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

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

California

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A big problem with our sport

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

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

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

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

Shocker Pre-State Challenge/KT Woodman Classic

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

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

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

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

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

Next week

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

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

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

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

What have we been doing?

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

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

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

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

Season opener in Arkansas

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

 

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

Watch the replay of the meet on ESPN3 here.

Throwers come out strong

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

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

Heading West next week

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

Shocker Basketball ends another great year

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

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

Perspective of being at a non-BCS school

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

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

Next week

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

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

We lost a tough battle but it builds character right? (and other things we try to tell ourselves to feel better about losing)

“That's what learning is, after all; not whether we lose the game, but how we lose and how we've changed because of it and what we take away from it that we never had before, to apply to other games. Losing, in a curious way, is winning.”  --- Richard Bach

“They say losing builds character. I say losing sucks. That’s what I think.”  --- Ben Wallace

MVC Indoor Championships

I guess you can probably assume what happened this weekend by the above quotes.  I’m not sure how I feel because I agree with both quotes.    I don't like losing, never have.  I've been in sports my whole life and am still as competitive as I was as a youngster.  It feels awful and hurts badly.  I hope I don't feel this way again in May.  Losing really sucks but it’s not always as black and white as it looks.

I’ll start with the facts and then go into some detail about some of the behind the scenes details.

Final team scores

MEN – Indiana St 141, Wichita St 117, Loyola 108, Southern Illinois 102, Illinois St 72, Northern Iowa 65, Drake 33, Bradley 24

WOMEN- Indiana St 122, Southern Illinois 119, Wichita St 103.5, Northern Iowa 77.5, Illinois St 77, Missouri St 58, Bradley 47, Drake 34, Loyola 24

Observations

Obviously our goal was to win both championships and we came up 24 and 18.5 points short on each side.  We had our chances to win both meets but ultimately we didn’t get it done and all we can do is learn from this and move forward with a determination to win the outdoor titles.

Going into the meet we had the projections like this:

MEN- Indiana St 130, WSU 120, Loyola 115, SIU 101

WOMEN- Indiana St 126, WSU 120, SIU 107

You can see how close the final scores came to what we had predicted heading into the meet.  And the line between winning and losing when the scores are this close is paper thin.

Both Saturday and Sunday we started out with very good momentum cutting into the lead and looking like we were headed towards winning but the last couple of events each day didn’t go our way and we came up short.  It was a very intense weekend of track and field and Indiana State is a deserving champion.  We threw a lot of quality performances at them and they fought back and earned the team titles.

With five events left in the women’s meet we had the top three teams all within five points and obviously we knew we had a chance.  At the same point in the men’s meet we were down a projected 10 points but were +5 in the triple jump heading into finals.  After some crazy back and forth jumping we only picked up one point.  There were events like this all weekend long.  In the men’s 800m our top guy got tangled up with an Illinois State runner with 50m to go, then an Indiana State runner passed them both and it ended up being an 11 point swing in the last 50m of the race.

These are the little dramas that happen all around a conference championship that often make the difference in winning and losing.  It’s very exciting to be part of it and is always the highlight of my season.  Losing the battle is gut-wrenching but being in the battle is exhilarating.  I’m proud of the way our team fought and we feel optimistic that our outdoor teams have a better chance of winning for the simple fact we add the Javelin.

I have to mention the out of this world effort by one athlete this weekend – Nikki Larch-Miller.  I remember flying out to San Diego three years ago to meet Nikki and her sister Taylor to try to convince them to consider Wichita State.  Never did I think that a couple years later Nikki would’ve been the MVP of the MVC and break our 60m and 60m hurdle records in the process.  She put us on her back and almost carried us to a title.  I’m hoping outdoors we’ll be able to give her some more help and win an overall team title.

You can re-watch the meet on ESPN3 or with the Watch ESPN application on your smartphone.  I saw a little bit of the replay on the way home last night and it looked like a very professionally done broadcast.  Kudos to the MVC for putting that together.

What’s next?

