Yesterday I updated the men's sprint rankings. Here's how the women stack up. Remember, these are merit rankings based on past performance, not a rating of who is "best" or who would win a future race.
100 meters
Rank Athlete NAT Pts
1 Carmelita Jeter USA 224
2 Veronica Campbell-Brown JAM 197
3 LaShauntea Moore USA 152
4 Kelly-Ann Baptiste TRI 119
5 Shelly-Ann Fraser JAM 104
6 Blessing Okagbare NGR 99
7 Allyson Felix USA 86
8 Sherone Simpson JAM 81
9 Chandra Sturrup BAH 80
10 LaVerne Jones-Ferrette ISV 71
11 Kerron Stewart JAM 66
12 Shalonda Solomon USA 58
13 Sheri-Ann Brooks JAM 48.5
14 Porscha Lucas USA 39
14 Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie BAH 39
16 Tianna Madison USA 36
17 Jeneba Tarmoh USA 35
17 Tahesia Harrigan IVB 35
19 Gloria Asumnu USA 32
20 Bianca Knight USA 29
Jeter and Campbell-Brown have split their two meetings at 100 meters. As the system does not reward under-racing, Jeter is on top. #10 Jones-Ferrette is ranked purely on her stellar indoor season and has not raced at all outdoors, leading to speculation as to why.
200 meters
Rank Athlete NAT Pts
1 Veronica Campbell-Brown JAM 162
2 Allyson Felix USA 88
3 Shalonda Solomon USA 84
4 Carmelita Jeter USA 66
5 Kerron Stewart JAM 56
5 Bianca Knight USA 56
7 Connie Moore USA 53
7 Kelly-Ann Baptiste TRI 53
9 Porscha Lucas USA 52
10 Shelly-Ann Fraser JAM 51
10 LaShauntea Moore USA 51
12 Cydonie Mothersill CAY 46
13 Debbie Dunn USA 45
14 Ana Kapachinskaya RUS 33
15 Sheri Ann Brooks JAM 27
16 Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie BAH 22
17 Amber Purvis USA 21
17 Francena McCorory USA 21
19 Ashlee Kidd USA 20
20 Alexandria Anderson USA 15
Campbell-Brown hasn't run the 200 a whole lot, but neither has anyone else. She and #2 Felix took the top spots at the Diamond League race in New York. #3 Solomon hasn't won too many races but is the next-most consistent. #7 Moore won the USATF Championships but that was her only race of note.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
Superfan Rankings Update: Men's Sprints
It's been a while since I've done this. Let's see how things stack up right now.
100 meters
Rank Athlete NAT Pts
1 Asafa Powell JAM 288
2 Usain Bolt JAM 152
3 Tyson Gay USA 126
4 Walter Dix USA 120
5 Yohan Blake JAM 117
6 Dwain Chambers GBR 102
7 Daniel Bailey ANT 96
8 Nesta Carter JAM 93
9 Ivory Williams USA 90
10 Richard Thompson TRI 88
11 Trell Kimmons USA 82
12 Mike Rodgers USA 67
13 Christophe Lemaitre FRA 65
14 Churandy Martina AHO 54
15 Michael Frater JAM 49
16 Lerone Clarke JAM 37
17 Travis Padgett USA 35
18 Rae Edwards USA 33
19 Jaysuma Saidy Ndure NOR 31
20 Keston Bledman TRI 20
Let's get this straight: Usain Bolt is the best, period. But this system is more like Track & Field News' world rankings, where under-racing is penalized. Bolt and Gay haven't run the 100 much yet this year. Once they run more, they'll move up. The flavor of the week, Christophe Lemaitre, is at #13.
200 meters
Rank Athlete NAT Pts
1 Walter Dix USA 251
2 Wallace Spearmon USA 192
3 Usain Bolt JAM 155
4 Tyson Gay USA 121
5 Curtis Mitchell USA 79
5 Xavier Carter USA 79
7 Asafa Powell JAM 78
8 Ryan Bailey USA 53
9 Churandy Martina AHO 45
10 Angelo Taylor USA 40
11 Brandon Byram USA 26
11 Richard Thompson TRI 26
13 Jaysuma Saidy Ndure NOR 25
14 Steve Mullings JAM 24
15 Paul Hession IRL 23
16 Christophe Lemaitre FRA 21
16 Evander Wells USA 21
16 Calvin Smith USA 21
19 Leroy Dixon USA 19
20 Marvin Anderson JAM 18
Again, Bolt is obviously the world's best but hasn't raced enough to top the rankings. Dix and Spearmon lead as they are regulars on the Diamond League circuit. #5 Mitchell ran 19.99 over the weekend at the NACAC U-23 championships and is the least-known of the top runners.
100 meters
Rank Athlete NAT Pts
1 Asafa Powell JAM 288
2 Usain Bolt JAM 152
3 Tyson Gay USA 126
4 Walter Dix USA 120
5 Yohan Blake JAM 117
6 Dwain Chambers GBR 102
7 Daniel Bailey ANT 96
8 Nesta Carter JAM 93
9 Ivory Williams USA 90
10 Richard Thompson TRI 88
11 Trell Kimmons USA 82
12 Mike Rodgers USA 67
13 Christophe Lemaitre FRA 65
14 Churandy Martina AHO 54
15 Michael Frater JAM 49
16 Lerone Clarke JAM 37
17 Travis Padgett USA 35
18 Rae Edwards USA 33
19 Jaysuma Saidy Ndure NOR 31
20 Keston Bledman TRI 20
Let's get this straight: Usain Bolt is the best, period. But this system is more like Track & Field News' world rankings, where under-racing is penalized. Bolt and Gay haven't run the 100 much yet this year. Once they run more, they'll move up. The flavor of the week, Christophe Lemaitre, is at #13.
200 meters
Rank Athlete NAT Pts
1 Walter Dix USA 251
2 Wallace Spearmon USA 192
3 Usain Bolt JAM 155
4 Tyson Gay USA 121
5 Curtis Mitchell USA 79
5 Xavier Carter USA 79
7 Asafa Powell JAM 78
8 Ryan Bailey USA 53
9 Churandy Martina AHO 45
10 Angelo Taylor USA 40
11 Brandon Byram USA 26
11 Richard Thompson TRI 26
13 Jaysuma Saidy Ndure NOR 25
14 Steve Mullings JAM 24
15 Paul Hession IRL 23
16 Christophe Lemaitre FRA 21
16 Evander Wells USA 21
16 Calvin Smith USA 21
19 Leroy Dixon USA 19
20 Marvin Anderson JAM 18
Again, Bolt is obviously the world's best but hasn't raced enough to top the rankings. Dix and Spearmon lead as they are regulars on the Diamond League circuit. #5 Mitchell ran 19.99 over the weekend at the NACAC U-23 championships and is the least-known of the top runners.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Sunday Evening Decathlete
What did we learn this week?
White men can run. Or at least one can. Christophe Lemaître ran 9.98 at the French national championships, becoming the first white man to run 100 meters in under 10.00. Well, except that Italian Pietro Mennea ran 19.72 for 200 meters some 31 years ago, and in so doing ran a 100-meter segment well below 10.00. And, of course, there's the fact that nearly all sub-10.00 sprinters have had mixed ancestry, and calling them "black" and Lemaître"white" is an arbitrary either/or decision based on appearance alone with no allowance for gray areas.
But I digress. Here's the important thing: Lemaître is the third-fastest ever at age 20, regardless of skin tone. If he continues to progress--and it's entirely possible he won't--a large European country will have one of their own in every big sprint race. It will contribute to the long-term health of the sport, and would do so even if his name and appearance were similar to that of Thierry Henry or Zinedine Zidane.
David Rudisha is FAST. How fast is he? David Rudisha is so fast, he's already the second-fastest half-miler of all time at just 21 years old. On Saturday night he ran 1:41.51 at the KBC Nacht meet in Heusden, Belgium. The converted quarter-miler, whose father won a silver medal in the relay at the '68 Olympics, is two years ahead of WR-holder Wilson Kipketer's improvement curve and one year ahead of Seb Coe's. As the summer season is just hitting its full stride, there might be more where that came from.
The superstars are healthy...we hope. On Thursday, Usain Bolt ran 9.82 in the 100 meters at Lausanne's Athletissima meet in his first race back after a short achilles-injury-induced layoff. He was originally scheduled to run the 200, but wished to switch distances according to medical advice to avoid a turn. There was no 100 on the schedule, but one was hastily assembled, and it was the usual butt-whuppin by the man who might currently be the most well-known athlete in the world.
Two days later in Gateshead, Tyson Gay ran his first 100 of the season, but with a formidable opponent in Asafa Powell. Gay got an awful start, then showed amazing late-race power to blaze by Powell. Afterwards I got a scare when I saw Gay momentarily touch his hamstring, but I've heard no bad reports since then. Note: How often has Powell run well with a headwind, and how often has Gay run poorly? Not often at all. And this race was into a stiff breeze, so we should hardly be surprised that Gay blitzed Powell over the last 30 meters or so.
Another star is in trouble. Olympic and World 100 champ Shelly-Ann Fraser tested positive. For a painkiller. Which is not performance-enhancing. And was taken after dental work (she wears braces). Or at least that's what she says, and no one ever gets out ahead of the story in a scandal (sports, politics or otherwise) with this much detail and not tell the truth. So let's all hope this keeps the streak alive.
US distance fortunes are up...and down. At Gateshead, Leo Manzano closed very well to get third, just an eyelash behind Augustine Choge (both were given the same time). He showed the kind of late-race power in a scrum that you have to have in order to have a shot at a major international medal. Two days earlier in Lausanne, steepler Dan Huling ran an 8:13 PR for fourth, beating the reigning Kenyan champ in the process. Huling noted some weaknesses in his race, most notably the last two laps, and declined to discuss the possibility of soon breaking the American Record (8:09) in the same way a pitcher working on a no-hitter does.
At that same Gateshead meet, Galen Rupp ran his first 5k of the outdoor season. The pace wasn't terribly fast, and eleven runners were still in contention at the bell. Rupp finished ninth, and the winners put at least eight seconds on him in that last lap. While Rupp's time (13:10) was respectable, and not at his preferred 10k distance, I still think this exposes his essential weakness: no late-race speed. Chris Solinsky smashed him over the last two laps in the big 10k American Record race in May. As long as he stays on the track, he'll be somewhere between the 5th and 12th best runner in the world, but he has no chance at a major-championship medal. Even Geoffrey Mutai and Wilson Kiprop, the top two at10k in the recent Kenyan Championships, have essentially abandoned the track in favor of the roads. One of our biggest problems in the USA is that our stars wait far too long to do the same.
Ryan Hall, the man who looked like a world-beater in 2007 but has failed to live up to it since, was supposed to run a 5k at the Heusden meet on Saturday but pulled out. This led to some interesting discussion at Let's Run. I'm with the camp that thinks this is a bad sign, as Hall has scheduled no other races--and for years has planned to race on the track but pulled out. As much as he was touted as The One, when you compare his accomplishments with Meb Keflezighi's, you wonder why Hall? Meb won an Olympic medal, the New York City marathon, and set an American Record on the track. Killer instinct. Hall is a free spirit, a modern-day hippie (albeit with a spiritualism atypical of that type). Meb will tell you, and mean it, that he's the least-accomplished child in his family, while Hall will tell you how to communicate with God, and mean it with just as much conviction. Each is getting what they want out of life.
