How I would solve the problems of college track and field

Normally I would take this space to write weekly updates about our team, and I will down the way a bit, but I’ve had something else on my mind about the sport of college track and field ….. How to fix it.

Problems with our sport

Before I talk about the solutions, let’s get into what’s wrong with our sport and what’s keeping it from progressing.

Track and Field is one of the most popular sports in terms of participation at the high school and collegiate level but it struggles to gain a foothold on television and with the average sports fan nowadays.  It’s the center piece of the Olympic Games every four years but other than that most Americans prefer Football, Baseball or Basketball the rest of the time.

As college coaches we can’t do much about the elite levels of track and field organization, however, we can certainly affect it on the collegiate level.  We need to make meets that people want to either attend or watch on TV so that we are relevant to the public and to the administrators in our own athletic departments.

Major problems for coaches include scheduling and how to determine what a successful track team is for the general public.  I’ll start with the last one first.

What is the definition of a successful track meet?

If you read any college website’s recap of the track and field weekend, it will generally always be very positive on how well it went.  This is because in college track there are multiple definitions of what a successful track meet is.  You can win the meet as a team, you can win multiple events even though you lose as a team, you can set a whole bunch of personal records and get last place and still call it a great meet.  It happens all the time.

Can you imagine a football team getting beat 56-0 but the headline is “Football team excited about successful weekend” and then there is no mention of the score, just highlights of the best plays.  This happens quite often in our sport so the general public has got to be confused as to what it means to have a successful meet.

Think about a basketball player scoring a career high 30 points when his team just lost by 20 points.  In the post-game press conference would you ever hear the player sounding overly enthusiastic and happy about his own performance when his team was thoroughly defeated?  If he did he would not make his teammates or coaches very happy.

Opponents to this would say track and field is an individual sport and that is the most important part.  While I don’t disagree with that statement I would counter with the fact that our current system is set up to be individualistic and it appears to be failing.  So maybe we should try something different.

The scheduling problem

Because track teams and coaches can schedule any kind of meet at any time, what we end up with are all kinds of different meets every weekend.  Some are small scored meets, some are huge non-scored meets that take all day, some are dedicated to one event area, and some are multiple versions of these rolled into one.

Take our team this weekend, for example.  We split up and had a large portion of our team compete in a scored meet at Air Force while all of our best distance runners went to Notre Dame (the altitude at Air Force kills non-altitude distance runners).  On top of that our top multi-event athletes stayed home to recover from a demanding Heptathlon or Pentathlon last week at UNI.  We are trying to give our athletes the best opportunities to compete to their best but have split up the team to do so.  And we are as into TEAM track and field as anyone in the country.  I’m sure we’ll fall several notches in this week’s National Dual Meet Rankings but we did all we could do in the situation we were given.

We have a great distance coach – Kirk Hunter.  He understands and enjoys the team part of track and field but wants the best for his athletes.  Our current situation in NCAA T&F puts coaches like Kirk in an impossible situation to make everyone happy.

Another problem is how we qualify to the NCAA Championships.  It has always been a point of contention amongst coaches in our sport.  I will speak to this below.

Let’s get to some ideas …

The Wise Solution

Generally there are two camps of opinions on how we should structure the season.  One is to set up opportunities for the athletes to compete at the highest level possible with no effort to make the meets enjoyable to watch.  The other side is to make meets smaller with a team score and take a normal amount of time to complete (2-3 hours).  Sometimes those meets aren’t very competitive.

I think I have an idea that will make everyone happy but understand I lean to the side of smaller team meets.  Some of these ideas are mine, some are others, but it’s my blog so feel free to agree or disagree with it (me) as much as you want.

The first thing I would do is mandate the track and field schedule to look like this (using 2016 as an example):

--No competitions in December (except a pre-season Intrasquad Meet)

--Jan 9 – Meet #1 – Quad scored meet (or dual/tri)

--Jan 16 – Meet #2 – Quad scored meet (or dual/tri) – NCAA scheduled meet (see below)

--Jan 23 – Meet #3 – Non-scored open meets only

--Jan 30 – Meet #4 – Quad scored meet (or dual/tri)

--Feb 6 – Meet #5 – Quad scored meet (or dual/tri) – conference opponents only

--Feb 13 – Meet #6 – Non-scored open meets only

--Feb 20 – Mandatory off weekend

--Feb 27 – Conference Championships

--Mar 5 – Mandatory off weekend

--Mar 12 – NCAA Championships

Now let me explain the details of each meet …

Meet #1 – You can schedule anyone you want for this season opening scored meet.