For the first time in a while we won’t have any athletes at the NCAA Indoor Championships.  It has been said that the NCAA Indoor meet is the toughest meet to qualify for in the world – and I think that’s probably true.  I’m not sure you’ll find any meet (including the Olympics) where almost 20 guys who broke 4:00 in the mile don’t get to compete (it took 3:58.25 to make NCAA Indoor this year).

I’ll give my group a few days off to recover and get refreshed before beginning the outdoor portion of our season.  There are some kids who didn’t compete on the indoor MVC team that will go ahead and keep training but for the most part this week is light.  It also gives them a chance to catch up on any academic work they might be struggling with.  We got home around 3am this morning (Monday) so they deserve some down time.

The time between indoor and outdoor is always unique.  We backed off quite a bit the last couple weeks to get ready for the championship and now we have to increase our volume and get back into some tough training again.  Although the outdoor season comes around quickly, we’ll be competing at Arkansas in less than four weeks in our first meet.

Our staff will get together and evaluate our team this week and see what we can do to be better.  Then we’ll quickly move on to the next goal.  That’s what you have to do in this business – you can’t take too much time celebrating your victories or drowning your sorrows.  We have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and get back at it right away.

Next week

Since we have a couple weeks off I will probably take a week or so off from blogging as well.  I appreciate everyone who stops by to read and I’ll be back soon to start talking about the outdoor season.

Until then -- Go Shocks!!!

It's MVC week!

We are one week away from the biggest meet of our indoor season!

K-State Open

The last meet on our regular season schedule was to help determine our 32 man and 32 women roster for the MVC Indoor Championships as well as serve as a “tune-up” for several athletes who are needing an extra competition leading up to the MVC meet.  Different teams do a wide variety of things in the week before a conference meet.  Generally we rest our distance runners and horizontal jumpers (and some sprinters) while most of our field event athletes like to keep the rhythm of competing each week.

The KSU Open is a tough meet to have great performances at because it’s a very low key atmosphere – literally.  The lighting at Ahearn Field House is similar to what a movie theater feels like during the coming attractions.  Needless to say we had an up and down evening but overall we head into our championship meet healthy and feeling strong.

Picking the team

Last year I detailed what goes in to picking our 32 person roster for the MVC Championships.  If you are curious about that process click HERE for that blog.

As of writing this on Sunday afternoon, we haven’t made our final decisions but we are close.  We will gather as a staff tomorrow morning to sort through the last couple spots.  For the athletes who are waiting to see if they make the roster, it can be a long wait.  With a roster of around 65 athletes on each side only about half of our team will make the meet.  We wish we could take them all but that’s how it goes.  Each conference is unique – the Big 12 only allows 26 athletes per team.  It’s a very competitive environment, much like the real world, and our young people begin to understand that you have to earn everything you get in life.  Track and Field is a builder of character that way.

MVC race

Let’s start with the men.  I think as many as four teams have a shot to win the MVC title next week and that should make for a very exciting meet.  Indiana State should probably be listed as the favorite since they won both indoor and outdoor last year and return a strong team.  But I don’t see them as a huge favorite with Wichita State, Loyola and Southern Illinois not far behind.  Northern Iowa appears to be solid in fifth with Illinois State, Drake and Bradley following.

On the women’s side I think any of three teams could win between Wichita State, Indiana State and Southern Illinois.  Beyond that I would go with Northern Iowa in fourth followed by Missouri State, Illinois State, Bradley, Loyola and Drake.

The preparation is almost complete, now it’s time to go and compete for a couple of titles!

The meet is next Saturday and Sunday in Cedar Falls, Iowa.  I’m told the finals on Sunday will be broadcast on ESPN3.com so if you can’t make it in person be sure to check it out online!

Armstrong inducted into WSU Hall of Fame

I got to be part of the WSU Pizza Hut Hall of Fame ceremony this weekend as we saw former Shocker hurdler Shannon Armstrong get inducted.  Shannon is our school record holder in the 60m hurdles as well as being a multiple time MVC champion and All-American.  Shannon gave a great speech and we were able to have several of his teammates comes to Wichita for the weekend.

Congrats Shannon!

Next week

With the MVC Championships final day being Sunday I won’t be able to blog until at least Monday.  Make sure to follow the meet all weekend long on GoShockers.com.

