the main character.  Good stuff, check it out if you have a chance!

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998, 107 min, R, 8.2, $3.7m) – Director Guy Ritchie became best known for directing the movie Snatch with Brad Pitt but Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels was his first actual full length movie.  If you’ve seen Snatch then this movie will feel familiar.  It’s funny, dramatic and had a great plot full of regular guys who become criminals out of necessity.  It’s also one of Jason Statham’s early movies (who was also in Snatch).  Hopefully Ritchie comes back to directing this type of movie again someday.

The Last House on the Left (1972, 84 min, X, 6.0, $10m) – This was Wes Craven’s first major movie and the low budget horror movie (made for $90,000) quickly became a cult classic because of its gritty filming and X-rated violence.  After this movie Craven went on to direct horror classics like The Hills Have Eyes and Nightmare on Elm Street.  Last House is worth viewing if you are into low budget horror movies but it’s not for the squeamish!

The Lonely Guy (1984, 90 min, R, 6.2, $5.7m) – I bought this as part of a 4-pack of Steve Martin movies and have yet to watch it.  IMDB describes it as “A writer for a greeting card company learns the true meaning of loneliness when he comes home to find his girlfriend in bed with another man.”  Hmmm not sure if I will watch it anytime soon, haha!

All of these movies (except possibly the last one) are definitely worth viewing.

Next Week

I should be able to list some of our new recruits for next year as well as listing the 10 “M” movies I own.  Who will be at the top with titles like Major League, Moneyball and Machete?

Until then, thanks for reading and 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!

Shocker Cross Country is off to a fast start, Dorf got married and I own a lot of "D" movies

Another week has rolled by and we’re starting to see what kind of team we have this year.

I have to start with our cross country team because they really ran well this weekend at Nebraska.  Obviously I’m not an expert on distance running but I’ve been around a lot of great coaches and athletes in my lifetime.  We’ve had some really good cross country teams at WSU and some really average ones.  It looks like we have a couple of really good ones this year and so far they are undefeated through the first two meets of the fall.

We thought our women’s team would be pretty solid but they appear to be coming around more quickly than we thought.  There’s a good mix of veterans and rookies and you never know how long it will take to mesh.  After easily defeating the likes of Nebraska, Air Force, Northern Iowa, Miami and Northern Colorado this weekend on top of edging Kansas State two weeks ago, I have to imagine they are starting to turn some heads.

Same for the men in terms of turning heads.  It wasn’t as easy but they beat all the same teams this weekend and seem to be coming together very nicely.  Coach Hunter’s teams don’t have any superstars and seem to be working together to prove the preseason MVC rankings of fifth and sixth wrong.

The next meet will be a step up in competition at the University of Arkansas in two weeks.  I’m going to travel over with the team so I’ll be able to see their progress in person.  Good stuff!

As for the rest of the team, it will take a little longer to see what we have although after a few weeks of practice I think we are cautiously optimistic.  We had another good week of practice and the newcomers are starting to look less like newcomers than a few weeks ago.  We’re about midway through our preseason conditioning phase and each week is better than the previous.

In preseason conditioning we have two main goals.  The first is to, obviously, get the team into shape.  Basically we’re trying to get everyone to the point of being able to train specifically for their event in about six weeks.  If they have done a nice job in the summer then this phase is usually fun.  If they haven’t done a good job in the summer then it’s pretty miserable.  Luckily we’ve had a lot of fun so far.

The second part of preseason conditioning is trying to get the team to become more of a “team”.  We purposely have large groups of athletes running, jumping and lifting together so they can get to know each other.  We demand our team come together at championship time but it’s a whole lot easier if they can come together earlier in the year.  It’s very tough because we have over 60 athletes on each team and just getting to know most of your teammates is very time consuming.  So far we’ve mostly just focused on learning to practice together but we’ll have some other team building activities coming up in the last few weeks conditioning.

The newcomers, and especially the freshmen, are always the last to figure out the “team thing”.  They have a lot on their plate when they first get to campus but pretty soon we will be expecting them to get up to the level of their teammates in terms of teamwork and work ethic.

Like I’ve said before, so far so good, but it’s really too early to know what kind of team we have.

Coach Hetzendorf gets married!

