Fall testing, Bolt plays 58 holes of golf and the Tallgrass Film Festival hits Wichita

Well I haven’t been able to write much recently because I’ve been pretty busy.  October is a very busy but great month for me.  Here’s the halfway recap:

Shocker T&F makes fall transition

I tell people that October is the best month for weather in Wichita and this year has not disappointed.  We haven’t had to go indoor for any practices yet and the forecast continues to look good for the rest of the month.

We have finished our early season conditioning and have moved into the first part of our specific preparation phase.  In the middle we did some testing to see how our athletes are progressing.  Over the years we have done many different tests but have settled on seven in the past decade or so.  I created a scoring chart for each event and we make a “Heptathlon” competition out of it to create some fun and to see how an athlete improves (or occasionally doesn’t) from year to year.

The top scores are usually around 6000 points.  Heptathlete Nikki Larch-Miller broke our all-time record with a score of 6348 while jumper Shazz-Michael Lindo won the men’s competition with 6043 points.  It’s fun to have something that all the event areas (with the exception of throws and distance) can compete and get intense with in the mid-fall time period.

Overall our men had an average improvement of 56 points per person.  We had two guys who went down significantly because of injury or our average would’ve been around +120.  Our women averaged around +150 so they had some great testing results.  Of athletes who had testing in previous years, 26 out of 34 improved.  Of the eight who didn’t improve, injuries were the main reason and a few only went down a few points.

What do the testing results mean?

Testing shows us two things:  1) Where an athlete is strong or weak in specific areas and 2) How well they have prepared for the track season.

What it doesn’t tell us is how good of a season someone will have.  It can give us clues but the real work is still ahead of us in the specific preparation phases and, of course, track meets.

But overall I would say we were pleased with how the fall conditioning period went and are excited about the 2016 season!

What is the rest of the team doing?

The throwers recently completed their own testing that involved some jumping and explosive throwing events.  Coach Hetzendorf does this the first week of practice as well as after Fall Break (which was last week).  Next weekend (October 24) is the annual Throws Pentathlon in which our throwers (and others) can compete in all five throwing events (Shot Put, Discus, Hammer, Javelin and Weight Throw) in a Pentathlon-type scoring competition.  It’s a great chance to see a preview of our throwers – we have some great ones!

Cross Country has been up and down in their last couple of competitions but looks poised to finish strong at the MVC Championships.  They went over to Arkansas and ran really well placing 3^rd (men) and 4^th (women) overall with several very good performances.  This weekend they struggled a bit at the Pre-Nationals in Louisville placing 36^th (women) and 37^th (men) overall in the seeded race of over 40 teams.  We are excited to head to Evansville, Indiana, in two weeks to see how we stack up with the rest of the Valley!

Coach Rainbolt’s crazy golf-a-thon

For the 2^nd year in a row, Coach Rainbolt did a birthday challenge that involved golf and raising money for Shocker T&F.  As he will be turning 58 years old soon, he WALKED 58 holes of golf.  It took 11 hours and he covered over 23 miles!  So he basically did a marathon while playing golf.  Here is a video that was put together about his day.  HERE IS THE VIDEO.

Morning workout video

Another video that was done by one of our decathletes Seth Buck has become pretty popular.  It’s about our early morning Friday workouts we do in the Fall.  Thanks to Seth for putting this together – cool stuff!  HERE IS THE VIDEO.

Recruiting

October is a very busy month in recruiting as it seems we have potential Shockers on campus almost every day of the month.  The early signing period is less than a month away so we are working hard to get kids in on visits.  So far we only have one verbal commitment but we expect to have several more in the coming weeks.  Because of NCAA rules I can’t speak specifically about who we are recruiting or signing until they actually sign so there’s not much more I can say here.  Although I can say I’ve been on the road a few times to talk with lots of coaches and athletes and it’s one of my favorite things to do besides coaching!

This guy turned 41 last week!

Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday or was part of the festivities!  Even though I’m 41 years old I only feel like …. well probably 41.  However, I’ve been told I act younger - not sure if that’s good or bad but I’m going to take it as a compliment. J

Movies!!!