The USA's biggest throwing star is our newest. Provided, of course, that you accept Christian Cantwell's domination of the shot as a bit boring and that Kara Patterson is the big new thing. Patterson had a surprise big throw at the USATF Championships, smashing the American Record; a come-from-behind win over a top field at the Pre Classic; and then a second at Saturday's Diamond League meet in Gateshead. After a bad first-round throw and two fouls, she came through in the clutch in the last of the four rounds to get her runner-up position with an excellent 63.11. In fact, all of these big results have come on her final throw. Cantwell may not deserve to get ignored, but could you make it interesting for a round or two and let someone else think they might win?
The Brits might be taking control of their situation. Bear with me, this needs a lot of explanation.
Jillian Michaels, a trainer on NBC's The Biggest Loser and star of her own Losing It, deals with the minds of people who come to her at least as much as she does their bodies. Almost all of them have a "woe is me" attitude, convinced that only bad things happen to them, and they are powerless to change their circumstances. One of her most-used lines is "You are not a victim!"
The city of Cleveland could use some of her tough love. The reaction out of northeast Ohio this week was another "we're always crapped on" tirade, the same kind of thing they've been talking for decades. While Cavs owner Dan Gilbert seemingly spoke for the city, he should have been condemned by the citizenry for failing to build a lineup that would have enticed LeBron James to stay. It's as simple as that. While these are not good times for rust-belt cities, Clevelanders have elevated fiddling while their city burns to an art form.
We in track and field often have that same attitude of victimhood. We assume we can never make a difference and keeps us from seeing what can be done. It's bad in the USA, but from what I can tell it's worse in the UK. This is why I was very happy to see a new website, Athleticos, started up this week. Essentially, Athleticos is for the UK what Flotrack is for the US...Athleticos was born out of a persistent frustration at the limited media coverage of our sport. Therefore we aim to support athletes with the exposure their endeavors merit while providing fellow athletics' enthusiasts with the breadth and detail they deserve. These Brits have taken charge of their situation.
A glimmer of hope. Earlier this week I reported how ESPN now knows track fans care and are more reliable viewers than baseball fans. On the other side of the Atlantic, Swiss hammer thrower Martin Bingisser sent me the following:
White men can run. Or at least one can. Christophe Lemaître ran 9.98 at the French national championships, becoming the first white man to run 100 meters in under 10.00. Well, except that Italian Pietro Mennea ran 19.72 for 200 meters some 31 years ago, and in so doing ran a 100-meter segment well below 10.00. And, of course, there's the fact that nearly all sub-10.00 sprinters have had mixed ancestry, and calling them "black" and Lemaître"white" is an arbitrary either/or decision based on appearance alone with no allowance for gray areas.
But I digress. Here's the important thing: Lemaître is the third-fastest ever at age 20, regardless of skin tone. If he continues to progress--and it's entirely possible he won't--a large European country will have one of their own in every big sprint race. It will contribute to the long-term health of the sport, and would do so even if his name and appearance were similar to that of Thierry Henry or Zinedine Zidane.
David Rudisha is FAST. How fast is he? David Rudisha is so fast, he's already the second-fastest half-miler of all time at just 21 years old. On Saturday night he ran 1:41.51 at the KBC Nacht meet in Heusden, Belgium. The converted quarter-miler, whose father won a silver medal in the relay at the '68 Olympics, is two years ahead of WR-holder Wilson Kipketer's improvement curve and one year ahead of Seb Coe's. As the summer season is just hitting its full stride, there might be more where that came from.
The superstars are healthy...we hope. On Thursday, Usain Bolt ran 9.82 in the 100 meters at Lausanne's Athletissima meet in his first race back after a short achilles-injury-induced layoff. He was originally scheduled to run the 200, but wished to switch distances according to medical advice to avoid a turn. There was no 100 on the schedule, but one was hastily assembled, and it was the usual butt-whuppin by the man who might currently be the most well-known athlete in the world.
Two days later in Gateshead, Tyson Gay ran his first 100 of the season, but with a formidable opponent in Asafa Powell. Gay got an awful start, then showed amazing late-race power to blaze by Powell. Afterwards I got a scare when I saw Gay momentarily touch his hamstring, but I've heard no bad reports since then. Note: How often has Powell run well with a headwind, and how often has Gay run poorly? Not often at all. And this race was into a stiff breeze, so we should hardly be surprised that Gay blitzed Powell over the last 30 meters or so.
Another star is in trouble. Olympic and World 100 champ Shelly-Ann Fraser tested positive. For a painkiller. Which is not performance-enhancing. And was taken after dental work (she wears braces). Or at least that's what she says, and no one ever gets out ahead of the story in a scandal (sports, politics or otherwise) with this much detail and not tell the truth. So let's all hope this keeps the streak alive.
US distance fortunes are up...and down. At Gateshead, Leo Manzano closed very well to get third, just an eyelash behind Augustine Choge (both were given the same time). He showed the kind of late-race power in a scrum that you have to have in order to have a shot at a major international medal. Two days earlier in Lausanne, steepler Dan Huling ran an 8:13 PR for fourth, beating the reigning Kenyan champ in the process. Huling noted some weaknesses in his race, most notably the last two laps, and declined to discuss the possibility of soon breaking the American Record (8:09) in the same way a pitcher working on a no-hitter does.
At that same Gateshead meet, Galen Rupp ran his first 5k of the outdoor season. The pace wasn't terribly fast, and eleven runners were still in contention at the bell. Rupp finished ninth, and the winners put at least eight seconds on him in that last lap. While Rupp's time (13:10) was respectable, and not at his preferred 10k distance, I still think this exposes his essential weakness: no late-race speed. Chris Solinsky smashed him over the last two laps in the big 10k American Record race in May. As long as he stays on the track, he'll be somewhere between the 5th and 12th best runner in the world, but he has no chance at a major-championship medal. Even Geoffrey Mutai and Wilson Kiprop, the top two at10k in the recent Kenyan Championships, have essentially abandoned the track in favor of the roads. One of our biggest problems in the USA is that our stars wait far too long to do the same.
Ryan Hall, the man who looked like a world-beater in 2007 but has failed to live up to it since, was supposed to run a 5k at the Heusden meet on Saturday but pulled out. This led to some interesting discussion at Let's Run. I'm with the camp that thinks this is a bad sign, as Hall has scheduled no other races--and for years has planned to race on the track but pulled out. As much as he was touted as The One, when you compare his accomplishments with Meb Keflezighi's, you wonder why Hall? Meb won an Olympic medal, the New York City marathon, and set an American Record on the track. Killer instinct. Hall is a free spirit, a modern-day hippie (albeit with a spiritualism atypical of that type). Meb will tell you, and mean it, that he's the least-accomplished child in his family, while Hall will tell you how to communicate with God, and mean it with just as much conviction. Each is getting what they want out of life.
The USA's biggest throwing star is our newest. Provided, of course, that you accept Christian Cantwell's domination of the shot as a bit boring and that Kara Patterson is the big new thing. Patterson had a surprise big throw at the USATF Championships, smashing the American Record; a come-from-behind win over a top field at the Pre Classic; and then a second at Saturday's Diamond League meet in Gateshead. After a bad first-round throw and two fouls, she came through in the clutch in the last of the four rounds to get her runner-up position with an excellent 63.11. In fact, all of these big results have come on her final throw. Cantwell may not deserve to get ignored, but could you make it interesting for a round or two and let someone else think they might win?
The Brits might be taking control of their situation. Bear with me, this needs a lot of explanation.
Jillian Michaels, a trainer on NBC's The Biggest Loser and star of her own Losing It, deals with the minds of people who come to her at least as much as she does their bodies. Almost all of them have a "woe is me" attitude, convinced that only bad things happen to them, and they are powerless to change their circumstances. One of her most-used lines is "You are not a victim!"
The city of Cleveland could use some of her tough love. The reaction out of northeast Ohio this week was another "we're always crapped on" tirade, the same kind of thing they've been talking for decades. While Cavs owner Dan Gilbert seemingly spoke for the city, he should have been condemned by the citizenry for failing to build a lineup that would have enticed LeBron James to stay. It's as simple as that. While these are not good times for rust-belt cities, Clevelanders have elevated fiddling while their city burns to an art form.
We in track and field often have that same attitude of victimhood. We assume we can never make a difference and keeps us from seeing what can be done. It's bad in the USA, but from what I can tell it's worse in the UK. This is why I was very happy to see a new website, Athleticos, started up this week. Essentially, Athleticos is for the UK what Flotrack is for the US...Athleticos was born out of a persistent frustration at the limited media coverage of our sport. Therefore we aim to support athletes with the exposure their endeavors merit while providing fellow athletics' enthusiasts with the breadth and detail they deserve. These Brits have taken charge of their situation.
A glimmer of hope. Earlier this week I reported how ESPN now knows track fans care and are more reliable viewers than baseball fans. On the other side of the Atlantic, Swiss hammer thrower Martin Bingisser sent me the following:
I thought you might like this blurb I saw in a tabloid newspaper here in Zürich yesterday. It lists the top 3 google search terms for the past 24 hours. Taking top honors in Switzerland is Athletissima. In a country of 8 million people, that's pretty big, especially considering no local athletes were contenders in any event. Heck, athletes from neighboring countries barely made headlines. And this isn't even the top meet in the country (Weltklasse is much bigger). It shows with the right marketing (the meet was nationally televised on a top channel and ads for the Weltklasse meet in August started in early spring), right meet format, and right stars a meet can get this sport some big exposure.
Friday, July 09, 2010
It's a Major Award!
Fra-gee-ley. Must be Italian.
Actually, it's my prize pack from the USATF Pick N Win game. T-shirt, backpack, water bottle, and $100 VISA gift card. Using it for a Tilastopaja account right now.
Actually, it's my prize pack from the USATF Pick N Win game. T-shirt, backpack, water bottle, and $100 VISA gift card. Using it for a Tilastopaja account right now.
Rethinking the World Cup
Are you excited about the World Cup? No, not that one. This is a track blog. I mean the IAAF World Cup. No? Not all geeked up? Well, that's you and six billion other people.
I guess these days they call it the Continental Cup. It used to be a weird hybrid of three national teams and all-star teams from five continents. Now it's just teams from four continents, and no one seems to care about it. When the press frets over various stars saying they'll skip the Commonwealth Games, it doesn't even merit a mention that they're highly unlikely to compete in the Continents Cup.
The IAAF first came up with this in 1977, and it was decently popular for an iteration or two. But that predated the World Championships, which has effectively made this competition a pointless off-year exercise. The IAAF still wants to put on some kind of global team-oriented competition, but goes about it the wrong way.
FIFA's World Cup, on the other hand, is the single most-popular sporting event on the planet (provided that you accept the Summer Olympics as a collection of many sporting events). This is tightly tied to national pride, but not the kind we know of here in the USA. Only 16% of FIFA's member nations even qualify, of which maybe a quarter have any real hope of winning the thing. For small nations, just seeing their countrymen compete on the biggest stage is a thrill in itself. This is where the IAAF World Cup fails, because there never were any small nations competing (and now there aren't any national teams at all). This is not to say we can't have meaningful team competition in track in which small countries have a fighting chance against bigger ones. It just has to be different, and we need not reinvent the wheel.
Rather than the dismal failure of a meet we've got, let's instead look at a wild success, the single best-attended annual track meet on the planet: the Penn Relays. What if we replaced the Continents Cup with a two-day national team relay carnival? I can tell you right now, I'd be enthralled.