Meet #2 – The NCAA would schedule this meet for you and the point would be for them to make it a regional/rivalry type meet that schools would have no choice in scheduling.  For example for us it would be Wichita State, Kansas, Kansas State and possibly Missouri (KU and Missouri won’t compete against each other anymore in lots of sports for political reasons).  There would be great meets all over the country.  Ohio St/Michigan, Florida/Florida St, Kent St/Akron, the North and South Dakota Quad ….. What a great way to get the country excited about T&F!

Meet #3 – This would be the typical Washington/Notre Dame/Iowa St meets where everyone is trying to run fast.  If smaller colleges have great tracks it would be a chance for them to make a lot of money with hosting a big meet.  This would also be one of two weekends for multi-event competitions.  In fact you could have Pentathlon/Heptathlon only meets – which could be pretty cool.

Meet #4 – Same as the season opener where home teams get 2-4 teams together for a scored meet.

Meet #5 – With three weeks before the conference meet, this would give everyone a preview of things to come.  If your conference had 10 teams you’d have a Quad and two Triangulars.

Meet #6 – same as Meet #3, go run blazing fast and have 30 heats of the 200.

The conference and NCAA meets would be the same BUT …..

….qualifying to the NCAA Championships would be much different – amongst other differences below.

You could only qualify to the NCAA Championships through one of the four scored meets or the conference championship.  You could not qualify at one of the large carnival type meets.  This would ensure that teams would bring all their team members to the smaller scored meets and distance coaches could communicate as the meets approaches to try and make fast races with good competition.  Heck I’m fine with even having rabbits to help the distance guys run as fast as possible.

Also, at every scored meet each team would have to enter every event with at least one competitor.  And if the one competitor didn’t start the competition (or if they dropped out) then the team would be penalized 10 points in the team score.

In the scored meets, teams would be limited to a certain number of athletes, 30 for example, for each gender.  There could be “JV” type meets on the previous night or earlier in the day but athletes couldn’t compete in both meets.  You couldn’t qualify for nationals out of the JV meet.

Also, only college teams could compete in the scored meet.  No unattached or post collegiates – just college kids in their uniforms.  The open meet weekends would be great for the post-collegiates to plan and have great competition together.

I would also make it a limit of 4 athletes per event.  This would ensure only one flight of field events and a reasonably short time schedule.  All the meets would have the exact same events and only vary in time schedule because of the facility.  All the meets would have the same rules.  For example in D1 meets the Men’s High Jump would have an opening height of 6-2 at every meet across the country.  Maybe D2 starts at 6-0, D3 at 5-10.  There would also be minimum marks in the field events so a team couldn’t enter a non-thrower in the throwing event.  Same goes for maximum times for running events.  Don’t make the mark with at least one athlete?  Negative 10 points for your team.

And guess what?  The score is REALLY gonna matter!

From these scored meets you could easily create a RPI type ranking based off the actual team scores and strength of schedule for each team.  The RPI ranking would determine the MAXIMUM number of athletes you can qualify to NCAA’s.  For example:

Top-50 RPI – No limit, as many athletes/events as you can qualify to NCAA’s

50-100 RPI - Up to 8 events can qualify to NCAA’s per team

100-200 RPI – Up to 4 events can qualify to NCAA’s per team

200-250 RPI – Up to 2 events can qualify to NCAA’s per team

250-however many teams there are – only one event can be qualified to NCAA’s

(I’m just throwing out numbers, nothing scientific above)

If you had athletes eligible for NCAA’s but on teams that aren’t ranked high enough then you would fill out the top-16 with the next available athletes from eligible teams.

This would make sure the teams are trying to build reasonably complete track AND field teams and making an effort to do well in the scored meets.  If you don’t think this is fair to the top athletes then think of the All-American point guard who never gets to play in the NCAA Basketball Tournament because his team isn’t good enough.  Life isn’t always fair.