I’ve really been watching a lot of movies lately – and this weekend was the annual Tallgrass Film Festival, so I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.  Here’s a recap:

I was able to see the 1974 sci-fy classic 2001: A Space Odyssey on the big screen about two weeks ago.  I had seen bits pieces of the Stanley Kubrick movie online but never had watched it all.  My initial reaction was mixed.  It looks great and for a movie that was made over 40 years ago, it holds up extremely well in terms on what a realistic portrayal of outer space might be.  It’s just really, really, REALLY slow at times.  I’m glad a saw it, I just probably won’t try to sit through it again.

Ironically enough, the next movie I saw was also about outer space, The Martian.  It stars Matt Damon as a man that gets left behind on Mars and has to figure out how to survive for several years before he can be rescued.  I thought it was a good movie.  It had a good sense of humor and was creative in how Damon’s character fought for his life.  It was a little long but overall I recommend it.  It’s killing it at the box office as well so it’s been a very successful movie.

Next I saw the drug/illegal alien/drama movie called Sicario.  This was the best movie I’ve seen in quite a while.  It stars Emily Blount as a FBI agent that joins a task force led by Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro that is fighting the drugs wars between the US and Mexico.  It’s an intense movie from start to finish and Del Toro is definitely the guy who steals the show.  What I really liked about the movie is that you never really know who the good guys or bad guys are.  And even after the movie you’re left thinking about how you might handle the same situation.  If this is an accurate description of the current state of the drug wars then there is no simple solution that any politician running for president can figure out.

This weekend the Tallgrass Film Festival rolled into town with over 200 movies around the city of Wichita.  This is a great thing for our city and I try to get out and support it as much as possible if I’m in town.  Luckily this weekend I was!

The first movie I saw was called Uncanny and was about the world’s first perfect Artificial Intelligence robot and the way it interacted with a reporter that came to do a story about him and the scientist who created it.  I thought it was a really good movie and an example of how there are so many good movies out there that never see the light of day in terms of commercial success.  The director of the movie was in attendance and answered questions afterwards.  I was amazed to find out it was done for only $200,000 (I guessed $2 million) and filmed in only 12 days.  This is why I often don’t go to see big budget movies that were made for over $100 million.  I wish more people were able to see great small budget movies like this and created more demand for them by mainstream movie theaters.

One of my favorite things at these movie festivals is watching the “shorts”.  Shorts are movies that are generally less than an hour (usually 10-20 minutes).  They will group several shorts together to have a 90 minute to two hour long show.  I won’t go into detail about all of them (I saw 16 short films over two different shows) but there are two that stuck out.  If you can ever find Texting: A Love Story or Larry Gone Demon you will not be disappointed.  It was also cool to see that five of the movies were made in Kansas and one in Wichita.

I also saw a great documentary called Bounce: How the Ball Taught the World to Play.  Basically, it was about how sports (and balls) have evolved and been a common centerpiece through history in teaching all of us to have fun through competition and games.  They did a great job with talking about a lot of different sports and a lot of different points of history.  I imagine this documentary will make its way onto Netflix or something in the not too distant future so check it out if you get a chance!

Next time

My head is spinning at the moment so I don’t know what I will talk about in the next blog.  If it’s in two weeks I am hoping to talk about a great MVC Cross Country meet and how the Bengals are 7-0!

Until then, thanks for reading and Go Shocks!

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

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

Fall testing and what it means for the Shockers

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

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

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

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

Someone turned the big 4-0

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

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

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

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

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

“G” Movies

This is the seventh of a 24 part series (if I don’t bore you all to death) where I list movies I own by letter (I don’t have any movies that begin with Q, X or Z but I do have some that start with numbers).  I currently own a small collection of 159 movies (and growing most weeks) on DVD.

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

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

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

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

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

Next week

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

Until then … go Shocks!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“F” Movies

This is the sixth of a 24 part series (if I don’t bore you all to death) where I list movies I own by letter (I don’t have any movies that begin with Q, X or Z but I do have some that start with numbers).  I currently own a small collection of 157 movies (and growing most weeks) on DVD.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until then have a great week and Go Shocks!