In the usual lineup of American relays (4x100, 4x200, 4x400, 4x800, 4x1500, sprint and distance medleys, shuttle hurdles) a field of eight teams in each could be selected. This would give a wide variety of nations the ability to be represented. Dozens of different countries would have their moment on the track, competing in true team competition.
In the men's sprint medley, for example, I would imagine the invited teams would be Brazil, Cuba, Great Britain, Kenya, Russia, South Africa, Sudan, and the USA (provided all their stars could be brought on board). Great half-milers like David Rudisha, Abubaker Kaki and Mbulaeni Mulaudzi would be spotted huge deficits and have to run near all-out for the medals. The USA would doubtlessly give Nick Symmonds the lead and, for once, he'd play the role of the hunted rather than the hunter. It would be fantastically entertaining. And that's just this one relay. Imagine a Kenya-Ethiopia-USA battle in the women's 4x1500, or seeing Usain Bolt really unwind in the 4x200.
I'd add another dimension by including field events. Team competition in field events is rather common in high schools (around here at least), where each team gets three athletes and marks are totaled. In the men's javelin we could see a spirited competition between the Czechs, Finns, Latvians, Russians, Ukrainians, Greeks and Americans. Split the field into three flights, with one athlete from each nation, and the final-round stars would have to struggle for every last centimeter to put their team onto the medal stand.
Another idea would be to have an ekiden (road race relay) in the morning of each day, which could easily accomodate more than just eight national teams. The local population could be involved by having a 5k or 10k race that same morning, finishing at the stadium, so that the post-race party would have the ekiden on the stadium's video screen and participants could watch the finish on the track. If it were planned well, the early portion of the ekiden could share the road with the late part of the "people's race" for some small distance so that ordinary road runners could get an idea of just how fast the pros are.
Besides being a very interesting competition, it would be a significantly smaller operation than the rest of the IAAF's World Series events. It could be held in places that might otherwise never be able to host a big international championship. Like, say, the USA. It would be a very big deal in New York, and in Eugene it would be bigger than the Pope and the Queen of England and Elvis all rolled into one.
I don't think the question is whether or not you'd pay to see a meet like this, but how much you'd pay and how far you'd travel. I'm not sure I'm going to watch the Continents Cup even if any coverage is live and free. Relays are where it's at, the kind of thing that even gets casual fans fired up.
I guess these days they call it the Continental Cup. It used to be a weird hybrid of three national teams and all-star teams from five continents. Now it's just teams from four continents, and no one seems to care about it. When the press frets over various stars saying they'll skip the Commonwealth Games, it doesn't even merit a mention that they're highly unlikely to compete in the Continents Cup.
The IAAF first came up with this in 1977, and it was decently popular for an iteration or two. But that predated the World Championships, which has effectively made this competition a pointless off-year exercise. The IAAF still wants to put on some kind of global team-oriented competition, but goes about it the wrong way.
FIFA's World Cup, on the other hand, is the single most-popular sporting event on the planet (provided that you accept the Summer Olympics as a collection of many sporting events). This is tightly tied to national pride, but not the kind we know of here in the USA. Only 16% of FIFA's member nations even qualify, of which maybe a quarter have any real hope of winning the thing. For small nations, just seeing their countrymen compete on the biggest stage is a thrill in itself. This is where the IAAF World Cup fails, because there never were any small nations competing (and now there aren't any national teams at all). This is not to say we can't have meaningful team competition in track in which small countries have a fighting chance against bigger ones. It just has to be different, and we need not reinvent the wheel.
Rather than the dismal failure of a meet we've got, let's instead look at a wild success, the single best-attended annual track meet on the planet: the Penn Relays. What if we replaced the Continents Cup with a two-day national team relay carnival? I can tell you right now, I'd be enthralled.
In the usual lineup of American relays (4x100, 4x200, 4x400, 4x800, 4x1500, sprint and distance medleys, shuttle hurdles) a field of eight teams in each could be selected. This would give a wide variety of nations the ability to be represented. Dozens of different countries would have their moment on the track, competing in true team competition.
In the men's sprint medley, for example, I would imagine the invited teams would be Brazil, Cuba, Great Britain, Kenya, Russia, South Africa, Sudan, and the USA (provided all their stars could be brought on board). Great half-milers like David Rudisha, Abubaker Kaki and Mbulaeni Mulaudzi would be spotted huge deficits and have to run near all-out for the medals. The USA would doubtlessly give Nick Symmonds the lead and, for once, he'd play the role of the hunted rather than the hunter. It would be fantastically entertaining. And that's just this one relay. Imagine a Kenya-Ethiopia-USA battle in the women's 4x1500, or seeing Usain Bolt really unwind in the 4x200.
I'd add another dimension by including field events. Team competition in field events is rather common in high schools (around here at least), where each team gets three athletes and marks are totaled. In the men's javelin we could see a spirited competition between the Czechs, Finns, Latvians, Russians, Ukrainians, Greeks and Americans. Split the field into three flights, with one athlete from each nation, and the final-round stars would have to struggle for every last centimeter to put their team onto the medal stand.
Another idea would be to have an ekiden (road race relay) in the morning of each day, which could easily accomodate more than just eight national teams. The local population could be involved by having a 5k or 10k race that same morning, finishing at the stadium, so that the post-race party would have the ekiden on the stadium's video screen and participants could watch the finish on the track. If it were planned well, the early portion of the ekiden could share the road with the late part of the "people's race" for some small distance so that ordinary road runners could get an idea of just how fast the pros are.
Besides being a very interesting competition, it would be a significantly smaller operation than the rest of the IAAF's World Series events. It could be held in places that might otherwise never be able to host a big international championship. Like, say, the USA. It would be a very big deal in New York, and in Eugene it would be bigger than the Pope and the Queen of England and Elvis all rolled into one.
I don't think the question is whether or not you'd pay to see a meet like this, but how much you'd pay and how far you'd travel. I'm not sure I'm going to watch the Continents Cup even if any coverage is live and free. Relays are where it's at, the kind of thing that even gets casual fans fired up.
Thursday, July 08, 2010
ESPN Responds
Earlier today, ESPN ombudsman Don Ohlmeyer wrote about many things, vuvuzelas included, but item #3 was a well-reasoned response to last Friday's cutaway during the USATF Championships 5k to show the end of a baseball no-hitter.
Track people basically hit the programming bullies in the nose. We showed management that there are a lot of us, we are very engaged, and we follow through. You know, the kind of thing that advertisers are in love with. Rest assured, this incident has been noticed in Bristol.
Nothing is more galling for a sports fan than being engrossed in a live event only to have it hijacked in midflight. At 9:49 p.m. ET on June 25, ESPN did just that to 837,000 ardent fans watching the USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships. With less than two laps to go in the men's 5,000-meter run, the network cut away to live coverage of the final three outs of a no-hitter pitched by Arizona's Edwin Jackson. The track viewers were suddenly transported to the ninth inning of the Diamondbacks' eventual 1-0 victory over Tampa Bay. The excitement was palpable as Jackson induced a strikeout and a fly out, gave up a walk, then got Jason Bartlett to ground out. Pandemonium ensued as Jackson etched his name into baseball history.To his credit, he eventually gets to the point: ESPN is contractually obligated to show the final outs of any no-hitter, and to do so on the flagship channel rather than ESPN2 or ESPN News.
ESPN's coup provided a memorable service … to baseball fans. Unfortunately, it was an insulting disservice to the track audience, and the mailbag quickly reflected that with a barrage of comments. Track viewers were livid. Some called it "unprofessional" and "arrogant" and "a slap in the face." Others: "If I wanted to watch baseball I would have watched baseball" … "It shows no respect for track fans" … "I guess the U.S. championships was just filler programming until something better came along."
The offense was compounded when, after a seven-minute baseball cut-in, the network went directly to "Baseball Tonight," forcing the track audience to wait another 39 minutes to see a 60-second recap of the 5,000 and results of the 100-meter dash. You could not choreograph a better way to alienate an audience. The ESPN decision has repercussions, creating ill will and straining loyalty.
Such decisions are made in the blink of an eye. Often, they're determined by the strength and passion of the advocates in the control room. Programming's responsibility is the orderly execution and flow of the various elements running on the network -- in contrast, a producer's perspective totally revolves around specific telecasts, whether event or studio productions (such as "Monday Night Football" or "SportsCenter"). These two groups interact smoothly hundreds of times each week, but there can be tension, and the discussions over decisions such as this can get loud and sometimes very heated.In other words, the cool kids bullied the track nerds into changing the channel. But here's the kicker:
The producers of the track event wanted to continue serving their viewers. The "Baseball Tonight" producers anticipated the excitement and audience the no-hitter could generate if carried over directly into their broadcast. Programming played Solomon, and in this case got steamrolled by the BBTN team.
Was the move worth it? From a ratings perspective, ESPN picked up 160,000 viewers during the cut-in (many of which likely came from the College World Series being shown at the same time on ESPN2). That would only be natural -- they're baseball fans. But for BBTN, the fastest-paced, cleanest show on television, it was a Pyrrhic victory. Many viewers didn't stay. Just 20 minutes into the program, its audience had dropped from 1 million to 750,000.At the top, he said the track meet was pulling 837,000 viewers. The no-hitter only got it up to 1 million which quickly dropped to 750,000 during Baseball Tonight, which programmers believe to be one of their top shows. And then ESPN got inundated with so much hate mail that their ombudsman had to respond.
Track people basically hit the programming bullies in the nose. We showed management that there are a lot of us, we are very engaged, and we follow through. You know, the kind of thing that advertisers are in love with. Rest assured, this incident has been noticed in Bristol.
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
Monday, July 05, 2010
2010 Attendance Report
Introduction
Earlier this year, Amy Shipley wrote an article for the Washington Post in which she claimed that track and field is experiencing a resurgence in popularity as a spectator sport. Among other evidence, she cited increased attendance.
I immediately questioned that statement. A few individual meets may have experienced increased attendance this year, most notably the Penn Relays. But on the whole we don’t know whether it is going up or down or neither, because there is no centralized accounting of attendance at domestic track meets. I took it upon myself to do so. I would estimate I sent several hundred e-mails to various journalists, coaches, ticket offices, finance directors and grad-assistant SIDs over the last few months to try to pin down attendance at various meets. Often I got no response at all, but most were quite helpful and sent me the information I needed.
The diversity of the sport makes compiling the information a challenge. Some meets announce their attendance and some do not. Some record the number of tickets sold and some only make estimates. Some meets are on a single day and others are over several days; some keep separate attendance figures for each day and others lump them all together.
Also, it's not always easy to determine what "attendance" is. The Oregonian's Ken Goe, who always mentions attendance in his articles, notes that "official attendance figures usually are tickets-distributed figures, meaning the count includes anybody in the stadium, including athletes, media members, officials, coaches, concession workers, security officers, etc."
I classified meets into four categories: professional, college, high school, and relay carnivals. Many meets combine one or more of these, but the meet was assigned to the group which it primarily serves. Regardless of what it calls itself, a meet is a “relay carnival” if it serves all of the above, mixed together on the same day.
Attendance is suffixed with an “e” if the number is an estimate, and a “w” if inclement weather negatively impacted attendance.
The Numbers
Earlier this year, Amy Shipley wrote an article for the Washington Post in which she claimed that track and field is experiencing a resurgence in popularity as a spectator sport. Among other evidence, she cited increased attendance.