Until then, thanks for reading and Go Shocks!

Shocker T&F sweeps at home, MVC will be a war and what movies do you own on VHS?

It was a great Valentine’s Day at the Heskett Center as we were able to come away with a sweep of the team titles.  Now the focus shifts towards the MVC Championships in two weeks.

Good final “Team” tune-up

At this time of the year the athletes are really starting to round into form and we thought we would have a pretty good meet this weekend – and we were right!

Here were the team scores:

WOMEN:  Wichita St 195, UT-Arlington 130, Emporia St 87, Oral Roberts 65

MEN:  Wichita St 168, UT-Arlington 133, Emporia St 111, Oral Roberts 61

Before the meet we had it very close for the men and a slight advantage for the women so to extend our point total out to a convincing margin was exactly what we were hoping for.  There was a lot of spirit and a very large crowd at the Heskett Center Saturday – it was a great environment for college track and field!  It was also awesome to see Herm Wilson make an appearance – we were honored by his presence!

As with all track and field meets it wasn’t perfect, but I would say our team should gain some confidence from a great effort as we look ahead to the next goal …..

What’s next?

The Herm Wilson Invitational was our final “team” tune-up for the MVC Championships in two weeks.  We have one more meet on Friday at Kansas State where we will have two things to accomplish:  1) finalize our roster of 32 men and 32 women for the MVC meet and 2) give our top athletes a chance to either rest or have one final competition before the championship.

As a coach I try to treat these last couple weeks on a very individual basis.  Some athletes need to take a weekend off while others like to keep competing to stay sharp.  In fact every athlete’s training for each day is very individualized at this time of the year.  It’s the difference between what people refer to as the “art of coaching” versus the “science of coaching”.

I don’t claim to be an artist of any kind but generally the athletes I’ve coached have run their best in the championship meets.  There’s no secret to having success at this time – it’s mostly trying to get the athletes feeling good and confident.  We have a terrific sports psychologist (Greg Buell) who has helped me in this area as well as watching our other Shocker coaches get their athletes ready.

I have told numerous people that I’ve been very lucky to have been surrounded by great coaches and people my whole life.  Hopefully whatever amount of that I’ve been able to collect has rubbed off on the athletes in my group.  It’s an extremely fun and exciting time of the year! 11 days until we head to Cedar Falls, Iowa, to see how we stack up!

How does the MVC look this week?

Last week I gave a short preview of how the MVC looks and I don’t think much has changed for this week.  On the women’s side it’s gonna be a battle between Wichita St, Indiana St and Southern Illinois with Northern Iowa trying to sneak up in there.  For the men I still think Wichita St and Indiana St hold a slight advantage over Loyola and Southern Illinois with, once again, UNI trying to make it a five-team race.

There are no clear cut favorites this year, we could finish anywhere from first to fourth.  Historically we’ve competed well at the MVC Indoor Championships so we expect to be in the mix.

“VHS” Movies

Last week I concluded my 24 part series of movies I own on DVD by letter.  This will be my final movie post for a few weeks as our indoor season approaches it climax.  I thought it would be fun to shake up the old VHS movie box and see what fell out.

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

The Big Lebowski (1998, 117 min, R, 8.2, $17m) – The ultimate cult classic film made by The Coen Brothers and starring Jeff Bridges as “The Dude” who is mistaken for a millionaire and tries to seek restitution for his ruined rug.  The plot doesn’t really matter, it’s all about unique and interesting characters and witty dialogue.  I became a track coach around the time this movie came out and it’s definitely a favorite for my colleagues from that time.  It bombed at the box office because most people probably didn’t “get it” initially, but I’m sure it more than made up for it on VHS and DVD sales over the years.  “The dude abides.”

Caddyshack (1980, 98 min, R, 7.4, $39m) – One of the all-time classic comedies, I also own on DVD and wrote about it previously.  One of the most quoted movies ever!  “Did somebody step on a duck?”

Remember the Titans (2000, 113 min, PG, 7.7, $136m) – One of my favorite sports movies, RTT depicts the true story of a newly appointed African-American football coach and his first year as a racially integrated team in 1971 Virginia.  Denzel Washington knocks it out of the park as Coach Herman Boone who brings together black and white to form a championship team.  It’s a cheesy movie in some parts but others it’s very effective.  My favorite part is when they wake up early and run to the site of the Battle of Gettysburg.  

