A different kind of week, Sunflower St rivalry renewed and MVC preview

 A different kind of week

For a track coach you get used to a routine even though every week is a little different.  Practice Monday through Thursday or Friday then compete on the weekend, throw in some recruiting on random days and rest on Sunday and do it all over again for 6 months or so from January until June.

Last week was a little different as we had a meet on Wednesday and (gasp!) we had a weekend off!

Emporia State Midweek

For the last few years we’ve decided to take a weekend off and make the short trip to Emporia for a low-key Wednesday night meet, mostly for kids who didn’t go out to Sacramento earlier in the outdoor season.  Being one of the only D1 teams at the meet, many of our “developing” kids get to run to the front and gain some confidence from winning races and working on things they don’t get to do at more high profile meets.  I’ve seen some struggling kids turn around their seasons at the Emporia Midweek and end up being significant contributors a few weeks later at the MVC Championships.

What do track coaches do with an off weekend?

I will admit, the thought of an off weekend sounded really nice last week.  I’ve been hitting it hard for several weeks with tough travel and meet hosting.  So what did I do?  Mostly play golf.

In fact, not that anybody cares, but I shot a very pleasing 78 Saturday.  I won’t talk much about the 95 I shot on Sunday but all in all it was a relaxing weekend and got me rejuvenated and ready for the final weeks of the outdoor season.

Sunflower State rivalry renewed!

We are heading to Lawrence Saturday to take on the Jayhawks.  A late addition to the meet this week is Kansas State (they were going to host a meet but cancelled it and are now coming over).  Besides our Kansas rivals, we will also compete against Air Force, Oral Roberts and UMKC.  It should be a great scored meet – one that we are trying to win.

Last year we had a similar meet at K-St with KU and Air Force that we swept on both sides.  Indoor we had a Kansas Triangular where K-St won and we beat KU.

A meet like this gets our kids a little more fired up and ready to compete as we like to show we don’t take a back seat to our in-state rivals.  For anyone that lives in Kansas and likes track you should make sure to get to Lawrence Saturday for a great meet!

How does the MVC look?

With less than three weeks until the MVC Outdoor Championships at Illinois State, the race for the trophies are becoming a little clearer.  And the good news is Wichita State should be in the hunt for both titles.

On the women’s side it once again looks like a three-way battle with Indiana State and Southern Illinois.  This weekend will be a big indicator for us in terms of who will make our conference team and how ready we are.  I think we’re looking good and our ladies have a deep and powerful team that the other squads will need to be ready for.  Indiana State and Southern Illinois have great athletes and coaches too and I’m sure they’ll be ready for the challenge.  It should be fun!

For the men we also appear to be a slight favorite on paper with SIU, Indiana State and Loyola chasing us.  We have a couple injuries on the men’s side but I feel like we are coming around now and look hungry to get our first men’s title since 2010.  The MVC is a really tough league and winning championships aren’t easy.  Those teams will throw their best at us and we will need to be ready!

Next week

Hopefully I’ll be back to recap a great meet at KU as well as getting ready to host our final home meet of the year the following week, the Shocker Open.  Maybe I’ll even chat about a couple new movies I’ve seen recently as well!

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

Surviving KT Woodman, breakthroughs at OU and being a sports psychologist

It’s been a couple weeks since I checked in here.  Been a couple BUSY weeks.

KT Woodman Classic/Shocker Pre-State

Last weekend we had our big home track and field meet at Cessna Stadium.  It’s part high school, part college/university, part madness.  In all we had over 2000 athletes, 60 high schools and 40 colleges represented during the four-day event.

I was very impressed with how our staff and athletes pulled together to run off a first-class competition.  Luckily we had good weather and that always helps, but the amount of manpower it takes to make a great meet happen is huge.  Because I’m the guy who has the most communication with the other coaches from the high school and college ranks, I’m the one that gets a lot of the compliments afterwards but it’s truly a team effort.

As for our team we also had a terrific meet!  I think I counted 49 personal bests and several all-time top-10 WSU performances.

And every Saturday night when KT Woodman comes to a completion, I am very glad it’s over.

I kept track of how much I worked that week and it totaled 103 hours.  Needless to say that is why I didn’t write a blog last Sunday – I was sleeping most of it.