I immediately questioned that statement. A few individual meets may have experienced increased attendance this year, most notably the Penn Relays. But on the whole we don’t know whether it is going up or down or neither, because there is no centralized accounting of attendance at domestic track meets. I took it upon myself to do so. I would estimate I sent several hundred e-mails to various journalists, coaches, ticket offices, finance directors and grad-assistant SIDs over the last few months to try to pin down attendance at various meets. Often I got no response at all, but most were quite helpful and sent me the information I needed.
The diversity of the sport makes compiling the information a challenge. Some meets announce their attendance and some do not. Some record the number of tickets sold and some only make estimates. Some meets are on a single day and others are over several days; some keep separate attendance figures for each day and others lump them all together.
Also, it's not always easy to determine what "attendance" is. The Oregonian's Ken Goe, who always mentions attendance in his articles, notes that "official attendance figures usually are tickets-distributed figures, meaning the count includes anybody in the stadium, including athletes, media members, officials, coaches, concession workers, security officers, etc."
I classified meets into four categories: professional, college, high school, and relay carnivals. Many meets combine one or more of these, but the meet was assigned to the group which it primarily serves. Regardless of what it calls itself, a meet is a “relay carnival” if it serves all of the above, mixed together on the same day.
Attendance is suffixed with an “e” if the number is an estimate, and a “w” if inclement weather negatively impacted attendance.
The Numbers
Sunday, July 04, 2010
Sunday Evening Decathlete
What did we learn this week?
The Prefontaine Classic is the best meet in the USA. The Olympic Trials might be a better meet, and might not. It's not merely the big marks that the meet gets. I'm not a "mark snob"; to me, a closely competitive race or field event is much preferable. But that so many top athletes come, and do so well, that you get the magic combination of close competition at high levels.
There's only one way for next year's Pre to top this year's, and that's for Hayward to be struck by a Lightning Bolt.
NBC actually tried to do it well, and still couldn't. They went out of their way to keep up with field events, but still missed the two best contests of the day. Betty Heidler and Tatyana Lysenko staged a tremendous battle in the hammer throw, but TV viewers wouldn't have known it even took place. And probably the best competition of the day, either track or field, was completely ignored as well. Sudden javelin star Kara Patterson took on Barbora Spotakova and Martina Ratej, rated #1 and #3 in the world by yours truly, and beat them both on her final throw.
As my brother noted, Tom Hammond appeared to be mailing it in. But the rest of the coverage was as good as they can make it given NBC's track-coverage meme. And it still sucked. That meme requires post-race interviews, at least a little bit of pre-recorded up-close-and-personal fluff, the drama of self-doubt, and a complete ban on acknowledging the existence of the metric system in field events.
The first two items really eat up time. At about 16 minutes out of each hour, US broadcasts have more commercials than just about any of the world's broadcasters, and when the meet is loaded with top-level field events those interviews and fluff just aren't worth the time. The drama of self-doubt obscures real competition. Whereas the NBC announcers repeatedly referred to Tyson Gay's 2008 Olympic Trials injury and whether he could get past the memory of it, CBC's opening comment of their entire telecast questioned whether a rusty Gay could beat an on-top-of-his-game Walter Dix, a question which seems prescient only if you haven't been paying attention to track for the last month.
Worst of all is the no-metrics rule. It's not as if Glenn Beck is in the booth, ready to taser announcers who dare to mention that newfangled 18th-century Frenchy socialist plan to ruin America and make your ratchet set obsolete. What it does is eliminate the possibility of using the graphics-heavy international feed which allows viewers to easily follow the changing fortunes of field events. We did get a little bit of it, in the long jump, but even there Dwight Stones didn't say what those big lines spaced 39 inches apart meant.
No, the only way to fix domestic track broadcasts are to destroy them and rebuild from the ground up.
Big bureaucracy does...good! There are always stories of unbelievably petty high school uniform DQs every year, but we seemed to have a bumper crop this year. The NFHS, which sets the rules for track as well as all other sports, came up with a shockingly simple solution: the first violation in a meet gets the team a warning, and only subsequent violations get a DQ.
Bernard Lagat's best years are behind him. Don't get me wrong, he's still very good, as his recent 5k American Record proved. But as a miler, his dominance is probably over. He hasn't run a (by his standards) good mile or 1500 since January, when he won his umpteenth Wanamaker at Millrose.
Walter Dix is a star on the rise. He's running very well, and after beating Tyson Gay on Saturday he goes to Lausanne on Thursday to take on a coming-off-the-shelf Usain Bolt. Even better, he's a natural in front of the camera. Asked if beating Gay was an upset, he thought for a moment before saying yes.
This is where the money is. Speaking of Bolt, he and Puma launched a new line of shoes and clothing. "Puma..recently launched their 'Bolt Collection', which includes training-friendly footwear and apparel all designed by the Jamaican. The designs are said to capture the athlete's preferences in terms of on and off track styling and all feature the now famous emblem - a silhouette of the athlete striking his 'to the world' pose, which was made famous during the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008."
This is "sportswear", sold not to people who do sports, but to those who watch them. Gotta get me some.
David Oliver is the most unappreciated athlete in American track. Who else could tie an American Record, held by a legend, and not get mentioned until the seventh item? He's undefeated outdoors this year and running faster and faster and faster. I can't wait to see him and Dayron Robles race.
Christian Cantwell is the most unbeatable man in the world. He hasn't lost this year. On Saturday he faced the guys I have rated as #2, #3, #5, #7, #8 and #10. The worst of his six throws would have won by over seven inches.
US distance running fortunes continue to rise. It says much about the current state of affairs that Chris Solinsky's seventh-place finish in 13:08 was a bit of a letdown. Even a year ago, it would have been cause for much celebration. There were a bunch of breakthroughs, too. There were 3:51 and 3:53 for just-barely-ex-Ducks Andrew Wheating and AJ Acosta. But none were bigger than the women's 800, where youngsters Phoebe Wright and Alysia Johnson ran 1:58 PRs. They're still a step or two away from Olympic medal contention, but this is an event where the USA didn't have anyone advance out of the heats in Beijing.
Veronica Campbell-Brown is having a dream season. She beat Allyson Felix, Shelly-Ann Fraser, and Carmelita Jeter in the space of just a few weeks, and broke a five-year-old PR on Saturday. If I had to pick a women's Athlete of the Year right now, I think she'd win.
Nancy Lagat is the real deal. The winner of five big mile/1500 races this year stepped down to the 800 and darn near won with a nifty 1:57. In the process she beat Janeth Jepkosgei, the most consistent half-miler over the last few years.
The men's 400 is not having a stellar year. The world-leading time is 44.61. The last time the month of July began with a time this slow was 1985, when Thomas Schonlebe led with 44.62.
Stars: Who needs 'em? No Sanya Richards, no Jeremy Wariner, no LaShawn Merritt, and only a half-assed Tyson Gay and Jen Suhr. No Usain Bolt, no Yelena Isinbayeva, no Kenenisa Bekele. And yet these two US Diamond League meets have been off the hook.
I'm just smart enough to castigate myself for not being smarter. I took third in the USATF Pick N Win game, just seven points out of first. The difference is $1900. There are so many ways I could have made up those points by being just a little smarter that I'll wake up and brood about it for months. But I learned some things this year that I'll put to use next year, when I'll take home the big money.
The Prefontaine Classic is the best meet in the USA. The Olympic Trials might be a better meet, and might not. It's not merely the big marks that the meet gets. I'm not a "mark snob"; to me, a closely competitive race or field event is much preferable. But that so many top athletes come, and do so well, that you get the magic combination of close competition at high levels.
There's only one way for next year's Pre to top this year's, and that's for Hayward to be struck by a Lightning Bolt.
NBC actually tried to do it well, and still couldn't. They went out of their way to keep up with field events, but still missed the two best contests of the day. Betty Heidler and Tatyana Lysenko staged a tremendous battle in the hammer throw, but TV viewers wouldn't have known it even took place. And probably the best competition of the day, either track or field, was completely ignored as well. Sudden javelin star Kara Patterson took on Barbora Spotakova and Martina Ratej, rated #1 and #3 in the world by yours truly, and beat them both on her final throw.
As my brother noted, Tom Hammond appeared to be mailing it in. But the rest of the coverage was as good as they can make it given NBC's track-coverage meme. And it still sucked. That meme requires post-race interviews, at least a little bit of pre-recorded up-close-and-personal fluff, the drama of self-doubt, and a complete ban on acknowledging the existence of the metric system in field events.
The first two items really eat up time. At about 16 minutes out of each hour, US broadcasts have more commercials than just about any of the world's broadcasters, and when the meet is loaded with top-level field events those interviews and fluff just aren't worth the time. The drama of self-doubt obscures real competition. Whereas the NBC announcers repeatedly referred to Tyson Gay's 2008 Olympic Trials injury and whether he could get past the memory of it, CBC's opening comment of their entire telecast questioned whether a rusty Gay could beat an on-top-of-his-game Walter Dix, a question which seems prescient only if you haven't been paying attention to track for the last month.
Worst of all is the no-metrics rule. It's not as if Glenn Beck is in the booth, ready to taser announcers who dare to mention that newfangled 18th-century Frenchy socialist plan to ruin America and make your ratchet set obsolete. What it does is eliminate the possibility of using the graphics-heavy international feed which allows viewers to easily follow the changing fortunes of field events. We did get a little bit of it, in the long jump, but even there Dwight Stones didn't say what those big lines spaced 39 inches apart meant.
No, the only way to fix domestic track broadcasts are to destroy them and rebuild from the ground up.
Big bureaucracy does...good! There are always stories of unbelievably petty high school uniform DQs every year, but we seemed to have a bumper crop this year. The NFHS, which sets the rules for track as well as all other sports, came up with a shockingly simple solution: the first violation in a meet gets the team a warning, and only subsequent violations get a DQ.
Bernard Lagat's best years are behind him. Don't get me wrong, he's still very good, as his recent 5k American Record proved. But as a miler, his dominance is probably over. He hasn't run a (by his standards) good mile or 1500 since January, when he won his umpteenth Wanamaker at Millrose.
Walter Dix is a star on the rise. He's running very well, and after beating Tyson Gay on Saturday he goes to Lausanne on Thursday to take on a coming-off-the-shelf Usain Bolt. Even better, he's a natural in front of the camera. Asked if beating Gay was an upset, he thought for a moment before saying yes.
This is where the money is. Speaking of Bolt, he and Puma launched a new line of shoes and clothing. "Puma..recently launched their 'Bolt Collection', which includes training-friendly footwear and apparel all designed by the Jamaican. The designs are said to capture the athlete's preferences in terms of on and off track styling and all feature the now famous emblem - a silhouette of the athlete striking his 'to the world' pose, which was made famous during the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008."
This is "sportswear", sold not to people who do sports, but to those who watch them. Gotta get me some.
David Oliver is the most unappreciated athlete in American track. Who else could tie an American Record, held by a legend, and not get mentioned until the seventh item? He's undefeated outdoors this year and running faster and faster and faster. I can't wait to see him and Dayron Robles race.
Christian Cantwell is the most unbeatable man in the world. He hasn't lost this year. On Saturday he faced the guys I have rated as #2, #3, #5, #7, #8 and #10. The worst of his six throws would have won by over seven inches.