All of the above suggestions would make college track and field far less confusing and create tons of exciting and MEANINGFUL meets all across the country in all collegiate levels of the sport all year long.  I’m sure there are things you can pick apart from this proposal but I feel confident I can speak to most of them.  I imagine many of you already have ways to take this and make it even better.

I think something similar could be done outdoors with being able to keep the Penn Relays, Drake Relays, Mt SAC, etc. on the non-team scored weekends.  We would eliminate the NCAA Preliminary rounds and qualify straight to Oregon.

Now, who did I make angry?  And if it’s you then give us a better solution.

The Lonergan Solution

This is a more radical idea that’s not mine.  I must give credit to Stephen F. Austin’s Sean Lonergan.  Hopefully he doesn’t mind me sharing and tweaking it a bit.

Sean’s idea ….. Get rid of indoor track.  Add a fall track season.

I know, I know, this sounds crazy but just listen.  Replace indoor track with a fall track season that generally falls in line with the cross country schedule.  Distance runners still compete in cross country while the rest of the team competes in events no longer than 800 meters.  This would save distance runners from racing all year round and help them have more successful races later in the summer.

And we would have many different events in Fall Track & Field.  How about the 300m hurdles?  Maybe the 4x200m relay as a regular event?  How cool would an outdoor 600m be?  Maybe we don’t have the Javelin which would keep their season the same anyways?  How about a sprint medley relay of 100-200-300-400?  How about scoring the meet in relay style where you add the top 2 performances of a team together in each event?  Get rid of the 200, Triple Jump and Hammer for the fall.

The meets would be shorter and a lot of fun.  Heck, lots of places have better weather in the fall than they do in the spring anyways.

But that’s not it.  By eliminating indoor you wouldn’t have the crazy scheduling issues of training all fall then taking a month off official practice then starting the season right away.  You could actually take a break after Fall Track and gradually work your way back into shape for the spring season.  You would save your budget a significant amount of money because your fall travel roster would be smaller than indoor.  And since most teams have an outdoor track facility and not everyone has an indoor track you would be able to utilize your facility more often and host more competitions.

For northern schools, when the weather gets bad in October/November you could head a bit south for a meet.  As hot as it is early in the fall in the south I’m sure the favor would be returned early in the season.

I haven’t touched on the idea of a fall national meet because the entire idea is radical to begin with.  Who knows, maybe it could be a real TEAM national championship in a beautiful southern city?

I like it.  I like it a lot.  Great idea Sean!

The do nothing and keep it the same solution

Keeping everything the same.  Doesn’t sound as exciting as the Wise or Lonergan Solutions does it?  What do you think?

Share your thoughts and I’ll respond on the next blog.

Now onto WSU T&F …

Air Force/Notre Dame recap

I mentioned above how we lost our team scored meet this weekend at the Air Force Academy although we had a great time in beautiful Colorado Springs.

Nestled in the mountains, going to a meet at Air Force is a special experience for our kids.  Most of them aren’t used to the scenic mountain view from the hotel as well as the national pride you get from competing on the campus of one of our armed forces.  Taking a walk around the facilities puts things into perspective about how these brave, young cadets are living a life totally different from us.

As for the meet, here were the team scores:

MEN:  Air Force 149, Wichita St 133, North Dakota St 109, South Dakota 68

WOMEN:  South Dakota 131, North Dakota St 130, Wichita St 126, Air Force 67

You can see how close the women’s meet ended up – and it came down to the 4x400m relay for the top three teams.  Unfortunately we came up a little short.  The Air Force men had a real good meet and was just a little too much for us on their home track.

Colorado Springs is at around 6,000 feet of altitude.  If you don’t normally train at that high of altitude it can affect you greatly, especially for distance runners.  So we decided years ago to not put our kids through that and to send them to Notre Dame and their oversized track.

All together there were lots of great performances at both Air Force and Notre Dame.  We would’ve loved to have won the meet at Air Force but we have bigger fish to fry at the MVC Championships in three weeks.  Many teams around the conference appeared to have a great weekend as well and our battle for a couple of titles will be a difficult one.

