Shocker Track is back on the attack!

It’s great to be back!

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

So what has been going on since June 17?

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

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

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

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

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

What are those goals?

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

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

This brings me to cross country.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Break time!

First of all I wanted to thank everyone for their supportive comments after my last blog about my dad.  I didn’t think it would get so many views but was very glad it did!  Thank you very much!

I’m gonna take a bit of a break from blogging for a while.  Most of my time in the next month will be spent recruiting and traveling so I won’t have a lot of WSU Track & Field stuff to report on.  I may do a blog about once a month or so – probably focused on how many new movies I’ve seen!  Haha.

Have a great summer everyone!

The world lost a great man today ... my dad.

So normally this blog would be mostly about track and field, and especially at this time of the year as we are in the middle of the NCAA Championships.  I wouldn’t normally write about something personal but it’s hard not to when you’ve just lost someone who is probably the most influential person in your life.

As I was leaving the track in Fayetteville, Arkansas, tonight (Saturday, May 31, 9:02pm) I got a phone call from my mom who told me dad had passed away after fighting a battle with several ailments including cancer.  We knew this day was coming as he had been put in Hospice Care recently.  My dad was 83 years old, he had lived a great life.  When I saw the phone ringing I knew what I was about to hear.

Our kids were in the middle of celebrating Ashley Petersen’s dramatic qualifying for the NCAA Championships by winning an 8-women jump-off in the High Jump.  It was definitely the highest of highs and the lowest of lows in that moment.  I’m not one to be real emotional so I didn’t say anything about it (with the exception to one of our coaches) so as not to dampen the euphoric mood of the team as we loaded up the bus and began our trip back to Wichita.

 Ever since I knew this day was coming I’ve mostly tried to not think of myself because, in reality, I am doing fine.  I’m healthy and am able to do anything I need.  I mostly just feel bad for my mom who just lost her husband of 51 years, and is all the way down in Florida dealing with this.  Luckily there is a large support group of friends that live in a community for retired couples there and she has plenty of people to help in this time of grief.  Also she is one of the strongest people I know.

The last time I visited my parents was Christmas and I had a very deep and meaningful conversation with my dad about death.  He knew it was coming and the peace he had during that conversation was remarkable.  Just so everyone knows - he was totally at peace with his life and everything he had accomplished.

I’m sure many of you who are reading this have lost a parent or loved one who has meant so much to you.  Obviously it’s never easy and no one knows how to act because it’s not something we go through very often.  I’ve coached lots of kids over the years that go through loss of loved ones.  Just this year one of my athletes lost his brother in a motorcycle accident.  The older you get the more frequent things like this happen.  I always tell kids that they are going to be ok and to be strong for the ones who are really suffering – like the husbands or wives who are going through the biggest struggles.

I know I will get a lot of those sentiments and I appreciate them.  But mostly I just wanted to share some of the things that my dad did for me throughout my life. Really and truly my parents have made me who I am with the foundation they gave me growing up.

One of the first memories I have as a child was going on long family vacations.  My mom and dad, along with me and my two older brothers would pile into a large vehicle and drive most of the way around the country taking in the sights and visiting places of significance.  I’m confident this is one of the reasons I enjoy traveling to this day.  When I was a kid I was always finding ways to amuse myself while we were on our way to our next adventure.  As I am typing this I am currently on another adventure, riding from Arkansas to Kansas with the Wichita State Track and Field team.  Kids are laughing, watching movies, playing cards, bonding – it’s wonderful!  I’ve been to 46 states and 6 countries – I have a long way to go to catch up to my parents list!

My life has mostly been consumed with sports and my parents got me into them at a very early age.  Our entire family has been involved in racing of different types throughout our lives and the beginnings of that were definitely with my dad.  He used to race hydroplanes before I was born and with his brothers and my grandfather invented a type of boat that was faster and lighter than had ever been made before.  They named the boat “Flying Debris” and it went on to win lots of races and challenge world record speeds during its lifetime.  Racing has always been a big part of the Wise family.

When I was very little I could remember going and watching my brothers race motorcycles.  When I was 5 years old my dad built me a homemade go-kart that I drove around our family farm.  Within the next year we bought a “racing” go-kart and I started playing my first team sport – baseball.