US distance running fortunes continue to rise. It says much about the current state of affairs that Chris Solinsky's seventh-place finish in 13:08 was a bit of a letdown. Even a year ago, it would have been cause for much celebration. There were a bunch of breakthroughs, too. There were 3:51 and 3:53 for just-barely-ex-Ducks Andrew Wheating and AJ Acosta. But none were bigger than the women's 800, where youngsters Phoebe Wright and Alysia Johnson ran 1:58 PRs. They're still a step or two away from Olympic medal contention, but this is an event where the USA didn't have anyone advance out of the heats in Beijing.
Veronica Campbell-Brown is having a dream season. She beat Allyson Felix, Shelly-Ann Fraser, and Carmelita Jeter in the space of just a few weeks, and broke a five-year-old PR on Saturday. If I had to pick a women's Athlete of the Year right now, I think she'd win.
Nancy Lagat is the real deal. The winner of five big mile/1500 races this year stepped down to the 800 and darn near won with a nifty 1:57. In the process she beat Janeth Jepkosgei, the most consistent half-miler over the last few years.
The men's 400 is not having a stellar year. The world-leading time is 44.61. The last time the month of July began with a time this slow was 1985, when Thomas Schonlebe led with 44.62.
Stars: Who needs 'em? No Sanya Richards, no Jeremy Wariner, no LaShawn Merritt, and only a half-assed Tyson Gay and Jen Suhr. No Usain Bolt, no Yelena Isinbayeva, no Kenenisa Bekele. And yet these two US Diamond League meets have been off the hook.
I'm just smart enough to castigate myself for not being smarter. I took third in the USATF Pick N Win game, just seven points out of first. The difference is $1900. There are so many ways I could have made up those points by being just a little smarter that I'll wake up and brood about it for months. But I learned some things this year that I'll put to use next year, when I'll take home the big money.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
On Field Events and Wise Use of Resources
I remember hearing a while back that some Hollywood types were seriously pursuing making a movie out of Micheal Lewis' Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. Apparently the plan has been shelved. Too bad, as it might have doubled the number of watchable movies about statistical analysis (21 being the other one).
The central point of Moneyball, though, isn't using newfangled statistics to get ahead of the competition. It's a very old idea: when you have limited resources, you don't waste them. When you can get good things cheap, make the best of them.
Track and field in general, and in the United States in particular, needs to really examine this issue. While last week's USATF Championships saw many stars skip the meet because there wasn't enough payoff, every single one of the top field-eventers were there. The two biggest stories of the weekend were Chaunte Lowe's amazing single-day high jump/long jump double and Kara Patterson's American Record javelin throw.
The new Diamond League setup and its mandated slate of events has really expanded competitive opportunities in the field events. And, unlike sprinters or distance runners, those athletes never duck each other. Rest assured that even if there's only a small paycheck to be earned, throwers and jumpers will be there.
Look at this weekend's Prefontaine Classic. You've got an international field of men's discus throwers that we just aren't used to seeing around these parts. You've got all the top men's shot putters save Andrei Mikhnevich and Maris Urtans. You've got Dwight Phillips and Fabrice LaPierre, the top two long jumpers in the world (according to my rankings). The women's pole vault is absolutely loaded, topped by Jen Suhr and Fabiana Murer, the second- and fourth-highest vaulters of all time. The top three women's hammer throwers are all there. And in the women's javelin throw, you've got Barbora Spotakova versus Mariya Abakumova, whose 2008 Olympic battle Spotakova considered payback for the Soviets crushing the Prague Spring. The field events should be by far the best part of the meet, even better than the loaded fields in the men's mile and 5k.
The field events are where you get great competition at a low price. Sprinters and distance runners get outsized attention and therefor outsized appearance fees. Discus throwers, on the other hand, come mighty cheap.
It is imperative, then, that professional-level meets make sure that the spectators in the stadium and the television viewers at home see what's going on with the field events. Based on what I saw in-stadium way back at the 2001 Worlds, and from what I see on BBC webcasts, this is done very well overseas. But here in America, we are our usual wasteful selves.
I read a lot of complaints about the adidas Grand Prix in New York, citing difficulties following the field events due to a substandard scoreboard and poor announcing. What I do know for sure is that if you watched it on TV, you would have thought there were only two field events contested: the women's pole vault and long jump. There were in fact eight field events, and they were tremendous. The expense of bringing in names like Steve Hooker, Malte Mohr, Renaud Lavillenie, Teddy Tamgho, Christian Olsson, Phillips Idowu, Andreas Thorkildsen, Tero Pitkamaki, Valerie Vili, Natallia Mikhnevich and Sandra Perkovic was completely wasted.
I'm willing to bet that Nike's outlay to bring in those jumpers and throwers will be pretty much flushed down the toilet due to bad TV work. At least the 12,000+ people in the stands will be treated well, though--and, considering that, is it any wonder they keep on coming back?
The Diamond League has led to one more change this year: broadcasters who had previously shown only the Golden League meets now pick up all fourteen meets in the series. So, for the first time, CBC will be broadcasting the Prefontaine Classic at the same time that NBC is. Those of us lucky enough to be able to watch both might want to compare and contrast.
Bottom line: we don't have money to waste in track & field. Field events will always give you more bang for the buck.
The central point of Moneyball, though, isn't using newfangled statistics to get ahead of the competition. It's a very old idea: when you have limited resources, you don't waste them. When you can get good things cheap, make the best of them.
Track and field in general, and in the United States in particular, needs to really examine this issue. While last week's USATF Championships saw many stars skip the meet because there wasn't enough payoff, every single one of the top field-eventers were there. The two biggest stories of the weekend were Chaunte Lowe's amazing single-day high jump/long jump double and Kara Patterson's American Record javelin throw.
The new Diamond League setup and its mandated slate of events has really expanded competitive opportunities in the field events. And, unlike sprinters or distance runners, those athletes never duck each other. Rest assured that even if there's only a small paycheck to be earned, throwers and jumpers will be there.
Look at this weekend's Prefontaine Classic. You've got an international field of men's discus throwers that we just aren't used to seeing around these parts. You've got all the top men's shot putters save Andrei Mikhnevich and Maris Urtans. You've got Dwight Phillips and Fabrice LaPierre, the top two long jumpers in the world (according to my rankings). The women's pole vault is absolutely loaded, topped by Jen Suhr and Fabiana Murer, the second- and fourth-highest vaulters of all time. The top three women's hammer throwers are all there. And in the women's javelin throw, you've got Barbora Spotakova versus Mariya Abakumova, whose 2008 Olympic battle Spotakova considered payback for the Soviets crushing the Prague Spring. The field events should be by far the best part of the meet, even better than the loaded fields in the men's mile and 5k.
The field events are where you get great competition at a low price. Sprinters and distance runners get outsized attention and therefor outsized appearance fees. Discus throwers, on the other hand, come mighty cheap.
It is imperative, then, that professional-level meets make sure that the spectators in the stadium and the television viewers at home see what's going on with the field events. Based on what I saw in-stadium way back at the 2001 Worlds, and from what I see on BBC webcasts, this is done very well overseas. But here in America, we are our usual wasteful selves.
I read a lot of complaints about the adidas Grand Prix in New York, citing difficulties following the field events due to a substandard scoreboard and poor announcing. What I do know for sure is that if you watched it on TV, you would have thought there were only two field events contested: the women's pole vault and long jump. There were in fact eight field events, and they were tremendous. The expense of bringing in names like Steve Hooker, Malte Mohr, Renaud Lavillenie, Teddy Tamgho, Christian Olsson, Phillips Idowu, Andreas Thorkildsen, Tero Pitkamaki, Valerie Vili, Natallia Mikhnevich and Sandra Perkovic was completely wasted.
I'm willing to bet that Nike's outlay to bring in those jumpers and throwers will be pretty much flushed down the toilet due to bad TV work. At least the 12,000+ people in the stands will be treated well, though--and, considering that, is it any wonder they keep on coming back?
The Diamond League has led to one more change this year: broadcasters who had previously shown only the Golden League meets now pick up all fourteen meets in the series. So, for the first time, CBC will be broadcasting the Prefontaine Classic at the same time that NBC is. Those of us lucky enough to be able to watch both might want to compare and contrast.
Bottom line: we don't have money to waste in track & field. Field events will always give you more bang for the buck.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Sunday Evening Decathlete
What did we learn this week at the USA Track and Field Championships?
Chaunte Lowe is the new star. An American Record win in the high jump (2.05), and then immediately following that she took second in the long jump. That kind of two-event ability is basically unheard of. I have no idea if she's planning on doing much, if any, long jumping over the remainder of the season, but on the high jump alone she's getting deserved attention.
Des Moines should not get the 2016 Olympic Trials. Drake tends to bring in the crowds, as the Drake Relays has sold out for 45 straight years, the Iowa High School Championships are the best-attended in the country, and two years ago they broke the NCAA Championships attendance record. But the attendance here was very disappointing, failing to get 10,000 fans in on any day, even when hometown hero Lolo Jones was running. That, along with the long throws being held outside the stadium and a seating capacity of only 14,500, should disqualify Des Moines from winning the next round of Trials bidding.
To be fair, the fields were not of national championships quality, as is common in the off-year. But Indy's attendance in 2006, with similar heat issues, was only 2,000 less, and no one thought Carroll Stadium warranted another Olympic Trials due to a strong fan base.
Jen Suhr is back to top form. In just her second meet back after a one-year injury hiatus, she won the pole vault and took some shots at her own American Record. I didn't think she had it in her yet; I'm glad I'm wrong.
More is not better. The weekend's events saw unprecedented levels of coverage. The meet was on TV for seven hours, and two different websites did live webcasts. Unfortunately, the TV coverage was of unbelievably poor quality. Even worse, I can't say it's a new low. It's just more of the same: no excitement about anything longer than a mile, horrible to non-existent field event coverage, and the producers prefer talking heads and replays between commercials and distance races during them, rather than the other way around.
I did not see the Runnerspace webcast, but apparently they put some accomplished announcers in the booth for those, such as Paul Swangard. Also, the webcast during the TV broadcasts were "field event specials". I appreciate the effort. But how in the world is anyone supposed to watch a webcast AND the TV at the same time? It's as if they've given up any pretense that our sport is track and field, or that the jokers who do the TV coverage could ever get it right.
Javelin throwers are BIG. As a fan and not a journalist, I rarely meet top athletes or even get to see them up close. Javelinists get such little attention that you don't get to see them on screen much. And, when you do, they're always on the field surrounded by no one but other throwers. So, when I got to meet Breaux Greer a few years ago my first thought was "Damn, he's big". Not shot-putter or hammer-thrower big, but a well-muscled well-proportioned guy who is just 10% to 20% bigger than your normal athlete.
Ditto for new javelin AR holder Kara Patterson. The woman who does post-competition interviews for ESPN is almost always taller than the athletes. Not with Patterson, whose big and muscular upper body was striking on camera. Yet she still looks feminine to me, whatever the heck "feminine" means. It certainly does not mean weak.
Track and field is treated just like the NFL and the NBA playoffs. In that ESPN has broken into all of these broadcasts to show the final innings of a no-hitter. On Friday night, the end of the men's 5k and all of the men's 100 were cut off in favor of Edwin Jackson's eight-walk no-hit performance. Turns out they are contractually obligated to do so, and took pains to replay the missed portions multiple times on Saturday and Sunday.
USATF rolled out part of its Project 30. It's mostly a big pile of money for athlete funding, directed at those who are financially struggling but good shots at medaling in 2012. But all the athletes had to sign with Nike, so those with other companies were left out in the cold. Of the 31 athletes in the program, eighteen were already with Nike. This made some observers question just how much new money there really was, and whether there was undue influence by Nike.