Next time

Next weekend is super busy for me so I’ll probably take a week off the blog.  I’ll be interested to see the reaction to this blog so maybe I’ll respond to that in a couple weeks and preview the MVC Championships.

We host the Herm Wilson Invitational Friday and Saturday in the Heskett Center against UT-Arlington, North Texas, Oral Roberts and UMKC.  Hopefully our women can keep our unbeaten streak at home alive and our men can win as well.

Until then, thank you for reading and Go Shocks!

Solid results at Nebraska and a look at the MVC race

We’ve officially hit the middle of the indoor track and field season …..

Nebraska

Last week I talked about how we’ve never beaten Nebraska.  And we still haven’t.

But this year was a lot closer than normal on the ladies side.  Here were the team scores:

Women: Nebraska 164, Wichita St 132, Colorado St 131, Illinois St 96

Men: Nebraska 195, Wichita St 123, Colorado St 96, Illinois St 95

The 32 point margin is the smallest margin we’ve had against the Cornhuskers.  The past five years we’ve lost by 49, 57, 107, 160 and 84 points so in that regard it was a successful weekend for the ladies.  Nebraska might be a little bit down this year but they’re still very good.  We were also able to edge out Colorado St by a single point for second place.  CSU has long been one of the best non-BCS track and field schools for many years and they gave us all we could handle.

Our men had a solid meet but Nebraska was just very, very good Saturday.  Going into the meet we had them beating us 184-137 and it was very close to that.  We also had CSU at 128 so defeating them handily was a good victory for our men.

Our in conference opponent Illinois St finished fourth in both meets and had some outstanding performances but they didn’t enter the meet in a way to maximize points so we know they are better than they appeared.

We’ve come away from this meet in the past feeling demoralized and this weekend we came away feeling good.  We know there is a lot of work to do but we like where we’re heading at this point.

A week off

There will be some Shockers competing next weekend but my group will be taking the week off.  Our multi’s and pole vaulters will head to UNI (site of the MVC Indoor Championships) while a few distance runners and throwers will go to Pittsburgh St.

The sprinters, hurdlers and jumpers will take the week off but it doesn’t mean we will “take the week off”.  I like to look at our indoor season in three parts.  Before the holidays was like the preseason.  The first three meets we’ve had so far are like the regular season.  And the last half of our season is the championship season.  Even though the MVC meet is the only “championship” meet (besides NCAA’s), I like our kids to think of our upcoming meets at the Air Force Academy, home and K-State with a championship mindset.  It’s time to get geared up and start putting up some great marks.  Some of the athletes need to do so in order to make our conference team (32 athletes) while our top athletes need to be ready to score the majority of the points to help us win championships.

The weekend off will let us do a couple things.  It lets us get healed up from the various aches and pains many of the athletes get at this time of the year.  It also lets us focus on a good, solid week of training without worrying backing off at the end of the week for the meet.

I like how our group is developing and working together so far.  Now it’s time to take that great foundation we’ve laid and finish the indoor season strong.

A look at the MVC

Even though it’s still pretty early, the MVC picture is starting to develop.  Fortunately the Shockers look to be in the hunt for a couple of championships in five weeks!

Let’s look at the men first …

We thought our men would be pretty good this year and they’ve proven us right so far.  Even though we have been without three guys who should be MVC scorers (Shazz Lindo, Tate Annis and Jake James) we still look like the team to beat on paper.  It’s still too early to tell but I would imagine Indiana St will have something to say about that as well as Illinois St.

The Indiana St men have been tough for us to beat (although we defeated them outdoor last year).  They look to be a little down right now but they have so much experience of winning that they have our total attention.  Illinois St is a rising team under second year head coach Jeff Bovee.  They probably have the best team on the track but they are lacking field event athletes that can score.

Southern Illinois and Northern Iowa have had some good early season performances but I don’t think they are in the title hunt for the indoor season yet.  They could prove me wrong because they have a lot of terrific athletes, but they don’t have the depth of the three teams I’ve mentioned before.  I would also put Loyola in that category.