For the second time in as many months, one of our coaches got married this weekend.  Our throws coach (and my former teammate at Kent State) John Hetzendorf got married to Amber McGown in a beautiful outdoor ceremony in Wichita.  Amber was a terrific distance runner for Cornell and Oregon and we have already decided to recruit their kids.

My job for their wedding was to play certain music before and during the wedding ceremony.  I’m not sure what Amber was thinking putting me in charge but luckily I didn’t mess it up and everything turned out great.  Even the forecast of rain stayed away – I’d say it was a good way to start for the Hetzendorf’s!

Congrats to John and Amber!

“D” Movies

This is the fourth 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 150 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.

Here is the list of my 15 “D” movies from best to worst (this is the most movies in any letter I own) …..

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

Dallas Buyers Club (2013, 117 min, R, 8.0, $55.1m) – You can hardly recognize Matthew McConaughey as a man diagnosed with AIDS in the early 1980’s.  He lost over 50 lbs for this role and the dedication to his craft was as inspirational as anything I’ve ever seen on film.  On top of that this is a great movie about a subject that is sometimes hard to talk about.

Django Unchained (2012, 165 min, R, 8.5, $425m) – Since Pulp Fiction I’ve always been a fan of Quentin Tarantino and this may be his best movie yet.  Brutal and funny with a completely different perspective on the issue of slavery, Django left a significant impression on me.  Jamie Foxx is one talented dude!

Dazed and Confused (1993, 102 min, R, 7.7, $7.9m) – One of Richard Linklater’s first movies and definitely one of his best.  It follows a bunch of high school kids on their last day of school.  It doesn’t really have a lot of drama but it’s a great snapshot of a time in life that is captured very well.  This was Matthew McConaughey’s first movie and what a great creepy guy he played!

Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964, 95 min, PG, 8.5, $9.4m) – One of director Stanley Kubrick’s most well liked movies despite the longest name ever, haha.  It’s a dark comedy about an insane general who tries to start a nuclear war while a bunch of bumbling politicians try to stop it.  The more I watch it the more I like this crazy old movie.

Death Race (2008, 105 min, R, 6.4, $75.6m) – You won’t see a lot of action movies in my collection but I am a Jason Statham fan and I loved the original Death Race 2000 movie (see below).  They did a great job making this movie stylish and funny while keeping it entertaining throughout.  Although it’s not the same story as the original it’s a great new version of the old absurd concept of killing people with your car.

The Departed (2006, 151 min, R, 8.5, $289m) – What’s not to like here?  A great action/drama with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars directed by Martin Scorsese.  I wouldn’t say this movie is the most original movie in the world but its fun and entertaining the whole way.  Jack Nicholson as a bad guy always makes a movie better!

Donnie Darko (2001, 113 min, R, 8.1, $1.2m) – This is a really weird movie where a teenager (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) has visions of a bunny rabbit that makes him commit crimes.  Yes, I said it was a bit weird.  But it’s really a great movie when you sit down and give it a watch.  It is full of emotions and great acting for a movie with such a small budget.

Death Race 2000 (1975, 80 min, R, 6.2, $???) – The plot is ridiculous (a cross country race where you gain points by killing people with you car) and the acting is atrocious (one of Sylvester Stallone’s first movies). But somehow it caught on as a cult classic and luckily I saw it as a kid.  You don’t watch movies like this to comment on its artistic beauty.  You watch it with your buddies and laugh at how ridiculous it is.

Dan in Real Life (2007, 98 min, PG-13, 6.8, $68.3m) – I’m a big Steve Carrel fan and this movie shows off some of his non-comedic talent.  There’s a part where he’s singing “Let my love open the door” with Dane Cook that motivated me to learn how to play a guitar so I could show off to girls.

Don Jon (2013, 90 min, R, 6.7, $30.4m) – Written and directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, this movie takes a completely different perspective on a “love story”.  Even though the subject matter is a bit risqué, I definitely found this movie very entertaining and thought provoking.

Deliverance (1972, 110 min, R, 7.8, $???) – A white water rafting trip that goes to hell is a pretty good summary of this classic starring Burt Reynolds.  This was a very controversial film in the 1970’s and still makes some people uncomfortable viewing it today.  One of the more beautiful scenes, however, is their version of dueling banjos – great stuff!