For 12 years my parents drove me around the Midwest racing go-karts.  For a little kid there isn’t anything much better than driving a fast go-kart every weekend and picking up trophies for the effort.  Dad was the mechanic, I was the driver – and it was a special time for the both of us.  There are several guys (and girls) that I raced against that are in Indy Car and Nascar today.

I think my dad really enjoyed the fact I was very into racing.  I couldn’t get enough of it as a kid and we would go to races all over the place.  We’d go to the Indianapolis 500, Eldora Speedway, drag strips, random dirt tracks – anywhere they were racing cars.  I don’t know if my dad realized it but I just wanted to be like him.  We could sit and watch races all day and both of us loved every minute of it.

As a very young child my dad would put me on his lap and let me hold the steering wheel as we went down the freeway.  When I got to about 12 years old my dad would let me drive while he sat in the passenger’s seat.  It was a different time back then.  I can’t imagine much of that going on today.  I can also remember when I got a little older – maybe 14 – on Friday nights when we would drive to a late go-kart race, my dad – tired from work – would fall asleep while I drove to the race.  I thought of it as my warmup for the race that night.  I didn’t think much of it then but the amount of trust he had in me at such a young age is an amazing feeling now.  There is a song Alan Jackson sang called “Daddy Let Me Drive” and always get goosebumps when I hear that song thinking about my dad.

Baseball was the other sport I played as a very young child and my dad was always around.  He didn’t necessarily coach but he was always at practice and spent endless evenings tossing a baseball back and forth in our front yard.  We all know the energy a young person has and I was no different as a kid, and my dad would always go out and play even though I knew he was tired from working at the phone company all day.  It reminds me of the movie “Field of Dreams” when Kevin Costner gets to play catch with his dad at the end of the movie.  That part always makes me think of my dad.

Basketball was the next sport I developed a major passion for.  I played for 8 years and thought that would be the sport I would go onto play in college.  Basketball is a big deal where I am from and I wanted to be the best I could be.  Every kid where I grew up had a basketball goal at their farm and we were no different.  But my dad had a large garage where he would work on cars, my go-kart, or other random projects that he enjoyed.  The other half of that large garage had an indoor basketball court in it that was big enough to shoot 3-pointers.  There were so many nights in m childhood where I was playing basketball by myself on one side of the garage while my dad was tinkering on the other side.

My dad was never a guy who showed anger or had a temper but he was a strong person who knew how to keep me in line when I needed it.  I remember in the fifth grade when I was on an independent basketball team and I was also a manager for the junior high and I decided on my own to skip practice so I could go to the junior high game.  I was probably more interested in looking at the junior high girls than basketball and my dad came to the game, picked me up and proceeded to explain what being committed to a team meant.  I arrived to practice late, got chewed out by the coach, and that was that – lesson learned.  I’m so glad I didn’t miss the whole practice and to this day that single incident helped me know how to never be bigger than the team – even if I was the best player.

The one team sport my dad got into in terms of coaching was soccer.  Organized soccer came to our community when I was a fifth grader and of course I wanted to play.  I played for four years and my dad coached me about half of the time and then I assisted him for another year when I was done playing.  I think soccer was a game my dad could easily enjoy because, more than most every sport, soccer is a team game and the glory goes to the team and not an individual who is garnering lots of stats.

Speaking of stats, if you know me very well you know I’m a numbers and stat geek.  When I was very young I would sit at my dad’s feet while he read the newspaper.  Once he was done with the sports page I would start looking at it and what drew me in were the baseball box scores and stats.  As a little kid I could figure batting averages and shooting percentages with ease and I’m certain that is the reason I was considered a sort of math phenom as a kid.  I was just trying to be like my dad.

He would keep our stats during basketball and baseball games.  Then when we bought a family video camera and every sporting event I ever did got put on tape – I would come home and stat the games myself.  One of the coolest things he ever did was when our high school basketball games would be on the radio is hook up the video camera so the play by play would record along with the game.  This was back in the early 1990’s and technology was not near as advanced as today.  I could go home after the game and it seemed like watching the game on TV!  Very cool.

My dad was very creative.  He was someone that enjoyed writing detailed journals about his passions and keeping track of important accomplishments through writing or video.  He had a small artistic side to him where I can remember dabbling with music from time to time.  People always tell me I’m a creative thinker in my job.  I write a blog to journal my track and field journeys.  I learned how to play guitar a few years ago.  Just trying to be like my dad.