For the women …

We’ve had a really good start to the year even without Nikki Larch-Miller.  We continue to hope we have her for the MVC Championships but our women are preparing to go to battle without her.  Anything she can give us would be a bonus to an already strong team.

However, Indiana St will still be a very difficult opponent.  They’ve started the indoor season strong too and we’ve gone back and forth with them in recent years in the championship competition both indoors and out.  They’ve got a well-balanced team and a lot of experience of winning so they will be tough to beat.  We respect them tremendously.

Beyond that I’m not sure there is another team in the title hunt.  SIU, Illinois St and Missouri St certainly have quality teams but I don’t think they’re to our level yet.  Give them another year or two and they’ll be there.  Drake is vastly improved and had a good meet this weekend but, like in previous years, they lack the depth needed to battle for a trophy finish.

We are feeling optimistic about our prospects for the MVC Indoor Championships in five weeks – but much is still yet to be done!

Movies!!!

I saw the much talked about movie The Revenant starring Leonardo DiCaprio.  It was based on a true story about a frontiersman in the 1820s that fights for survival amongst a horrible series of events that includs a terrible bear attack.  DiCaprio has received a bunch of acclaim for his performance and I would agree it was fantastic.  I really enjoyed the movie but I could see where some people wouldn’t.  It was a little long and slow in parts (146 minutes) and was pretty dreadful for most of the movie.  However, it was beautifully shot and very effective in showing how much he struggled to survive every obstacle.  It was also in the winter and made me cold, by the end of the movie I had put my winter coat on.  I must’ve been having a lot of sympathy for DiCaprio’s character haha!  Good movie if you’re patient.  8/10

Next time

I’m going to take a week off of blogging but will be back in two weeks after our meet at the Air Force Academy.

Until then, thank you for reading and Go Shocks!

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

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

The WSU-KU-KSU Triangular

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shocker Prelude

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Women’s winning streak

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

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

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

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

Cool stuff!

Next week

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

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

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

Movies!!!

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

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

Next time

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

Until then, thank you for reading and Go Shocks!

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

The track season is underway!

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

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

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

Second Annual WSU-KU-KSU Triangular

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

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

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

Shocker Prelude

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

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

Oh my Bengals

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

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

Movies!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next time

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

Until then, thank you for reading and Go Shocks!

Goodbye 2015 ... Hello 2016!!!

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

Looking back at 2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Looking ahead to 2016!

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

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

But it won’t be easy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The beginning of the season

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

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

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

Let’s get going!

Next time

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

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

USTFCCCA Convention recap

I’ve been bad at blogging in the last few months because of a variety of reasons but I will try to do better!  I’ve had several people ask me to keep it up so for my loyal followers (about 10 of you) I will do my best.  I have a lot of things I would like to write about and I’m not sure where to start.  With the holiday break coming up I will probably write several blogs about a variety of topics but for this week I will keep it to ……

The USTFCCCA Convention

Every year the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) holds their annual convention where track and field coaches from all levels, divisions and from all around the country converge for a week of learning and discussing our favorite sport.

A lot of people ask me what goes on at this convention so I will keep a “sort of” journal of the happenings.

Here goes …..

Monday

With the convention being in San Antonio this week, most of our staff decided to make the 9-hour drive from Wichita together (Coach Rainbolt went down early).  We have five of our full-time staffers on the trip so the 15 passenger van wasn’t too crowded.  We rolled out of WSU at 8:30am and headed south!

Our Director of Operations Ryan Patton took the first shift and drove us to Ardmore, Oklahoma, where we stopped off for lunch.  Being a night person myself, and waiting to pack until around midnight, I slept most of the morning.

Pole Vault coach Pat Wilson took the wheel next and gave us his thoughts on some of the best music bands of his generation.  Pat used to be a drummer in a local band so he definitely knows his stuff.  Don’t ever try to play name that tune with Coach Wilson.

I took over after dinner and we rolled into San Antonio around 8pm.  There were already dozens of coaches starting to socialize in the lobby of the JW Marriott.  After a quick run and shower I headed down to say hey and have a drink with some of my coaching friends.  Besides the WSU coaches, I saw my good friend Sean Lonergan from Stephen F Austin, Keith Roberts and Alonzo Webb from Pitt, Wendel McRaven from Texas A&M, Adam Bray from Pitt, the list goes on and on.  These late night socials create conversations from simply catching up with each other to talking about the future of our sport.