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988, 110 min, PG, 7.3, $42m) – This is a funny little movie with Michael Caine and Steve Martin who try to continually top each other by being seeing who can be the best con man.  There are some really funny scenes and a twist ending that seems appropriate for the two scoundrels.

The Doors (1991, 140 min, R, 7.2, $34.4m) – A biopic movie of the popular and controversial band The Doors with lead singer Jim Morrison.  It was directed by Oliver Stone so it has a bunch of weird scenes where he tries to be very artsy.  It’s entertaining but a little bit too long.  I like it but I probably would like a documentary of the band just as well.

Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982, 88 min, PG, 6.8, $18.1m) – This is an early Steve Martin film that was probably way ahead of it’s time.  It’s a parody of a detective story from the 1940’s or 1950’s where this movie is blended with scenes from older movies and stars like Cagney, Douglas, etc.  It probably needs to be watched more than once to appreciate it.  I’ve only seen it once.

The Da Vinci Code (2006, 149 min, PG-13, 6.5, $758m) – I always thought this was an interesting premise – clues in Da Vinci paintings that lead to religious mysteries that could shake the foundations of Christianity.  Unfortunately it never really connected with me but apparently it did with many others as it made over $700 million worldwide.

Whew that was a lot of movies!  Luckily next week I only have 4 “E” movies.

Go Shocks!

Shocker XC wins at home, I'm an ESPN hater, and Bull Durham edges Beverly Hills Cop

It was a successful weekend for the Shocker Cross Country squad as we hosted our annual early season meet, the JK Gold Classic.

We had 16 colleges and 11 high schools attend our meet this year and the Shockers came away with the double victory, taking down Division I opponents Kansas St and Oral Roberts.  The DI portion of the meet was scored as duals and our men came away with perfect “15’s” in both meets.  The women’s meet was much closer as we edged Kansas St 28-29.  The difference was getting our sixth and seventh runners in ahead of KSU’s fifth.

Although it’s very early in the season and winning a meet like this doesn’t mean a whole lot in the big picture, I’m sure Coach Hunter and the cross country crew will head to Nebraska in two weeks with a little more confidence.  Being picked fifth (women) and sixth (men) in the preseason MVC poll has motivated our team.  Good job Shocks!

Hosting a cross country meet isn’t nearly as difficult as putting on a big track meet but there is still a lot to do. We have our entire 130 person team out on the course working at 7am.  It’s a good way to do some team building and even though most college kids aren’t that excited to get up early on a Saturday morning and drive 30 minutes out into the country, once they get there they generally have a good time.  It also helped that it was a beautiful morning in the mid 60’s and 70’s – perfect for cross country!

This was our first week of getting our entire group together for track practice as well.  It’s always interesting to see how the first few workouts go.  We get to see who put in work this summer and who did not.  I’d say overall our kids look pretty solid.  Our men probably look a little better than our women but that is to be expected since they are more experienced.  It’s too early to tell how good we’ll be but looking at our groups work out last week reminded me of how talented we are.  Now the grind of the fall has begun and we will try to mold them into a team – getting in shape and teaching them how to work together in search of our goals.

The fall training seems like an endless stage of training because the meets are so far away so you have to try to mix things up to not get bored.  I like to get away from the track as much as possible so we will go off campus for workouts from time to time.  Most of our work on the actual track will be warmups and sprinting.

Our track schedule should be posted on our website this week.  Next week I’ll talk a little bit about how we put our schedule together and where we’re going this year!

I don’t like ESPN anymore

I’m old enough to remember when ESPN got started and for a sports geek like me it was heaven.  Unfortunately I have changed my opinion of the “World Wide Leader in Sports” lately.

Like most sports fans I used to watch SportsCenter religiously and it was always a great place to get scores and see the great highlights from around the world of sports.  A few years ago SportsCenter started turning more and more into human interest stories and accordingly I started losing interest.  This is not why I have now turned away from ESPN, however.

As ESPN started focusing more on “stories” than the actual sporting events I became less interested.  But one moment put me over the top and I have been on an ESPN boycott ever since.

In mid-May, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban made some comments after all the racist stuff about the Clippers’ owner Donald Sterling came out.  Cuban, not defending Sterling but being honest about himself, basically said all of us have discriminatory tendencies and if it was late at night and he saw a black kid with a hoodie walking down the street he would go to the other side. Then if he saw a white kid who is bald and with tattoos on his head on that side he would walk back to the original side of the street.