I'm looking at it from a different perspective: grants to athletes are not the most effective use of federation money. Grants to training groups are. The Oregon TC. The World Throws Center. The Mammoth Track Club. John Cook's training group. The old Santa Monica TC. Mac Wilkin's throws group up at Concordia. These places are where the not-quite-good-enough athletes make huge steps forward. If I had $1 million to improve US distance running, I'd start up ten more Hanson's Distance Projects, and I think we'd have depth second only to Kenya.
Who's #1 in the 400? LaShawn Merritt famously shot himself in the foot. Jeremy Wariner hasn't been up to his own standard, and was a DNF yesterday. David Neville beat Wariner early but scratched in the semis. Angelo Taylor has run some good races, but only dabbles in the event. Calvin Smith looked good early in the season but has really fallen off since then. Ditto for Tavaris Tate. So it fell to journeyman Greg Nixon to win yesterday. Kudos to him--he put up the world leader--but the event as a whole isn't setting the world on fire.
USATF is thinking outside the box: good. I don't know anything about it besides the press release, but USATF had a "member appreciation weekend", which included a hospitality tent at the stadium and other goodies for USATF members. This is new thinking. Previously, membership in USATF was reserved for athletes, coaches, administrators and officials. The member appreciation weekend potentially adds another type of member: fan. The idea of USATF having a booster club is long overdue.
I'm shocked at how few college track/XC programs have their own booster clubs, and even more shocked at how few do anything for their members. So far as I know, only Ohio State's Olympian Club makes its members feel special, with pre-meet tailgate parties and reserved seating at home meets.
On Friday night I worked a fund-raiser for my cross-country team at the Toledo Speedway, our local stop on the ARCA circuit. At the table next to ours was the Michigan Auto Racing Fan Club,signing people up and selling hats and shirts, and we weren't even in Michigan. Does US track have a fan club? No. It's high time that we do.
USATF is thinking outside the box: bad. CEO Doug Logan mentioned the idea of a track reality show. Ugh. The whole point of reality TV is that it is not complimentary to the people on it. Maybe it could be done well and drive some interest, but I am not confident.
Yours truly is still in the hunt. I entered the weekend in second place in the USATF Pick N' Win Game, and at one point I was first. Now I'm fourth. I was eight points out of first, now I'm six points out. First place wins $2,000, second is $150, and so on down to $50 for tenth. Unless I have a bang-up day at the Pre Classic, I think I'm going to win a nice dinner instead of a new computer.
Some people know how to run races and some people don't. The USA has some pretty good milers, but even more impressive to me is how tactically aware they are. You lead the second and third laps and you usually are well back of the winner, but Leo Manzano darn near won after doing so. Lopez Lomong is just as savvy and came up for the win. On the women's side we've got great depth and similarly good tacticians in Anna Pierce and Shannon Rowbury, first and third in the championships. While Erin Donahue doesn't quite have the talent to run as fast as the others, she does know how to make the most of a slow race and took second on Saturday.
And then there's Bridget Franek. I hesitate to call her out, as I have a distant but personal connection to her family, but she's a professional athlete now and it comes with the territory. She's tough as nails, but I have yet to see her run with any plan besides overpowering her opponents. She was outfoxed today and got eaten alive. Had I been smart enough to listen to my doubts and pick Lisa Aguilera to win (who did), I'd be tied for first in the fantasy league.
Chaunte Lowe is the new star. An American Record win in the high jump (2.05), and then immediately following that she took second in the long jump. That kind of two-event ability is basically unheard of. I have no idea if she's planning on doing much, if any, long jumping over the remainder of the season, but on the high jump alone she's getting deserved attention.
Des Moines should not get the 2016 Olympic Trials. Drake tends to bring in the crowds, as the Drake Relays has sold out for 45 straight years, the Iowa High School Championships are the best-attended in the country, and two years ago they broke the NCAA Championships attendance record. But the attendance here was very disappointing, failing to get 10,000 fans in on any day, even when hometown hero Lolo Jones was running. That, along with the long throws being held outside the stadium and a seating capacity of only 14,500, should disqualify Des Moines from winning the next round of Trials bidding.
To be fair, the fields were not of national championships quality, as is common in the off-year. But Indy's attendance in 2006, with similar heat issues, was only 2,000 less, and no one thought Carroll Stadium warranted another Olympic Trials due to a strong fan base.
Jen Suhr is back to top form. In just her second meet back after a one-year injury hiatus, she won the pole vault and took some shots at her own American Record. I didn't think she had it in her yet; I'm glad I'm wrong.
More is not better. The weekend's events saw unprecedented levels of coverage. The meet was on TV for seven hours, and two different websites did live webcasts. Unfortunately, the TV coverage was of unbelievably poor quality. Even worse, I can't say it's a new low. It's just more of the same: no excitement about anything longer than a mile, horrible to non-existent field event coverage, and the producers prefer talking heads and replays between commercials and distance races during them, rather than the other way around.
I did not see the Runnerspace webcast, but apparently they put some accomplished announcers in the booth for those, such as Paul Swangard. Also, the webcast during the TV broadcasts were "field event specials". I appreciate the effort. But how in the world is anyone supposed to watch a webcast AND the TV at the same time? It's as if they've given up any pretense that our sport is track and field, or that the jokers who do the TV coverage could ever get it right.
Javelin throwers are BIG. As a fan and not a journalist, I rarely meet top athletes or even get to see them up close. Javelinists get such little attention that you don't get to see them on screen much. And, when you do, they're always on the field surrounded by no one but other throwers. So, when I got to meet Breaux Greer a few years ago my first thought was "Damn, he's big". Not shot-putter or hammer-thrower big, but a well-muscled well-proportioned guy who is just 10% to 20% bigger than your normal athlete.
Ditto for new javelin AR holder Kara Patterson. The woman who does post-competition interviews for ESPN is almost always taller than the athletes. Not with Patterson, whose big and muscular upper body was striking on camera. Yet she still looks feminine to me, whatever the heck "feminine" means. It certainly does not mean weak.
Track and field is treated just like the NFL and the NBA playoffs. In that ESPN has broken into all of these broadcasts to show the final innings of a no-hitter. On Friday night, the end of the men's 5k and all of the men's 100 were cut off in favor of Edwin Jackson's eight-walk no-hit performance. Turns out they are contractually obligated to do so, and took pains to replay the missed portions multiple times on Saturday and Sunday.
USATF rolled out part of its Project 30. It's mostly a big pile of money for athlete funding, directed at those who are financially struggling but good shots at medaling in 2012. But all the athletes had to sign with Nike, so those with other companies were left out in the cold. Of the 31 athletes in the program, eighteen were already with Nike. This made some observers question just how much new money there really was, and whether there was undue influence by Nike.
I'm looking at it from a different perspective: grants to athletes are not the most effective use of federation money. Grants to training groups are. The Oregon TC. The World Throws Center. The Mammoth Track Club. John Cook's training group. The old Santa Monica TC. Mac Wilkin's throws group up at Concordia. These places are where the not-quite-good-enough athletes make huge steps forward. If I had $1 million to improve US distance running, I'd start up ten more Hanson's Distance Projects, and I think we'd have depth second only to Kenya.
Who's #1 in the 400? LaShawn Merritt famously shot himself in the foot. Jeremy Wariner hasn't been up to his own standard, and was a DNF yesterday. David Neville beat Wariner early but scratched in the semis. Angelo Taylor has run some good races, but only dabbles in the event. Calvin Smith looked good early in the season but has really fallen off since then. Ditto for Tavaris Tate. So it fell to journeyman Greg Nixon to win yesterday. Kudos to him--he put up the world leader--but the event as a whole isn't setting the world on fire.
USATF is thinking outside the box: good. I don't know anything about it besides the press release, but USATF had a "member appreciation weekend", which included a hospitality tent at the stadium and other goodies for USATF members. This is new thinking. Previously, membership in USATF was reserved for athletes, coaches, administrators and officials. The member appreciation weekend potentially adds another type of member: fan. The idea of USATF having a booster club is long overdue.
I'm shocked at how few college track/XC programs have their own booster clubs, and even more shocked at how few do anything for their members. So far as I know, only Ohio State's Olympian Club makes its members feel special, with pre-meet tailgate parties and reserved seating at home meets.
On Friday night I worked a fund-raiser for my cross-country team at the Toledo Speedway, our local stop on the ARCA circuit. At the table next to ours was the Michigan Auto Racing Fan Club,signing people up and selling hats and shirts, and we weren't even in Michigan. Does US track have a fan club? No. It's high time that we do.
USATF is thinking outside the box: bad. CEO Doug Logan mentioned the idea of a track reality show. Ugh. The whole point of reality TV is that it is not complimentary to the people on it. Maybe it could be done well and drive some interest, but I am not confident.
Yours truly is still in the hunt. I entered the weekend in second place in the USATF Pick N' Win Game, and at one point I was first. Now I'm fourth. I was eight points out of first, now I'm six points out. First place wins $2,000, second is $150, and so on down to $50 for tenth. Unless I have a bang-up day at the Pre Classic, I think I'm going to win a nice dinner instead of a new computer.
Some people know how to run races and some people don't. The USA has some pretty good milers, but even more impressive to me is how tactically aware they are. You lead the second and third laps and you usually are well back of the winner, but Leo Manzano darn near won after doing so. Lopez Lomong is just as savvy and came up for the win. On the women's side we've got great depth and similarly good tacticians in Anna Pierce and Shannon Rowbury, first and third in the championships. While Erin Donahue doesn't quite have the talent to run as fast as the others, she does know how to make the most of a slow race and took second on Saturday.
And then there's Bridget Franek. I hesitate to call her out, as I have a distant but personal connection to her family, but she's a professional athlete now and it comes with the territory. She's tough as nails, but I have yet to see her run with any plan besides overpowering her opponents. She was outfoxed today and got eaten alive. Had I been smart enough to listen to my doubts and pick Lisa Aguilera to win (who did), I'd be tied for first in the fantasy league.
Friday, June 25, 2010
What to learn from the World Cup
My brother is basically as into soccer...excuse me, football, as I am into track. Athletics. Whatever. As he currently works from home rather than the office, and has some flexibility in his schedule, he's in football nirvana this month. While I'm not terribly interested in the minutia of, say, Paraguay versus Slovakia, I have found the U.S. team's performance rather compelling.
Yesterday he sent a link to a column at Salon.com about the World Cup, media, culture, and so forth.
I could talk about how track & field is an international sport, and Real Americans don't care about the rest of the world. Or that the two values most closely associated with track--individualism and diversity--are values that Americans profess to hold but don't at all. But I don't really think the culture wars have a whole lot to do with soccer. Glenn Beck's followers are told to hate it, but they're the Walt Kowalskis of the USA; they hate everything. Unabashed liberals like Keith Olbermann have no use for the World Cup either. Like everything in the USA, culture wars are a diversion, and what really drives everything that happens is business.
In 2009, ESPN launched a channel in the UK. They just happened to land the broadcast rights to the Premiere League, the single-most popular sports league on the planet. They have invested heavily in soccer, and are willing to take a short-term loss on US broadcasts if they think they can build enough of a fan base to make it back and then some. Also, there are two Fox Soccer Channels, run by foreign-owned News Corp, which owns the rights to all the other English pro leagues. These two media conglomerations are the largest in the world, they both show soccer overseas, and they want to add to their fan base by going after the USA.