I was waiting up late to wait for former Shocker Nate Thiesfeld (who coaches at High Point University) to arrive from a delayed flight but eventually had to head to bed because Tuesday I’ll be playing in the annual golf outing and need to be up early.  The outing will be played on the very difficult TPC San Antonio which has been the host of the PGA’s Valero Texas Open.  I haven’t played golf in a couple months so hopefully I can keep it in the fairway.  Luckily it’s a scramble format so I only have to play ¼ as good as normal.

Tuesday

I woke up around 6:30am and walked over to the TPC San Antonio Oaks Course that is on the property of the JW Marriott.  It is host to the Valero Texas Open on the PGA Tour and fellow Kent State alum Ben Curtis won here in 2012.

There were about 20 teams of four playing in the coaches tournament and my team included our head coach Steve Rainbolt, former Shocker jumps coach (and now Southern Illinois coach) Terry VanLaningham and Black Hills State University head coach Seth Mischke (our ringer).  It was a fun and difficult course to play and led by Seth we shot 8-under par 64 to tie for third place.  We all took home about $300 worth of Nike golf stuff.  Good times!

Golfing took longer than scheduled and none of us had eaten lunch so I went with Terry and Seth to get some Chinese food around 3pm instead of hitting up some of the teaching symposiums.  I made sure our volunteer sprint coach Shamoya went to them and she filled me in on what happened later that evening.

After a power nap we all got dressed up to attend the USTFCCCA Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony.  The USTFCCCA does a very professional job in all aspects of the convention and especially on events like the Hall of Fame (and later this week the Bowerman Awards).  There were six men and women being honored and after a short film each of them spoke about their careers and the people who influenced them the most.  It was a long ceremony (over 3 hours) but I enjoyed listening to the legends of our sport talk track.  There were some crazy and hilarious stories told as well as some tears shed.

Around 11pm everyone was pretty tired but we met up in one of the hotel rooms and chatted with new and old colleagues until around 2am.  I finally got a chance to meet up with Nate Thiesfeld as well as hanging out with other High Point and Stephen F Austin coaches.  I fell asleep around 2:30am.

Wednesday

Being slightly deprived of sleep, I decided to sleep in until 9am and then catch a symposium by former Illinois sprint/hurdle coach Gary Winkler about the do’s and don’ts of training.  Gary is a great coach and I always enjoy listening to what he has to say – and usually it reinforces what we are already doing.  This symposium was no different.  Good stuff.  Also Carl Lewis (coaches at Houston) sat right in front of me for the session.

Then it was off to the “Opening Session” where everyone gathers to honor national champion coaches from 2015 and listen to the keynote speaker.  This year’s speaker was Oliver Luck from the NCAA (he’s also NFL Quarterback Andrew Luck’s dad).  He gave a lengthy speech about the issues facing the NCAA as we head into the next few years.  He didn’t talk very specifically about track and field, which was disappointing, but overall it was a good speech and we were all ready for lunch.

Later in the afternoon we had our first NCAA Division I General Session.  This is where the coaches at the DI level get together to talk about issues surrounding our sport and how to make it better.  Sometimes there are entertaining arguments but usually it’s pretty cordial and informative.  After this meeting we broke out into meetings with our conferences so the Missouri Valley Conference coaches discussed some of the same issues in a smaller forum.  One of the main discussions was should we change the outdoor 1500m race to the Mile.  The 1500m is the international distance but most Americans connect with the Mile better.  We will vote on these issues Friday morning and if they pass it will go to the NCAA for approval.  Sometimes we vote overwhelmingly for an issue and the NCAA still rejects it.

After the meetings, Mondo sponsored a fantastic BBQ dinner where we all ate way too much really good food.  They also had some fun stuff like wall climbing, skeet shooting, photo booths, etc. but mostly we just hung out and socialized with our fellow coaches.  I spent most of my night with my good friend Kevin Lucas who is the head coach at Mount Union, a D3 school in Ohio.  We went to the same high school and it is always fun to catch up with him and his wife Holly who is speaking at the convention about “Preparing for your future after coaching”.  She’s a lawyer.  Kevin did good, haha.