It was an honest, straightforward, non-racist answer to a question.  But like so many other things in the sports world today, ESPN turned it into a “Mark Cuban is racist” story and only focused on the images of Trayvon Martin in a hoodie aspect. 

Now I’m not really all that interested in sitting here and talking about racism, but my point is that instead of reporting about sports ESPN decided to take an opinionated stance on this issue and make it out to be more than it was.  And ESPN has consistently done this more and more over the years to the point that I couldn’t take it anymore.

Last year I mentioned how ESPN.com is probably my favorite website and that the information on there is as good as it gets.  Well after this deal I decided only to watch live sporting events on ESPN and only to look at their website for statistical information regarding those events.  Since May, my brain has not been inundated with ESPN’s slant on anything and I have to say I haven’t been more at peace!

I heard people talking about Johnny Manziel and Michael Sam.  I didn’t pay it any attention because neither of those guys are significant in actually playing in the NFL.  They’re just stories.  As I get older I guess I feel like I’ve heard enough of the “stories” and mostly just want to see or hear about the sport – now that I think about it that’s why I fell in love with sports in the first place – the actual competition and the story that evolves from that competition.  There is a place for stories to be told on ESPN and the 30 for 30 series is great – they should leave it to people who know how to tell stories properly.

So if you are a big sports fan and want to continue to love sports for what they are – avoid anything on ESPN that isn’t a live sporting event and you’ll be just fine.  There are plenty of other channels and shows on television for made up drama.

“B” Movies

Last week I gave my best “A” movies that I own, here is my list of 12 “B” movies from best to worst …..

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

Bull Durham (1988, 108 min, R, 7.1, $50.8m) – The movie that made Kevin Costner famous is one of my favorite movies of all time.  The life of a career minor league baseball player is done about as well as possible.  “Don’t think, it can only hurt the ballclub.”

Beverly Hills Cop (1984, 105 min, R, 7.3, $316.3m) – Eddie Murphy at his peak.  Everything he did around this time was the funniest thing on the planet.

Buck (2011, 88 min, PG, 7.6, $4m) – Documentary about Buck Brannaman, who was the original “horse whisperer”.  Wonderful and inspiring story that will make you feel good about humanity.  I was lucky to have stumbled upon it, if you can find it you should watch it ASAP.

Black Swan (2010, 108 min, R, 8.0, $329.3m) – On top of being just a flat out great movie, who wouldn’t like that Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis make out scene?

Beverly Hills Cop II (1987, 100 min, R, 6.4, $299.9m) – A really great sequel.  1980’s Eddie Murphy could do no wrong.  He even made Judge Reinhold look funny in this one.

Bowfinger (1999, 97 min, PG-13, 6.4, $98.6m) – I’m realizing Eddie Murphy made a lot of “B” movies.  This one with Steve Martin is really, really funny in my opinion.  One of Murphy’s best performances is him playing “Kit”.

Burn After Reading (2008, 96 min, R, 7.0, $$163.7m) – Another quirky, funny, off-beat, and entertaining movie by the Coen Brothers.  Brad Pitt as the over excitable gym trainer is my favorite character in the movie.

Ben-Hur (1959, 212 min, PG, 8.2, $74m) – Charleton Heston as a Jewish prince who becomes a slave and has the most intense chariot race ever!  It’s long as heck but the chariot race towards the end is all worth it.

Bruce Almighty (2003, 101 min, PG-13, 6.7, $484.5m) – Jim Carey and Steve Carrell were hilarious in this funny flick. Lot of other people must have thought so too as it made almost half a billion dollars worldwide!

Boiler Room (2000, 120 min, R, 7.0, $28.7m) – Basically a lower budget version of the Wolf of Wall Street with Vin Deisel and Ben Affleck.  Great little movie that if it was made today would’ve made a lot more money.

Black Sheep (1996, 87 min, PG-13, 6.2, $32.4m) – Underrated follow-up to Tommy Boy by Chris Farley and David Spade.  Who would ever forget the RO-AAAAAAAADS scene?  “Sir you were driving 7 miles per hour.”