Major League (1989, 107 min, R, 7.2, $49m) – This is a movie I also own on DVD and wrote about previously.  Great movie, I remember seeing it for the first time in high school and thought it was hilarious.  I obviously like it enough to buy it on two kinds of platforms.

Michael Jordan:  Come Fly With Me (1989, 42 min, n/r, 8.1, $??) – Made before Jordan started winning all of his NBA titles, this was an extremely cool video to promote one of the rising stars of the league.  It’s basically a 42 minute Jordan documentary made by the NBA so it doesn’t have anything negative except for the injury he suffered in his second season.  Lots of “ahead of their time” visuals that most kids my age saw at a friend’s house after basketball practice.

Forrest Gump (1994, 142 min, PG-13, 8.8, $677m) – This was a combination of a movie being original, funny and well-acted.  In turn it became one of our country’s most well-known and popular movies of all-time.  Making $677 million worldwide - it was truly a phenomenon.  Almost everyone I know has seen this movie and liked it.  It won best picture of 1994 as well as a host of other awards.  It’s probably the defining role of Tom Hanks’ career, my favorite part is always when he decides to run and run and run without stopping.

Top Gun (1986, 110 min, PG, 6.8, $356m) – Did anyone who grew up in the 80’s not see this movie?  Tom Cruise plays “Maverick” who is a student in the Navy’s elite flight division where he has to curb his reckless ways in order to become the best pilot he can be.  It’s easy for me to like this movie because of the intense flying scenes and cheesy dialogue.  Who can forget classic characters like Ice Man and Goose!  “I feel the need, the need for speed!”

The Hurricane (1999, 146 min, R, 7.6, $73m) – Starring Denzel Washington as a boxer named Rueben “Hurricane” Carter who was wrongly accused of murder and spent two decades in prison trying to clear his name.  This is a great movie that most have probably forgotten because of how many awesome movies Denzel has made over the years.  If you haven’t seen it I would recommend checking it out.  It doesn’t have a lot of sports action but it’s a terrific drama and inspiring to show how hard Carter fought for so long to seek justice.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981, 115 min, PG, 8.6, $389m) – The classic action/adventure movie from Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford where Indiana Jones goes in search of the Ark of the Covenant.  I have always liked this series of movies but I was never obsessed like some people.  I like the archaeological aspects of the stories but of course they have to Hollywood it up as much as possible, and in this case they made good choices because of how much money they took in.

American Pie (1999, 95 min, R, 7.0, $235m) – The movie that spawned three sequels and numerous other knock-offs was a big hit in 1999 for its combination of crude humor and likeable characters.  I’ve never been a huge fan of these movies but I will admit if I see it on cable I’ll end up watching for a while.  In 1999 it was a unique movie to the R-rated movie genre and opened the door for movies like The Hangover and Old School to be made and make lots of money.

It’s kind of cool to see these movies from back in the day.  I didn’t have any money back then so I was picky to buy good movies – which all of these are.

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this movie project for the past 25 weeks!  I’m sure I’ll have some more movie talk in a few weeks!

Next week

Everything will be about the upcoming MVC Championships!

Until then, thanks for reading and Go Shocks!

Notre Dame yields fast times, the MVC race heats up and James Franco cuts off his arm

Even though we had a few Shockers competing this weekend, I had a rare weekend off.  That gave me plenty of time to look at the MVC race, play golf and catch a cold!

Fast times at Notre Dame

Last week I mentioned how some of our top distance runners didn’t compete at UNI to prepare for the Notre Dame Invitational and the resulting performances were impressive indeed.

Notre Dame’s oversized track is made for running fast times and this meet is a dream for anyone wanting to run a PR.  They put together several sections of distance races, many with rabbits, and all you have to do is let the pack pull you around (and be in tip top shape haha).

Our ladies were solid but our guys were particularly impressive running off times of 1:51 in the 800m, 4:05 in the Mile and 14:25 in the 5000m.