Of course the sport I eventually fell in love with, and is still earning me paychecks today, was track and field.  My dad, who was born in 1930, also did track and field.  His best event was the pole vault and I actually have a picture from the late 1940’s of him clearing 10 feet with a straight bamboo pole.  I carried it around in my wallet for most of my track and field career.  My brother Jimmy also pole vaulted and my dad built him a homemade pole vault pit on our farm.  I wasn’t as much of a daredevil as my brother and luckily I was very fast as a kid so I just stuck with running and long jumping.  So my dad, with help from my mom, built a set of wooden starting blocks and a long jump pit full of sawdust from a local Amish farm.  I had everything I ever needed to start a track and field career!

My parents were the driving force behind raising money to build a track at my high school.  I never had a track to practice on and they wanted the future Eastern High School tracksters to be able to reach their potential and have somewhere to train every day that wasn’t a grass field or parking lot.  The amount of volunteer hours they put into that effort was incredible and hopefully we can do something to help the community realize how significant they were to the project.

Like a lot of parents, mine went to every sporting event I was ever in as a kid.  And when I moved onto college and starting traveling all around the country they would still make it to many meets.  I would often feel bad that they would drive hours and hours to only watch me run a 21 second 200 meter race.  But I think they would usually make it an adventure and maybe see places around our country they hadn’t been to or hadn’t been to in a long time.

My dad tried his best to keep up on the teams I’ve coached in the past 16 years.  He seemed especially interested in our teams at Wichita State and most every phone call we had ended up talking about our team or some of the kids that I coach.  I had a particularly frustrating situation this year with some athletes in my group and I used my dad as an example of being unselfish in tough situations for them.  It was just over a month ago and he wasn’t able to walk anymore.  The first thing that was said when we started talking that day was he asked how my sprinters were doing.  In a time of significant health issues he was still being unselfish and asking how I was doing.  The situation eventually worked itself out and we ended up winning a championship because of our teamwork and unselfishness in the end.  I give a part of the credit to my dad and him giving me an avenue for communicating some motivation to my team.

There are so many stories and good memories I can recall about my dad that could be used as examples of what kind of person he was.  Here are two short ones that I think of often.

The first one was in 1997.  I grew up on a farm in a very rural part of Southern Ohio and I was pretty insulated from much of the world until I went to college.  I was always a pretty open minded person but not until I got to Kent State did my eyes open up to what the world really had to offer.  Like most guys that age I was consumed with two things: sports and girls.  And in 1997 I started dating a girl from Jamaica – yes she was black!  It seems pretty crazy to me now, but at that point of my life – and coming from where I came from – that was a very big deal.  Small town, star athlete, lots of gossip!  I remember bringing up who I was dating on my Christmas visit to my parents to see what kind of reaction I’d get.  By the end of the conversation my dad had already gotten out an atlas and was asking where she lived.  By the end of the night he was flying to Jamaica on his computer flight simulator.  I always had total support for anything I did.

The second story goes back to when I was a freshman in high school.  I got accused of cheating on a test by one of my teachers – and to this day I promise I wasn’t cheating – and I was going to have to have Saturday school for kids that get in trouble.  I also had a track meet that day that now I would have to miss.  Growing up I never questioned an authority figure so even though I knew I hadn’t cheated I was still in trouble and I knew when I got home and told my parents I would be in more trouble.  After telling them my side of the story my dad said I needed to take their punishment and sometimes things like this happen in life that we can’t control.  He wasn’t happy with it but he believed what I said.  So that Saturday I went to the school to put in my time and when my dad picked me up he asked what I had learned.  I told him I needed to make sure not to put myself in situations that could be interpreted like that ever again and that it really sucked to go to Saturday school.  He seemed to be satisfied with this and pulled out a bag of clothes and my track spikes.  He hustled me over to the meet and even though I missed the beginning I was able to run the last few events and put the whole thing behind me by the end of the day.

To this day whenever any of my athletes do something to get in trouble I try to listen to them and their side of the story first.  I want them to know I believe in them, just like my dad did for me.  I’m sure athletes have lied to me from time to time – as I’m sure I told a few fibs to my parents – but the belief my dad always had in me gave me a level of confidence that I could accomplish just about anything I wanted in life but still knowing he was there to keep me in line if need be.  And I try very hard to pass that on to anyone I work with on a daily basis.  I’m not as good at it as my dad but he gave me a great example to learn from and follow.