Beverly Hills Cop III (1994, 104 min, R, 5.4, $119.2m) – Luckily Eddie Murphy has announced Beverly Hills Cop IV will come out in 2016 so we can all forget #3 ever happened.  I only own this because it came in the 3-pack with #1 and #2.

Lots of great movies here!  I would say all of them except the last one are worth a viewing!

See you next week!  Go Shocks!

Cross Country has begun, Tony Stewart, Danica Patrick, and my "A" movies

It seems like not long ago our track season was just completed (actually it wasn’t long ago with summer meets) and now we are already into our cross country season.  Our cross country team took some of their younger runners down to Tulsa Saturday to get some experience and see who might be contending for top-7 spots in bigger meets this year.  Overall the young Shocks ran pretty well and this week the whole team will run when we host our only home cross country meet of the year.

The JK Gold Classic, named for former Shocker head coach John “JK” Kornelson, is held at the RAFT in Augusta, Kansas.  The RAFT stands for Retired Area for Teachers and is an old sand green golf course.  That’s right – sand greens.

Once upon a time sand green golf courses outnumbered what we consider regular golf courses today, especially in the Midwest when both summer grass strains and irrigation systems were rare.  From the tee to green, golf on sand green courses is the same as regular golf.  On chips and short pitches players can be more aggressive since the greens are flat and the ball stops immediately.  Putting on the green is obviously a unique experience.  Next to every green are a roller and a rake.  Players smooth a path from their ball to the hole, and well, you just have to see it to believe it.

So if you’re a cross country fan or want to check out a sand green golf course, come out to the RAFT this Saturday morning!

This past week we had our newcomers a week early for practice to get a head start on their upperclassmen teammates.  It was a solid week of learning and training, hopefully some of these youngsters can make an immediate impact on our team.  Usually you can’t depend on freshmen to be significant contributors right away but I think we have a few that can make a difference.  We also have some transfers from both 2-year and 4-year colleges that need to be ready this year!

We will get the rest of the squad going this week with our pre-season conditioning.

NASCAR

I usually don’t get too opinionated on here but I thought I would give my two cents on a couple of items in another form of racing – NASCAR.  I feel that I have some credibility considering I grew up in the racing world and was a passionate racer from the age of 6 until I went to college.  I raced all around the Midwest on both asphalt road courses and dirt ovals, often competing against kids who are now in NASCAR and IndyCar.

When I heard about Tony Stewart hitting a fellow driver and killing him during a dirt track race, I felt terrible.  Unfortunately, deaths from motor sports have been part of its long history and usually no one is to blame when something bad happens.  Obviously this was different.  For those few of you who don’t know, Stewart and Kevin Hall had a wreck where Hall’s car wound up in the outside wall and Stewart raced on.  Hall, visibly upset that he was wrecked on purpose, got out of his car and walked down into the racing line, eventually being hit and killed by Stewart’s car on the next lap.

After this happened there were many, many people felt that Tony Stewart purposely ran over Hall, or hit him when he was trying to give him a scare.  These people wanted Stewart to be put in prison for murder.  While Tony Stewart is probably the only person who knows exactly what happened, let me explain something about what probably occurred.

First of all, a large portion of the blame (if not all) is to be put on Hall for walking down into the racing line.  I can tell you from experience when you are driving around a track, seeing a person standing in the middle of the track would immediately throw you off guard because you don’t look down and across the track when you are driving.  You look directly in front of you or to the side.  There was a car in front of Stewart who also almost ran into Hall right before Stewart did.  Next, they were driving on dirt.  If you are driving on dirt and turn left to avoid a wreck (or in this case a person), your back end of the car will slide out – and the rear right wheel is what hit Kevin Hall.  I imagine Stewart saw Hall at the last second, turned left and the right wheel slid out and got him.

For those of you who think Stewart should go away for murder I feel you are wrong.  I believe in innocent until being proved guilty.  Was Stewart at fault?  I don’t know and neither do you.  What I do know is Hall played a major role in his own death.  What percentage was his fault?  I don’t know that either but I would guess it was at least 95% his fault, maybe 100%.  If you think Hall wasn’t at fault then you don’t understand racing.

I generally try to listen to everyone’s opinion with an open mind but some people make it tough for me on this one.  If I don’t understand something – for instance like how to run electrical wiring in a house – then I won’t give my opinion.  Let’s all take that advice!