I also got to hang out with former Shocker coach Marc Burns (currently at Missouri) and former Kent State coach Wendel McRaven (currently at Texas A&M).  It’s always interesting to hear stories from the SEC and of course they love to hear stories about Coach Rainbolt.

Turning in around 1am tonight. Thursday will be full of activities once again including the annual Bowerman Awards, which crowns the top NCAA Track & Field athletes of the year!

Thursday

I woke up early Thursday to get some complimentary breakfast and then workout before heading to hear Virginia Tech coach Dave Cianelli speak about building track and field programs as well as Ralph Lindeman talk about the high hurdles.  There was also a lunch sponsored by Nike before heading to another of the NCAA DI General Sessions.

But the highlight of the day was the Bowerman Awards, which is basically the Heisman Trophy of Track and Field.  I’ve been fortunate to attend each of the award ceremonies since it began in 2009 and it’s always a very classy presentation.  This year ESPN’s John Anderson was the host (he was a high jumper at Missouri) and, like in previous years, he was very funny and did a great job.

Oregon sprinter/jumper Jenna Prandini and Florida jumper Marquis Dendy won and everyone had a great evening.  Afterwards I got to hang out with former Shocker coach Joe Eby (now at Baldwin Wallace) and our Shocker coaches.  I went to bed reasonably early (11pm) because Friday would be a long drive home.

Friday

The main thing that happens on the final day of the convention is voting on topics that we may or may not send to the NCAA committee for review for Division I T&F.  Here is a review of the topics and what the voting results were:

The first proposal was to add scholarships that would be designated for cross country and it failed 194-191.  This was the closest vote of the convention.  This is a very complicated proposal that is hard to fairly explain on both sides so I won’t go into great detail here but, obviously, it was split amongst the coaches.  Generally the Power 5 coaches voted for it while the others voted against.

The next proposal passed easily 331-65, where the NCAA would come up with a practice schedule for the championships.  The practice days are kind of crazy at a facility with hundreds of people trying to workout so this proposal would help alleviate some of that cluster.  Hopefully the NCAA comes up with something that works for everyone.

Another vote that passed 258-113 was to define what a track and field meet competition is.  This seems obvious but it’s the first step in helping define our sport a little bit better for the general public.  This will not change most track meets in any manner.

The next one was hotly debated – should we stay with the 1500m or go back to the Mile at the NCAA DI level?  Going back to the mile won 221-169.  This was interesting because usually distance coaches generally agree with each other but this one was split.  We will see if the NCAA approves it, and if so it may go into effect in 2017.

The next proposal was also aggressively debated.  It was to reduce the number of All-American awards from the current (top 8 first team, next 8 second team, next 8 honorable mention) to just the top-8 for All-American status.  It was defeated 238-160.  This topic had the most discussion of any proposal and it looks like we will stay with the same system for honoring All-Americans.

The final proposal was a minor one that passed 311-91 where teams have to have the same uniform for the duration of each day of competition.  For example you can’t have sprinters in black and throwers in gold on the same day.

After the voting we packed up and headed back to Wichita around 11am.  I drove the final leg from Dallas and we got home around 10pm.  Myself and Coach Wilson spent most of the trip talking about our team and the upcoming season.  We’re both excited to get things going in January!  I slept in until 11am Saturday.

Final thoughts

I always enjoy going to the USTFCCCA Convention and this one was no different.  Mostly I enjoyed reconnecting with friends and colleagues that I rarely see anymore but I also enjoy learning things at the symposiums and listening to the proposals that try and better our sport.

Next year we will go to Orlando!  

Next time

So many things to talk about but I’ll probably give an update on our team, how the Intrasquad Meet went and our expectations for the year.

Until then, thanks for reading and Go Shocks!

The grind of Fall track practice, XC battles for titles and Who-Dey!

I apologize for not being more consistent with these blogs – luckily I don’t write for a living.  I’ve actually been pretty busy and I’m sure you all feel very sorry for me.

What is the track team up to?

Most of the attention lately has been on our cross country team (see more about them below) but the tracksters have been busy too.