If you’ve made it this far in this blog then you probably know me or my dad very well.  I don’t know many people that ever met my dad and didn’t think of him in the highest of terms.  I’ve got so many terrific memories of my dad and the great life he lived so I am doing fine with all this.  If you feel the need to reach out to someone please reach out to my mom who is now without her husband of 51 years and is living alone for the first time in 72 years.  We will not be having any kind of public service – that’s not the way my dad wanted it.  He will have his ashes spread out into the Gulf of Mexico from a sail boat.

Something like that sounds pretty good to me.  Thank you dad for another understated example on how to live our lives so well.

MVC Championships: we win a title, we lose a title - how are we supposed to feel?

Well it was a wild weekend of track and field in Carbondale, Illinois, where the Shockers were able to win the women’s title and place second in the men’s meet by 11.5 points.

If this blog is a good news, bad news kind of thing I’ll start with the bad (although it wasn’t all that bad).

MEN

We were picked to win the men’s meet but we knew it would be tough because of several injuries we had during the season.  The most significant loss we had during the outdoor season was freshman multi-eventer Hunter Veith, who had scored over 7000 points in his first ever Decathlon and would probably be able to score in a couple more events during the weekend.  On top of that we had lost about 8 other athletes to injury during the indoor or outdoor seasons that would’ve been contributors.

Even with all that we still had a team that could’ve won and prior to the meet we had us as a 12 point favorite on paper.  One of the problems with that projection was that we didn’t have a whole lot of move up points left available for our top athletes – they were already ranked first or very high in the conference standings.  That made our lead on paper have a very thin margin for error – especially with a team as good as Indiana State behind us in second.

We had a very tough time picking our 32 guys, even tougher than I detailed during the indoor season.  Two weeks before the championship we still had about 45 guys in the running for those 32 spots and after our final meet we had 37 guys that we all wanted to make the team.  How do you pick 32 guys when you need all 37?  At that point we made our best guesses about how the entries would look and who would perform the best.  In hindsight we made good decisions and the fact that 29 of our 32 guys scored points individually proved that fact.

We started the meet very well and everything looked good early.  We ended up scoring 153 points where we had projected 158 so the guys really did do a great job.  Indiana State just had a great meet (especially on Saturday) and outperformed their form chart by 18 points.  We could point at a couple events where we had let downs but that’s the way all championship meets go.  It was a hard fought meet that came down to the last events and our guys battled hard.  Hopefully we learned some lessons and next year will be even hungrier to try and figure out a way to beat those guys from Terre Haute.

WOMEN

The women’s meet was the opposite of the men’s as we were picked second behind Indiana State heading into the meet.  We have won a lot of women’s championships in recent years and our ladies just seem to know how to compete and win titles when it counts.  We had Indiana State as a significant favorite heading into the meet – 36 points – and we knew we needed to get off to a quick start.

That’s exactly what happened as we cut the projected lead in half on day one before holding form on day two.  We figured them as a 16 point favorite heading into Sunday and needed some good things to happen.  Right away good things happened.  We got a four point swing in the triple jump and our 4x100m relay team took second place while Indiana State didn’t finish.  From that point we continued to build our lead until clinching the title with a few events left.

28 of our 32 girls scored in this meet which is the deepest team we’ve ever had.  Add into the fact that we return over 90% of our points and we feel really good about where our women’s team is heading into next year.

OVERALL

One of the strangest feelings you can ever have is winning a championship and losing a close battle in the same day at virtually the same time.  I try to explain the feeling to people like this – Imagine your team just won the World Series in Game 7 on a dramatic finish, now imagine you also coach the other team that just lost.  How are you supposed to feel?

We were so happy to win that women’s championship but so frustrated in losing the men.  I’m sure Indiana State felt the same way.  In my 8 years at Wichita State we’ve won both men’s and women’s titles but only once (2010 indoor) have we won both at the same time.  That was an incredible feeling and what we work for every day to try and duplicate.

It’s great having a rivalry with a team like Indiana State who is, obviously, working just as hard at it as we are.  I’m sure they are back home this week trying to figure out how to win both titles next year as well.  We have a great conference and winning a championship is definitely earned!