NASCAR part 2

While we are talking about NASCAR I want to mention another person who is a lightning rod for controversy – Danica Patrick.  She just finished sixth this weekend in Atlanta which was her career best.  What I find interesting about Danica is that the people who hate on her the most are women.  I just don’t get it, I would think women would be celebrating Danica and how she is busting through barriers that no woman has ever done.

Her naysayers give the opinion that she is only there because she’s pretty and can bring in money.  Once again these are very uneducated people.  Danica has been a good racer for many years and even finished in the top-5 in the season long point standings on the IndyCar circuit.  Yes she is very pretty and that helps her bring in more sponsorships for her racing endeavors but that is the case for every male driver in NASCAR too.  They all do things to try to bring in more money, sometimes when their on track results don’t deserve it.

But here’s another way I look at it.  What other sport do women compete head to head with men?  There have never been professional women athletes in any of the major men’s sports.  Some would say driving a car isn’t like playing football or basketball – and you’re right – but it isn’t much different than playing golf.  There have been women who have tried to play events on the PGA Tour with pretty much zero success.  And how many times did the women of our country criticize them for it?  Not much at all – they were rooting for them!

Will Danica ever win a NASCAR championship?  Probably not.  But it wouldn’t surprise me if she eventually won a race or made the NASCAR playoffs.  Hey everyone – she can drive.  She’s really good and is only in her second full year in the sport.  There have been lots of pretty women to try and do what she’s doing in the past few years and no one can hold a candle to Danica.  Growing up I raced against Sarah Fisher who eventually raced Indy Cars and now is an owner.  Sarah never beat me in a race and made it to Indy Car largely because she was a decent driver and, yes, a woman.  After years of not being successful she moved into ownership and is doing much better.  Danica is so much better than Sarah, and yes she happens to be very pretty too.  Oh well.

As I was watching Danica race side by side with Carl Edwards to the finish for a top-5 I just thought – ladies, don’t be jealous, you’d be proud of your daughter if she was so talented AND pretty.

Movies

I can’t believe this but I had several people message me saying they enjoyed my take on movies so I decided on a different slant this year.  I own a couple hundred movies and people are always borrowing them so I thought each week I’d say what movies I own by letter and rank them from my favorite to least favorite.

Here are my eight “A” movies that I own from favorite to least favorite:

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

Anchorman (2004, 94 min, PG-13, 7.3, $90.5m) – If you don’t like this movie then we “agree to disagree” and you are what Ron Burgundy thinks San Diego is Spanish for.

Animal House (1978, 109 min, R, 7.6, $141.6m) – The all-time classic college comedy and you have to give it props for having Historic Hayward Field in a scene!

Audition (1999, 115 min, R, 7.3, $131k) – The last 30 minutes of this Japanese horror film totally freaked me out and I love making other people watch it and see their reaction at the end.

Airplane! (1980, 88 min, PG, 7.8, $83.4m) – This is a heckuva list when this movie is fourth!  Awesome goofball comedy that paved the way for all those Naked Gun classics.  Roger, Roger.

Attack the Gas Station! (1999, 113 min, R, $??) – Korean comedy/drama about some hooligans who try to rob a gas station and things go wrong.  I’m pretty sure I’m the only person in Kansas who has ever seen this movie.

Any Given Sunday (1999, 162 min, R, 6.8, $100.2m) – I actually like this movie a lot but this list is impressive!  A little over the top about professional football but very entertaining.  Al Pacino’s inches speech always gets me fired up!

The Aristocrats (2005, 89 min, R, 6.4, $6.8m) – Not to be mistaken with the cartoon “Aristrocrats” which is funny when you find out what this movie is about.  It’s an 89 minute long dirty joke.  I love the fact this movie got made.

Against the Ropes (2004, 110 min, PG-13, 5.2, $6.6m) – Boxing movie that was part of one of those two-CD deals with Necessary Roughness.  Watched it once, not impressed.

FYI – I don’t own too many movies that I don’t like.  I’ll have 12 “B” movies next week.

Have a great week everyone!  Go Shocks!

Shocker Track is back on the attack!

It’s great to be back!

I’ve taken quite a while off from blogging and for some reason I’ve had several people ask when I was going to start it up again.  Who knew so many people were interested in what movies I watch on a weekly basis? (sarcasm)

So what has been going on since June 17?