On to Ooooooooooklahoma

Around Tuesday I started feeling recovered from KT Woodman and we set our sights on going down to Oklahoma University for the John Jacobs Invitational.  Most of our kids hadn’t been to OU for a meet even though it’s only a couple hours from Wichita.  They have a new coach, Jim VanHootegem, who we’ve known through the years and he invited us down along with Alabama and a few other schools.

Here were the final team scores:

MEN:  Wichita St 183, Oklahoma 164, Alabama 135, Abilene Christian 107, North Texas 47, Oklahoma St 37

WOMEN:  Oklahoma 177, Wichita St 159, Alabama 125.5, Missouri St 80, Abilene Christian 62.5, Oklahoma St 55, North Texas 30

I’m not sure many of the teams cared a whole lot about the team scores, and we also didn’t enter in a way to maximize our scoring, but it’s nice to see the score and see WSU at or near the top.  We got a nice compliment from the Oklahoma coach as he told us in putting together a meet he always thinks of us as a BCS-type team in very high regard.

Our team competed well although it wasn’t probably overall as good as the KT Woodman, but I was very pleased with the sprint group.  We’ve been working hard in practice and you don’t always compete well on tired legs and most of our crew did well – there were even some major breakthroughs that are always fun to see.  Yesterday we counted eight school records this year at WSU.  Sometimes you go the entire year without one so we have some kids doing great things.

Being a sports psychologist

On the other hand with a team so big, often kids get to a plateau and struggle to stay patient for long enough see the other side.  Young people these days are so ready for everything to happen NOW and unfortunately in track, and life for that matter, it’s not how it works.  You have to grind away and keep working consistently before you see results that you want.  The hard part is you see a training partner or teammate making a big jump in performance and wonder why it’s not happening for you as well. 

As a track coach, much of your time at a meet is playing sports psychologist and trying to help kids understand they need to stay positive and enthusiastic even if it’s not their best day.

Recruiting

I haven’t spoken about recruiting much in these blogs but it’s something that is always happening.  This past week we began the final “signing period”.  We had the early signing period in November and now we are in a time where kids can sign scholarship papers from now until the end of the school year.

We didn’t have a lot of scholarship money available this year because we don’t have lots of seniors but we feel that we did very well with what we had.  So far we’ve signed about 15 athletes between the guys and girls and will probably end up around 20.  I think we have as many “impact freshmen” coming in as ever.  We know we have good teams coming back in 2016 and this recruiting class should be ready to come in and make it even better.

Since we are almost out of scholarship money our attention starts to focus on juniors in high school and the following recruiting class.  You aren’t able to call or meet officially with juniors until July 1 but you can establish email communication and begin to talk to coaches about their athletes.  I would say we’re ahead of the game as compared to previous years and will be going after more high level athletes than ever before.

It’s a great time to be part of Wichita State University and more and more young people are starting to realize it too!

Next week

It’s a little different this week as we will take part of our team to the Emporia State Midweek meet on Wednesday and then have the weekend off.  I have no idea what I will do with a weekend without a track meet.  I’ll probably go to a track meet. :)

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

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

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

California

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A big problem with our sport

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

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

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

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

Shocker Pre-State Challenge/KT Woodman Classic

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

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

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

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

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

Next week

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

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

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

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

What have we been doing?

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

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

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

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

Season opener in Arkansas

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

 

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

Watch the replay of the meet on ESPN3 here.

Throwers come out strong

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

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

Heading West next week

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

Shocker Basketball ends another great year

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

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

Perspective of being at a non-BCS school

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

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

Next week

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

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

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

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

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

MVC Indoor Championships

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

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

Final team scores

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

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

Observations

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

Going into the meet we had the projections like this:

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

WOMEN- Indiana St 126, WSU 120, SIU 107

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

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

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

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

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

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

What’s next?

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

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

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

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

Next week

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

Until then -- Go Shocks!!!

It's MVC week!

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

K-State Open

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

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

Picking the team

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

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

MVC race

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

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

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

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

Armstrong inducted into WSU Hall of Fame

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

Congrats Shannon!

Next week

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

Until then, thanks for reading and Go Shocks!

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

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

Good final “Team” tune-up

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

Here were the team scores:

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

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

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

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

What’s next?

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

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

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

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

How does the MVC look this week?

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

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

“VHS” Movies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next week

Everything will be about the upcoming MVC Championships!

Until then, thanks for reading and Go Shocks!