LOOKING AHEAD

No we are on to the NCAA West Preliminaries in Arkansas next week.  We have at least 15 Shockers qualified at the moment and hopefully will get a few more in that are on the bubble Thursday.

The season has just flown by and now we are almost done!  Coming up we have the NCAA Prelims, NCAA Championship Finals, USATF Championships, and USA Junior Championships before taking a break around July.  It’s been a great year and hopefully we will have our elite athletes earn a few all-American awards in the next few weeks.  Go Shocks!

MVC Outdoor Championship Week!

This is going to be a short blog because it’s the extremely busy week called MVC Outdoor Championship Week!

Our team heads to Southern Illinois on Wednesday and we will compete Friday/Saturday/Sunday.  I believe our men will be a narrow favorite over Indiana State while our women will probably be second on paper behind the Sycamores.

We had an incredible battle to make our 32 man and 32 woman rosters.  I’m going to try and detail a little more of that next week.  As for now we are preparing our 64 Shockers for the final conference championship of the season.  After that we will begin the NCAA Championships.

To keep up to date with the MVC Championships, follow along at the official MVC Championships Central Page, our WSU Twitteraccount, or our Facebook page.  Go Shockers!

The Shockers beat Kansas and Kansas State --- what does it mean?

This past weekend we had the opportunity to compete against our in-state Division I rivals Kansas State and Kansas in a scored competition (along with the Air Force Academy).  We ended up defeating all three teams on both the men’s and women’s sides and our kids proudly left the facility with their heads held high.

The meet was scored in dual meet fashion and here were the scores:

MEN

Wichita St 104, Kansas St 81

Wichita St 99, Kansas 86

Wichita St 113, Air Force 85

WOMEN

Wichita St 94, Kansas St 92

Wichita St 98.5, Kansas 84.5

Wichita St 117, Air Force 76

I have a few thoughts about the meet …

First of all had a really nice meet with lots of season bests and many victories during the course of the day.  We finally had a meet with warm weather and not much wind so our athletes got some legal (not wind aided) races as well as our long sprinters got to run races without a fierce wind on one side of the track.  It helped our placing in the MVC standings and with less than two weeks to go we are feeling pretty confident about our chances for one or maybe two titles.  All in all we got a lot accomplished as a team!

But what does it really mean?

Last week I lightheartedly referred to this meet as the “Battle of Kansas”.  Does it mean we have the best team in Kansas?  Will it propel us to victories in the MVC Championships in two weeks?  Will we get more recruits because we can brag about beating KU and K-State in head to head competition?  Will we qualify more athletes to the NCAA Championships this year?

I don’t know the answers to any of those questions.  But what it does do is make me think about our sport on a larger scale.  This is one of the few meets that we got mentioned on local television and in the Wichita Eagle newspaper.  The reason is, obviously, because we beat our in-state rivals.  But there are problems with this.

I don’t think Kansas and Kansas State were too thrilled that we beat them in the meet but I also don’t think they care too much because at the end of the day winning a meet like this doesn’t mean anything except for bragging rights.  That’s a major problem with our sport.  Kansas State hosted a very nice meet and can talk about several victories and outstanding performances they had.  Kansas can do the same, and in fact they didn’t even mention the team scores in their press release.  Is that good?  Is it ok that every team can spin their press release to make it look like they were successful?

Kansas might have been able to win the meet if they entered their athletes in more events (as could’ve K-State), but they didn’t because the bigger goal is to get ready for the Big-12 Championships.  I don’t blame them at all, we did the same thing by not doubling our best athletes as well, but shouldn’t winning this meet mean something more than bragging rights?  What if winning this meet meant Wichita State (or KU/KSU) would earn more national qualifiers?  Would they “try” to win a lot more then?

None of this should diminish the accomplishments of our men and women this weekend, in fact we have very strong outdoor track and field teams.  We expected to win the men's meet and thought our women had a chance although winning that meet was probably a slight upset.  Our men's team will probably be favored to beat Indiana State at the MVC Championships in two weeks - and Indiana State is REALLY good.