I went to the USA Junior Nationals in Eugene, Oregon, with a couple of our athletes at the end of June/beginning of July.  Much of July was spent traveling and recruiting – we can have in person, off campus contact beginning July 1 for rising seniors.  I’ve tried to take some time off in August and took advantage of the cooler than normal Wichita summer by playing a lot of golf.

Now school is back in session and practice has already begun.

The beginning of the school year is mostly spent helping our new student-athletes get accustomed to college life.  They are put through a variety of orientation meetings that are both informative and I’m sure long and boring for most 18 year olds.  They are a necessary evil and after a week or so the new kids are getting into a routine.

Although the cross country team started practice right away, we give our track kids a couple weeks to get their feet wet academically.  This week we will get our newcomers started with some light conditioning activities to give them a head start on their upperclassmen teammates, who generally have a much better summer in terms of training.  It’s a great time to get the newcomers on their own and start to establish “the Shocker way” of training.

The wide-eyed enthusiasm of a freshman college athlete is always refreshing.  They are very eager to work hard and learn and our first week is usually one of the most energetic of the season.  We will get the rest of the team together next week and begin the long grind of the training – working gradual and consistent in search of our goals.

What are those goals?

We talk about our goals in the first team meeting of the year, which is on the first day our athletes are on campus – winning MVC Championships.  Last year we only won one championship (women’s outdoor) and finished second three other times.  I think most programs would be very happy with finishing in the top-2 in every track championship.   We are not.

It’s not a matter of being arrogant that we think we should win even more than we do, it’s an expectation from our athletic department and ourselves to be winning as much as possible.  All of our sports at Wichita State are at or near the top of the Missouri Valley Conference and we have to hold up our end of the bargain.  Track and Field in the MVC is very competitive and we face tough opponents in every championship we compete.

This brings me to cross country.

Our program will compete in six MVC Championships this year – men’s and women indoor and outdoor track and cross country – and every one of those championships are very important.  But winning the cross country championship might be the toughest for our program.

We’ve been very fortunate to have had a string of upper level women’s distance runners in the past decade (Desiraye Osburn, Mica Land, Kellyn Johnson, Tonya Nero, Aliphine Tuliamuk) and those ladies have carried our teams to MVC Cross Country titles and runner-up finishes.  At the moment we have some really talented young women but not a front runner like the ones listed above.  On top of that, the MVC is probably the deepest and most talented it’s ever been in the women’s distance races.  There’s another factor against us as well but I’ll get to that in a minute.

Our men’s cross country team has always been solid but unable to break through to win a championship and, like the women, we don’t have a major stud to lead the way right now.  We have lots of really good guys who may be champions in the coming years and have already had success on the track.  Coach Kirk Hunter has done a great job of building a solid group of runners that should be tough come championship time.

What’s the other factor that’s against us?  Scholarship limits.

Now we’re not the only team that has this issue so I’m sure other coaches feel the same way but how it hurts us especially in cross country is that we have 18 women’s scholarships and 12.6 men’s scholarships to spread across the entire track AND cross country teams.  And believe me we put plenty of scholarship into our track teams so that leaves Coach Hunter will less money than many of his counterparts that might focus on the distance events more.  This can especially be seen on the national level where teams like Oklahoma State, Colorado, Northern Arizona, etc. focus almost all of their efforts in distance running and in turn, their track teams suffer come winter and spring.

I’m not trying to make any excuses for us but I just want to educate some of those who didn’t realize we only have one scholarship pool for all these sports.  It’s been talked about limiting how much scholarship money a school can put into cross country but I doubt that will ever happen.  Coach Hunter would never make that excuse and he continues to do a great job building his team with the resources given.

Last year our men’s team finished sixth at the MVC Championships.  Not very good huh?  Well they were only 25 points from second!  That’s how close the competition is in this conference and it looks like this year will be the same.

The Shocker Cross Country team opens up the season this weekend in Tulsa for a low-key meet.  While no one outside of WSU thinks the Shockers will be a big factor in the MVC race, our humble and hard-working kids seem to have come in ready to turn over the form charts!

While the distance crew is churning out the miles on the dusty Wichita country roads, the sprinters I work with will be putting in some good work on the 100+ degree Cessna Stadium track.

Just a typical start to the season for the Shocker T&F/CC program!