I'm not sure whether the mainstream media's current fascination with soccer mirrors a real uptick in broad-based interest, or if it's just the usual navel-gazing media echo chamber. Entertainment (and sports fall into that category) always tries to guess what the people want and then give it to them. But in this case, ESPN is taking a different approach. They know what they want people to want, and they're giving it to them in mass quantities whether they like it or not.
And more and more people are liking it. Because if you show people a sport and do it well and treat viewers like reasonably intelligent adults, people will get interested in the sport. This is exactly how curling becomes a cult hit during every Winter Olympics.
Does the same approach work for track? We don't know because we've never tried it*. We don't show people a track meet. Ever. Rather, we show them a lot of talking heads occasionally interrupted by a race. Watch any meet coverage and count the number of races shown in the first 20 minutes; if the total is three, they're really moving things along. We certainly don't show the viewers a track and field meet, ignoring half of the entire sport. And the producers are terrified of showing more than four consecutive laps of any race, as if the viewers are narcoleptics. (Note that VISA Championship Series meets on ESPN are time-buys paid for by USATF.) Honestly, the Top Ten List dig that it "doesn't have all the heart-pounding action of a five-hour baseball game" is far more applicable to track broadcasts than to soccer broadcasts.
*exceptions: Big Ten Network, 1992 TripleCast
Rest assured that if ESPN got the rights to the next Olympics, and decided they needed to drive up interest in track & field, they would do it right. They are professionals. Track and field, by and large, is a sport run by political bodies and in the antiquated model of a non-profit. Among the least-used phrases in our sport is "it's not personal, it's just business". It is to our detriment.
Yesterday he sent a link to a column at Salon.com about the World Cup, media, culture, and so forth.
For weeks a multi-front soccer culture war has been raging in the blogosphere. But one goal by the man who just staked a pretty good claim to the title of " greatest player in the history of U.S. soccer," Landon Donovan, should permanently change the terms of debate.We, as track fans, would love to have this kind of back-and-forth. The real question is: how do we create it?
...
Roughly speaking, two overlapping propaganda wars have been raging on the Internet with respect to what soccer in the U.S. means.
The first is explicitly political. Social conservatives see the slow rise of soccer's popularity in the U.S. as unwanted proof of increasing multicultural diversity -- collateral damage from immigration, legal or illegal. With each new triumph by the U.S. team, the dream of American "exceptionalism" dies a little death. Glenn Beck doesn't even think Americans should watch the World Cup, lest they betray their patriotic duty. And while the left isn't as explicitly ridiculous on their side of this ledger, you do sometimes hear a whiff of the converse: that the growing signs of soccer prominence in the U.S. are supposed to signify a long-overdue dismantling of U.S. superpower ideological primacy. Since at least the end of World War II, the U.S. has exported its culture to the rest of the world -- soccer's rise is the revenge of the imperialized, or more, generously, signifies what one of my tweeps just called America's "return to the community of nations."
Then there's the parallel sports-fan-in-a-bar perennial. For many Americans, soccer just seems boring, an exercise in meaningless Brownian motion, as an acquaintance of mind recently observed. Scoring is minimal, strategy is inscrutable - heck, there isn't even time to grab a beer during a commercial! How can a zero-zero tie possibly be described as "thrilling?" More people watched college football's Outback Bowl than the Slovenia-U.S. match. In riposte, there are no shortage of soccer evangelists declaring that Americans just don't get the "beautiful game," the clear implication being that soccer-haters are boors who must be distracted by pinball excitement and fireworks to have any fun. One side says the game is stupid, the other side says its the fans who are dumb.
I could talk about how track & field is an international sport, and Real Americans don't care about the rest of the world. Or that the two values most closely associated with track--individualism and diversity--are values that Americans profess to hold but don't at all. But I don't really think the culture wars have a whole lot to do with soccer. Glenn Beck's followers are told to hate it, but they're the Walt Kowalskis of the USA; they hate everything. Unabashed liberals like Keith Olbermann have no use for the World Cup either. Like everything in the USA, culture wars are a diversion, and what really drives everything that happens is business.
In 2009, ESPN launched a channel in the UK. They just happened to land the broadcast rights to the Premiere League, the single-most popular sports league on the planet. They have invested heavily in soccer, and are willing to take a short-term loss on US broadcasts if they think they can build enough of a fan base to make it back and then some. Also, there are two Fox Soccer Channels, run by foreign-owned News Corp, which owns the rights to all the other English pro leagues. These two media conglomerations are the largest in the world, they both show soccer overseas, and they want to add to their fan base by going after the USA.
I'm not sure whether the mainstream media's current fascination with soccer mirrors a real uptick in broad-based interest, or if it's just the usual navel-gazing media echo chamber. Entertainment (and sports fall into that category) always tries to guess what the people want and then give it to them. But in this case, ESPN is taking a different approach. They know what they want people to want, and they're giving it to them in mass quantities whether they like it or not.
And more and more people are liking it. Because if you show people a sport and do it well and treat viewers like reasonably intelligent adults, people will get interested in the sport. This is exactly how curling becomes a cult hit during every Winter Olympics.
Does the same approach work for track? We don't know because we've never tried it*. We don't show people a track meet. Ever. Rather, we show them a lot of talking heads occasionally interrupted by a race. Watch any meet coverage and count the number of races shown in the first 20 minutes; if the total is three, they're really moving things along. We certainly don't show the viewers a track and field meet, ignoring half of the entire sport. And the producers are terrified of showing more than four consecutive laps of any race, as if the viewers are narcoleptics. (Note that VISA Championship Series meets on ESPN are time-buys paid for by USATF.) Honestly, the Top Ten List dig that it "doesn't have all the heart-pounding action of a five-hour baseball game" is far more applicable to track broadcasts than to soccer broadcasts.
*exceptions: Big Ten Network, 1992 TripleCast
Rest assured that if ESPN got the rights to the next Olympics, and decided they needed to drive up interest in track & field, they would do it right. They are professionals. Track and field, by and large, is a sport run by political bodies and in the antiquated model of a non-profit. Among the least-used phrases in our sport is "it's not personal, it's just business". It is to our detriment.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Sunday Evening Decathlete
Quite a few years ago, ABC used to have a few midweek NFL games late in the season. They called it "Monday Night Football: Special Thursday Edition". Well, this is the special Monday edition. Which is OK, because this is supposed to be the track version of Monday-morning quarterbacking. What did we learn this week?
NCAA Regionals are staying put, for next year at least. And as much as Vin Lananna hates them, it's not stopping him from bidding on the West regional. They'll get it. As for the East, I have no idea. I've got a few suggestions to make the process a bit nicer: cut down the entries to 32 per event, and only qualify 8 to the NCAA "final round" at Des Moines.
Coaches are mad at USATF. Until now, I've steered clear of this whole issue. A month ago, USATF announced a new "coaches registry" that requires, among other things, criminal background checks, signing off on a code of conduct, and a $35 biennial fee. If you don't go along, you get no credentials at USATF events (such as this week's nationals) and you're not eligible for USATF or USOC compensation. James Dunaway and Larry Eder circulated an editorial titled Has USATF Declared War on Coaches?, USATF Pres Stephanie Hightower saw need to respond herself, and it's been wondered if the absence of many stars from this week's USATF Championships is a response.
From my perspective, I see no reason to bitch at all. I teach and coach in a K-12 setting and the new USATF policy is far less onerous than what is regularly required from me by the Ohio Board of Education and the Ohio High School Athletic Association. As for its hurried implementation, it's a CYA move by USATF after the issues that recently came up with USA Swimming. Sure, it would be nice to have a proactive policy than a reactive one, but that's simply not America's leadership style in either the non-profit or business worlds. So kwitcherbitchen!
It's nice to have friends in high places. I was making my picks for the USATF fantasy league last weekend, and decided to call on Martin Bingisser for some help. He said he needed some time to get back to me before responding with his opinions. Little did I know why he needed the time--he was competing in the European Team Championships second division.
Charlie Brown must be Slovenian.
It would explain why so many moved to Cleveland. If a city embodies all that is emblematic of Charlie Brown, it's Cleveland.
NCAA Regionals are staying put, for next year at least. And as much as Vin Lananna hates them, it's not stopping him from bidding on the West regional. They'll get it. As for the East, I have no idea. I've got a few suggestions to make the process a bit nicer: cut down the entries to 32 per event, and only qualify 8 to the NCAA "final round" at Des Moines.
Coaches are mad at USATF. Until now, I've steered clear of this whole issue. A month ago, USATF announced a new "coaches registry" that requires, among other things, criminal background checks, signing off on a code of conduct, and a $35 biennial fee. If you don't go along, you get no credentials at USATF events (such as this week's nationals) and you're not eligible for USATF or USOC compensation. James Dunaway and Larry Eder circulated an editorial titled Has USATF Declared War on Coaches?, USATF Pres Stephanie Hightower saw need to respond herself, and it's been wondered if the absence of many stars from this week's USATF Championships is a response.
From my perspective, I see no reason to bitch at all. I teach and coach in a K-12 setting and the new USATF policy is far less onerous than what is regularly required from me by the Ohio Board of Education and the Ohio High School Athletic Association. As for its hurried implementation, it's a CYA move by USATF after the issues that recently came up with USA Swimming. Sure, it would be nice to have a proactive policy than a reactive one, but that's simply not America's leadership style in either the non-profit or business worlds. So kwitcherbitchen!
It's nice to have friends in high places. I was making my picks for the USATF fantasy league last weekend, and decided to call on Martin Bingisser for some help. He said he needed some time to get back to me before responding with his opinions. Little did I know why he needed the time--he was competing in the European Team Championships second division.
Charlie Brown must be Slovenian.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Same Bat-Regionals
If you recall the old cheesy 1960s Batman TV show, they used to leave every cliff-hanger reminding us to tune in next time at the "same Bat-time, same Bat-channel". We'll have the same Bat-regionals next year as this. The USTFCCCA has the whole story. Remember, you heard it here first: regionals will not die as soon as everyone predicts.
Apparently the NCAA Cabinet knows this ain't cheap for the schools involved and that no one makes any money off this, so they're willing to look at cutting regionals. But they're also concerned about a lack of inclusiveness and want to study the current two-regional setup a bit more before abandoning it.
As to who will host them, that's anyone's guess. No one has bid yet (not surprising since there was some doubt as to whether they'd even happen) and it's not a particularly appealing process to go through. I'd go if Ohio State bids, but that's doubtful. They hosted 2008 USATF Junior Championships, and athletic bigwigs thought Jesse Owens Stadium would sell out. Coach Robert Gary told me that as a result they're not particularly enthused about bidding on big track meets right now.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
New Collegiate Conference Alignments
After a lot of bluster about what might happen, this week it appears that the game of musical chairs among the various college conferences is done, at least for now. Nebraska moves to the Big 10 (12), Colorado and Utah go to the Pac 10 (12), Boise State goes to the Mountain West. I really expected to see the demise of the Big 12 (10), but it lives on.
From a track and field perspective, there are only a few interesting developments. One is that Nebraska's men's program will likely thrash the Big 10 (12) from the day they join until the day the rest of the conference gets tired of it and figures out how to up its game. And while Colorado won't make much of an impact on the Pac-10 during track season, it will make the Pac-10 cross country championships into a war.
Possibly the most interesting is what will happen in the Big 12 (10). Note that while Pat Henry's men's team at Texas A&M has won the last two NCAA outdoor championships, they have never won the Big 12, indoors or out. I could argue that this is an extreme case of the weirdness of track and gives rise to many of the problems we have in attracting attention, but that's for another day. What I'm interested in is whether or not a new conference alignment would change much of the pecking order in the Big 12 (10).