Our coaches association is trying to change the culture of the sport but most of the things I’ve heard doesn’t really address questions like the ones I’m talking about.  I’ve heard rumors that there are changes coming in the near future but will it make our regular season more important than just preparation for the conference and NCAA Championships?  Our basketball team had to win many regular season games to earn a better seed for the NCAA Tournament.  Everyone knows each game means something and that creates lots of interest.

I love our sport, in fact I think it’s the most pure and beautiful sport there is.  I just wish that beating KU and K-State meant more than just having bragging rights.

The Kansas track rivalry heats up this week, a look at the MVC race, and it's windy in Wichita!

Track

We just had an odd weekend in the world of outdoor track and field – an off weekend.  Well sort of.

As we put our schedule together this year we knew the week following the Oregon Relays (which were right after the KT Woodman) would probably be a time our athletes would be tired so we decided to have an off weekend to give our kids a chance to rest and recover as we prepare for the final regular season meets of the year.

We did have a meet, however, as we took some of the athletes who didn’t go to Oregon up to Emporia State on Wednesday night for the ESU Midweek Open.  We got some nice, warm weather and those who competed did a great job putting up several personal records.  Not making the trip to Oregon was tough to take for many of those athletes but they responded beautifully with terrific results at Emporia.

I decided to give the group Thursday off from practice and we had a spirited final day of the week for Friday’s practice.  Now that the weekend is behind us, the team looks refreshed and ready for our meet at Kansas State Saturday.  We have a great meet planned this weekend as we’ll compete against Kansas State, Kansas, and the Air Force Academy in a scored competition.  The weather forecast looks good and we should be ready to put up some big results.

 

We’ve always wanted to have scored meets against our in-state Division I rivals but haven’t been able to do so until this year.  I am happy to announce that beginning next year we will start our indoor season with a scored triangular meet with Kansas-Kansas State-Wichita State.  The meet will rotate between the three schools for 2015, 2016, and 2017.  It will be a great way to showcase track and field in Kansas and another chance for us to compete against these Big 12 schools, including the defending national champion Jayhawks.

I haven’t mentioned much about the MVC race in the previous weeks but it is starting to become a little clearer now.  Just like always, the MVC Outdoor Championships should be a close battle between several teams.  I always score the meet straight off the performance lists every week to see how we stack up and at the moment the lists say we have a slight lead on the men’s side and are in second place on the women’s.  With the exception of the 10k, most athletes have competed in their main events so this gives us a pretty good look at where we stand.  Here is what the “off the list” scores are:

Men: Wichita St 149, Indiana St 135, Loyola 127, Northern Iowa 112, Southern Illinois 109, Illinois St 91, Drake 73, Bradley 19.

Women:  Indiana St 159, Wichita State 128, Missouri St 105, Southern Illinois 104, Loyola 90, Northern Iowa 87, Illinois St 67, Bradley 41, Drake 37.

As you can see we have a very balanced league and I would say any of the top five men’s teams should be considered for the title as well as the top four women’s teams.  If you remember the indoor championship our women significantly outperformed our projection and came from about 60 points down to lose by 13.  We’re gonna need another performance like that to defeat Indiana State while our men look to be on more equal footing with the Sycamores.  They are the defending champions and we know they will be ready to go.  We’ve been working hard though and our teams are hungry for a title!  It should be a great weekend of track and field in Carbondale, Illinois, in three weeks!

The one thing that has been a big disadvantage for us is that most of our meets have been so windy.  The NCAA and our conference doesn’t allow times when the wind is over 4.0 meters per second and in some cases we have athletes who haven’t had a single race under that standard.  I think we have some very good kids that should factor significantly when we’re all on the same track together and hopefully this will give us the boost we need.  The wind also significantly hinders the races around the track.  The weather this Saturday looks good so hopefully we get some legal times to put on the board.

With having an off weekend from competition I got busy in recruiting by getting out to a couple local high school meets.  There are always meets going on in the Wichita area and most Tuesday and Friday nights can be spent scouting out the local talent.  Most of our recruiting for the class of 2014 has been completed so much of the work is in seeing the class of 2015 kids for the first time.  And while “most” of the 2014 class of recruiting is done, it’s not totally done so being at a meet when a new senior pops up is always a good thing.

For the time being, I’m only going to be writing about track and field because, well, that’s about all that I have going on at this time of the year.  I’ll try to add in some new movie stuff when I actually start watching them again!  Go Shocks!