October and November are real grinds for athletes who aren’t competing.  There aren’t any competitions and the training is often brutal in building up a large foundation to be ready to compete from January until the summer.  We do our best to keep these 18-23 year olds interested and motivated, but to be honest I can’t wait for the season to start either!

We do have some important things we’re focusing towards, however.  We only have 3-4 weeks of the academic semester remaining and we stress the importance of finishing strong in the classroom just like on the track.  The other thing we have coming up is our annual Intrasquad Meet on December 4 in the Heskett Center.

Last week we had the “Draft” where the upperclassmen members of the Gold, White and Black squads pick new teammates from the class of newcomers.  It’s always fun to see everyone trying to get to know each other because of the common characteristic of competitiveness.  Our Intrasquad Meet is probably the most intense and fun “scrimmages” you would ever see – complete with a tug-of-war at the end!

Cross Country battles to high finishes at the MVC Championships

Myself and a few other Shocker coaches took the 650 mile van ride east to Evansville, Indiana, to watch our distance runners vie for titles in last week’s MVC Championships.  In a couple of exciting races we watched our women finish a strong second and our men tie for second.  Our men ended up losing a tiebreaker for the second place trophy.

Do you know how ties are broken in cross country?  Most people would think you take the best sixth place runner (our sixth guy was well ahead of Illinois State’s).  In fact what they do is compare the top five runners head to head (we lost that 3-2).  The guys only lost first place by 11 points so you can imagine their frustration when they found out they lost a tie for second.

However, we have a lot of really good distance runners on both sides and we think they’re going to score a lot of points on the track this winter and spring.  They run this week at the NCAA Midwest Regionals in Lawrence, Kansas, on the famous Rim Rock Farm Course.

It’s the early signing period!

For one week in November (Nov 11-17) athletes can sign National Letters of Intent for NCAA Division I track and field.  We are excited to have at least four new Shockers signing this week with the possibility of a few more by early next week.  We have sent out around a dozen NLI’s and are anxiously awaiting for many of them to come back.

We have some more athletes coming on visits in the next few weeks and then recruiting will ease back a bit during the holiday season.

 

The Bengals are 8-0!

Just wanted to rub it in to my Steelers and Browns friends.  Lord knows I was the recipient of the same for most of the 1990’s and 2000’s.  Who-Dey!

Movies!!!

I’ve been seeing a steady diet of movies (about one a week) and they’ve been hit and miss.

I saw the Steven Spielberg directed movie Bridge of Spies starring Tom Hanks.  It was also written by the Coen Brothers (Big Lebowski, Raising Arizona, Fargo).  It’s a true story about an American Lawyer (Hanks) who is recruited to defend a Soviet spy during the Cold War.  It started a little slow but then built into a pretty darn good movie by the end.  This is a difficult topic to make interesting for two hours but Spielberg did a nice job.  After the movie I wanted to learn more about the lawyer Hanks played and his life after where the movie left off.  I would say that is a sign of a good movie.

Next I saw the final (so they say) movie in the series, Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension.  I have seen three of the previous five PA’s and have generally liked them.  I thought the original was great and PA3 was equally entertaining and spooky.  This last one was pretty solid but probably not as good as some of the earlier ones.  It’s a similar plot and has a little more in the way of CGI/technology involved in the making.  If you like these movies I’m sure you’ll like this one too.  If you don’t care for these “found footage” type movies then take a pass.

The last movie I saw was Steve Jobs about the former president and CEO of Apple.  The movie had been getting great reviews but had struggled at the box office so I figured I would check it out before it was gone from theaters.  While it was well made and offered good acting from a variety of people it was just too dialogue driven for me.  And that’s weird for me to say because I generally like movies driven by a lot of clever and well written dialogue.  I think the problem for me was this movie wasn’t that clever.  It’s not a bad movie by any means but I was probably expecting more.

Next time

Shocker basketball is getting started!  Our guys are ranked #10 and looking strong again.  Depending on how long it takes me to write another blog I’m sure I’ll be talking about the Intrasquad Meet and our new recruits (and hopefully gloating about more Bengals wins).

Until then, thanks for reading and Go Shocks!