Now onto our final “team” meet of the year before the MVC Indoor Championships …

Herm Wilson Invitational Preview

Next Saturday (is there a better way to spend Valentine’s Day), we will be hosting the Herm Wilson Invitational, named after the former Wichita State head coach who led the Shockers to prominence in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s.  We will have a scored meet against UT-Arlington, Oral Roberts and Emporia State.

UT-Arlington will provide the most competition in the team race as we will try to improve on our #16 rankings for both the men and women in the latest National Dual Meet Rankings.  It will also be our final home indoor meet as we start looking closely towards the MVC Indoor Championships at the end of February.

We expect a large crowd Saturday so come out and enjoy the meet!  If you can’t make it in person be sure to catch the live video through GoShockers.com.

How does the MVC look?

The MVC championship picture is beginning to take shape now that most of the league’s distance runners have raced in their primary events.  Every week I take a close look at the MVC performance lists on TFRRS and track how the competition is doing.  Here’s how it looks as of now:

The men’s meet should be a battle between as many as four teams.  I think that Wichita State and Indiana State will probably be voted by the coaches as the favorites but I think Loyola and Southern Illinois have a chance at the title too.  What you can’t tell by looking at the lists are what events will the coaches enter their top athletes in while searching for the most points.  The coaches at all of these schools will no doubt be trying to figure that out in the coming weeks.

On the women’s side I think it’s going to come down to three teams:  Wichita State, Indiana State and Southern Illinois.  On paper we appear to have a small lead but we’re trying to overcome some injuries and won’t know what kind of team we’ll have until we start competing in the championships.  We have several ladies that are competing well though, and are excited about the opportunity they have at UNI.

The “Garth Brooks of Wichita”

Since I had a weekend off I got the chance to go out and see former Shocker Javelin thrower Adam Capps play a concert on the west side of Wichita Saturday night.  The reason I made the Garth Brooks reference above is that Brooks threw the Javelin for Oklahoma State while in college before hitting it big on the country music scene.  While Adam was a better thrower than Garth, he is a tiny bit behind in the music department.  He did a great job and we had lots of fun, here is a link to a new song he wrote that I think is very good.

“Number” Movies

This is the final of a 24 part series (well not quite, you get one more bonus next week) 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 own three movies that begin with a number so here they are from best to worst …..

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

127 Hours (2010, 94 min, R, 7.7, $60m) – This movie, that is based on a true story, stars James Franco as an adventurer who gets trapped under a boulder while climbing through a canyon in Utah.  Basically his arm get caught between two rocks and the movie deals with his desperation and if he’s going to cut his arm off to survive.  It’s a very intense movie and very well done.  It really makes you think what the human body is capable of when it comes down to survival.  Franco is great, I highly recommend this movie!

8 Seconds (1994, 105 min, PG-13, 6.4, $19m) – A very likeable movie about the life of Lane Frost, a Bull Riding World Champion in the 1980’s.  I remember the first time I went to see this movie I was a little skeptical because Luke Perry was playing Frost and Stephen Baldwin was playing Tuff Hedeman – not exactly the two actors you would think of for these roles.  But to my surprise they did a really good job.  I’m sure they added some typical Hollywood drama to the story to make it more interesting but even with that I found myself intrigued by the lifestyle of these cowboys and the rough times it created for their families. 

15 Minutes of Fame (2008, 89 min, NR, PG-13, 6.4, $??) – I spent $5 on this movie as a joke because the cover was the fakest and cheapest movie cover I’ve ever seen (see right).  This movie is a coming of age story about two guys who ….. well I don’t really know what happens.  This movie was so bad that it took me about 15 minutes of boredom before I turned it off.

Next week

I will be back to talk about the Herm Wilson Invitational as well as one final bonus section about the movies I own on VHS!  That should be interesting.

Until then, thanks for reading and Go Shocks!

We lose a tough battle to our rivals and another Jim Carrey classic answers the question Y?

This is blog #49 and today is Super Bowl 49.  Coincidence?  It’s been a hectic week full of travel, track and field, recruiting and snow (in Iowa)!

MVC Preview at Northern Iowa

In four weeks we’ll be competing in our main competition of the indoor season, the MVC Indoor Championships, and this week we got to see three of our upcoming opponents on the facility the championships will be held (UNI).

It was a very competitive meet and Indiana State defeated us on both sides while we took down UNI and Drake.  Here are the team scores:

MEN:  Indiana St 161, Wichita St 144.5, Northern Iowa 143.5, Drake 75

WOMEN:  Indiana St 163, Wichita St 146, Northern Iowa 117, Drake 96

The men’s meet was much closer right until the end when our conference champion triple jumper had to pull out of the competition with a slight injury.  Up until then it was nip and tuck the whole way – it was a great team competition full of excitement and enthusiasm!

How did we REALLY do?

This weekend was a tough balancing act.  On one hand we held out several of our top athletes for either injury or the fact they would be competing at Notre Dame next week (and we didn’t want them to do a long travel two weeks in a row).  On the other hand we really wanted to win the meet and legitimize our #11 Track & Field News National Dual Meet Rankings for both men and women.  Unfortunately we weren’t able to accomplish both goals because Indiana St is just too good.  They are the defending MVC Indoor champions and put together a very fine meet to beat us.

The MVC is a very tough conference.  Whoever wins the championship in four weeks will have definitely earned it.

But our team still did very well this weekend.  One of the events we competed in that wasn’t part of the team scoring was the men’s Heptathlon and women’s Pentathlon.  These are always strong for us and events that should help us significantly in four weeks, especially on the women’s side where we posted the #8, #9 and #11 marks in the nation!

For my group of sprinters and hurdlers we continued to progress nicely.  Last week we took a couple of hits with injuries but this week went much better and we ended the meet by winning both 4x400m relays.  It’s always a good feeling to walk away winning the last event of the meet, both in come from behind fashion.  Hopefully that’s something we WILL duplicate in four weeks.

What’s next?

Most of our team will take a rare weekend off with the exception of our top distance runners (headed to Notre Dame) and possibly a few Pole Vaulters who are going to small meet in Nebraska.  I like the idea of a weekend off in the middle of the season.  Not only will we be able to get some much needed rest and time for our injured athletes to heal, but it’s also a great chance to refresh our minds and refocus as we head towards the championship portion of the indoor schedule.

Our next meet for our entire team will be in two weeks, February 14, at home against UT-Arlington, Oral Roberts and Emporia State.  It’ll be our last home indoor meet and one of the last chances to figure out who will make our conference team.

It’s hard to believe the indoor season is halfway done – time flies when you’re having fun!

Recruiting

I haven’t talked much about recruiting lately but we’re still working at it pretty consistently.  We continue to have athletes verbally commit (next signing period is in April) and we’re excited about these athletes joining our team in 2015-16.

We don’t graduate a lot of athletes this year so we probably won’t sign our usual large number because there’s just not that much scholarship money available this year.  And one of our philosophies is to reward kids on our team with larger scholarships when they have success at the MVC and NCAA Championships.  We expect to increase a lot of scholarships in the coming weeks.

That’s not something every NCAA track & field program does but Coach Rainbolt does a great job treating our athletes fairly.  There is responsibility to having a scholarship and we definitely reward those who achieve and improve.

“Y” Movies

This is the 23rd 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 “Y” movie so here it is …..

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

Yes Man (2008, 104 min, PG-13, 6.9, $223m) – Jim Carrey went through a bit of a slump a decade ago but this was one of the movies that showed he can still really bring it in terms of physical comedy.  The plot is a generally negative guy (Carrey) goes to a seminar that promotes saying “YES” to everything and it changes his life.  Obviously saying yes to EVERYTHING makes for great laughs and this movie is funny from beginning to end.  I’ve always liked Jim Carrey since his days on In Living Color and every once in a while he brings out a classic.  And in my opinion this is a classic (or will be).

Next week

Since we have next weekend off, I’m not sure what I’ll be talking about but I’ll try to think of something!  It will be the last part of my movie series (or will it).  I don’t have any “Z” movies but I have three movies that begin with a number.  One is about a rodeo star, one is about a guy cutting his arm off and one is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.

Until then, thanks for reading and Go Shocks!