One change is that it gets A LOT easier to score in the distance races. Colorado scored 29 points in the 5k and 10k alone, and if they had been absent the eighth and final scoring place in the 10k wouldn't have been 29:39 but 30:43. Much of Nebraska's strength comes from technical events, the throws and hurdles and the like; the hammer throw in particular would be much different without the Huskers. Also, if you exclude Colorado or Nebraska, there were only six decathletes in the whole conference.
The standings from the 2010 Big 12 outdoor Championships...
1. Nebraska 118
2. Oklahoma 114
3. Texas A&M 110
4. Texas Tech 77
5. Baylor 63
6. Colorado 57
7. Texas 56
8. Kansas 53
9. Oklahoma State 47
10. Missouri 44
11. Kansas State 40
12. Iowa State 39
I rescored it by deleting Colorado and Nebraska and moving athletes up. New scores:
1. Oklahoma 144
2. Texas A&M 131.5
3. Texas Tech 92
4. Texas 74
5. Baylor 73
6. Kansas 69.5
7. Kansas State 62
8. Iowa State 59
9. Missouri 55
10. Oklahoma State 52
So the absence of Nebraska would not have helped A&M at all. While moving up one spot in the standings, they'd actually be further away from the title--eight points with Nebraska/Colorado, twelve and a half without. Now, this is only one year, and Henry's strategy might change in the absence of these two schools. But I think it highlights how one-dimensional the Aggies' program was this year. Sprints, hurdles, horizontal jumps, and not a whole lot else.
From a track and field perspective, there are only a few interesting developments. One is that Nebraska's men's program will likely thrash the Big 10 (12) from the day they join until the day the rest of the conference gets tired of it and figures out how to up its game. And while Colorado won't make much of an impact on the Pac-10 during track season, it will make the Pac-10 cross country championships into a war.
Possibly the most interesting is what will happen in the Big 12 (10). Note that while Pat Henry's men's team at Texas A&M has won the last two NCAA outdoor championships, they have never won the Big 12, indoors or out. I could argue that this is an extreme case of the weirdness of track and gives rise to many of the problems we have in attracting attention, but that's for another day. What I'm interested in is whether or not a new conference alignment would change much of the pecking order in the Big 12 (10).
One change is that it gets A LOT easier to score in the distance races. Colorado scored 29 points in the 5k and 10k alone, and if they had been absent the eighth and final scoring place in the 10k wouldn't have been 29:39 but 30:43. Much of Nebraska's strength comes from technical events, the throws and hurdles and the like; the hammer throw in particular would be much different without the Huskers. Also, if you exclude Colorado or Nebraska, there were only six decathletes in the whole conference.
The standings from the 2010 Big 12 outdoor Championships...
1. Nebraska 118
2. Oklahoma 114
3. Texas A&M 110
4. Texas Tech 77
5. Baylor 63
6. Colorado 57
7. Texas 56
8. Kansas 53
9. Oklahoma State 47
10. Missouri 44
11. Kansas State 40
12. Iowa State 39
I rescored it by deleting Colorado and Nebraska and moving athletes up. New scores:
1. Oklahoma 144
2. Texas A&M 131.5
3. Texas Tech 92
4. Texas 74
5. Baylor 73
6. Kansas 69.5
7. Kansas State 62
8. Iowa State 59
9. Missouri 55
10. Oklahoma State 52
So the absence of Nebraska would not have helped A&M at all. While moving up one spot in the standings, they'd actually be further away from the title--eight points with Nebraska/Colorado, twelve and a half without. Now, this is only one year, and Henry's strategy might change in the absence of these two schools. But I think it highlights how one-dimensional the Aggies' program was this year. Sprints, hurdles, horizontal jumps, and not a whole lot else.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Sunday Evening Decathlete
What did we learn this week?
The big winner at the NCAA championships was Hayward Field. The meet broke the two-year-old attendance record with a four-day total of 45,847, capped by a standing-room-only final day crowd of 12,812. The place was loud and rocking for a number of races, but most particularly for the men's 1500 meters and the women's 4x400 relay. During the latter, the announcers could barely be heard on the CBS telecast.
Texas A&M came up big when it counted. For the second straight year, the Aggies completed a sweep of the men's and women's titles. They didn't make it easy on themselves, as the men dropped the baton in the 4x100 relay and the women were hurt by Gabby Mayo's injury which took her out of three events. Despite these setbacks, they still managed to pull off the wins.
Florida head coach Mike Holloway made a questionable decision. With the 4x400 approaching, the Gators' Christian Taylor was in fourth in the long jump. Taylor had been expected to battle for the win but was sitting on six points. He was a key member of the 4x400 relay, but Holloway decided to let him continue jumping and sub for him in the relay. His sub added about two seconds to the Gators' relay, more than the distance between third (where they finished) and first (where Texas A&M finished). Taylor didn't move up in the long jump and the Gators lost the championship by a lone point. Holloway will blame a likely mismeasure in the shot put--despite the fact that impartial observers said it wasn't enough to change the order of finish in the event--but his calculated gamble is where the meet was won and lost.
Oregon shit the bed. The Ducks' mens team was picked for third going into the meet, and faced an uphill battle for the title. Yet some stumbles by Florida and Texas A&M left it in reach. The Ducks were expected to score between 10 and 15 points between the javelin and long jump, but got zilch between the two. Jav favorite Cyrus Hostetler didn't even get into the finals. Ten points from those would have been enough to hoist the big trophy for first. Add in the substandard performance from five second-tier runners in the 800, 5k and 10k, who scored a single point between them, and it's obvious the Ducks threw away the meet.
On the women's side it was even worse. Track & Field News rated the meet a tossup between Oregon and Texas A&M, while The Oregonian called the Ducks a strong favorite. TAMU had that major injury to Gabby Mayo while UO had none, but the Aggies won by fifteen points. "Choke" is a strong term, but I don't know what else to call it. Which calls into question...
Is Vin Lananna that great of a coach? Make no mistake, the man is very good at what he does. His last two job titles in D-I have been "Director of Track & Field". Under his tenure, Hayward Field has seen record attendances and excitement about track in Eugene has reached levels not seen for a quarter-century or more. When he was at Stanford he built a fan base from nothing, which after his departure has returned to nothing, and was this close to getting the IAAF World Championships in the USA, the closest thing to an impossible task there is in domestic track.
But this weekend's performance leaves me thinking his coaching skills could be improved. Both he and TAMU's Pat Henry bitched and moaned at every opportunity about the regional qualifying, but they took markedly different tones: Henry said it was bad for track, while Lananna questioned why his athletes had to tire themselves by going through it. His negativity clearly trickled down to his athletes and I'm certain it had a detrimental effect on their performance.
In the men's 800 heats, Travis Thompson made a major tactical mistake by leading his heat to a fast pace. Teammate Elijah Greer was in the heat, and stood an outside chance at qualifying to the final, but the tactics didn't play to his strength and he was the fastest non-qualifier of the day. Lananna was quite upset, saying "Why our guy rabbited the first heat is beyond me". Vin was pissed after the fact, whereas someone like John Wooden would have been ahead of the curve by making Thompson reiterate the goal every day for a week, and Bill Bowerman would have given him daily threats of castration.
Then there was the long jump. Ashton Eaton was entered and was expected to score some points for the Ducks, but his calves were so sore that he couldn't manage more than one attempt. Sore from what? The previous day's decathlon, in which he took a shot at the Collegiate Record. While Ron Bellamy of the Eugene Register-Guard didn't mention any specific cause, others have pointed to the 1500 in particular, in which Eaton ran the fastest time of the day and came up just short of the record. Was that necessary? No. He won by 656 points, and could have jogged it and still won comfortably. You can't fault the kid for trying, but someone has to be the adult and tell him to dial it back, lest he leave his teammates out in the cold by bombing the next morning's long jump...which he did.
As far as the javelin throwers, the other distance runners, and almost the entire women's team, they just came out flat. Only in the 1500 did they exceed expectations, and even there Zoe Buckman inexplicably failed to make the final.
How many NCAA outdoor track championships have Lananna's teams won? One. Pat Henry's teams have nineteen. John Wooden had Sam Gilbert and Vin Lananna has Phil Knight, but Wooden delivered the titles.
Angela Bizzarri...bizarre. The Illinois senior was riding a three-championship winning streak, taking the 5k last year, the cross title last fall, and the 3k title at this year's indoor meet. She followed co-favorite and collegiate 10k record holder Lisa Koll's tough pace for the first nine laps...and then stepped off the track and slumped on the grass before getting up and walking off. She did not speak to reporters immediately afterward, but later said "I just felt myself get too nervous for the race and couldn't really calm down and just didn't get in the right mindset during the race".
Do we have an Alan Webb-style head case here? Maybe. Others point to the effects of 90 miles a week (Koll) versus 60 (Bizzarri). And I was mulling various thoughts about how being raised on the cul-de-sacs of Mason, Ohio, does not teach you much about overcoming difficulty. But I think it really comes down to a lack of pre-race preparation. Bizzarri was not a favorite going into any of her three national titles, relying on running as comfortably as is possible in championship racing before going to the fore late in the race. This is exactly how she beat Koll at the indoor meet this year, and it would have been foolish to expect Koll to allow the same thing to happen again. The two were running 15:15 pace when Bizzarri dropped out, which would have been a 20-second PR. She had to know that if she went with Koll and tried for the win she'd be entering the twilight zone, but mentally she was not up to the task.
The internet has spoiled us. I didn't post anything this week because I wasn't at home. I went to Grand Tetons National Park, which to an Easterner is a surreal landscape of big skies, near-desert flora, 13,000 foot peaks rising almost straight from the valley floor, and large animals I'd never seen before. As I was driving the winding two-lane road up to Signal Mountain to get the 360-degree views from its peak, a storm came through and blanketed the area with fog (or a cloud, whichever you want to call it). Surprisingly, there were two things at the top of the mountain: a pit toilet and a cell phone tower. iPhones in hand, my wife and I waited out the storm...and I was momentarily annoyed that I couldn't watch the NCAA championship webcast because the iPhone doesn't use compatible software. In my car. On the top of a mountain. In the middle of a national park. Dozens and dozens of miles away from anything that could even remotely be called a town.
CBS only does this because they have to. The Saturday broadcast wasn't what it could be, and featured the same cast of slobbering idiots--Larry Rawson and Carol Lewis. They totally skipped mentioning Ryan Whiting's near-miss of the shot put record, and all the other field events as well. Highlights of the previous days were ignored save a bit of decathlon fluff. My cable provider doesn't carry CBS College Sports (and I couldn't have seen it if they did as I was in transit from Jackson Hole), but my brother said it was deplorable. Nor did they bring out the HD cameras. The webcasts that CBS Sports did were also less than they could be: no announcer, or bad ones, and poor camera angles. As was said at the T&FN discussion boards, "it would be no more effort (or expense) to do it right than to do it wrong." But we all know CBS only does this because they have to. They get March Madness, the NCAA probably requires them to broadcast all the other championships too.
Conference realignment gets started for real. Colorado started with jumping to the Pac-10, which should make its cross-country championships renamed "NCAA championships, round one". Nebraska is going to the Big Ten, which means they'll beat the living crap out of the conference's track teams until the rest of them up their game. Everything else is up in the air, except this: anyone who says Texas is going to the SEC doesn't know how theses things work.
Can't pass this one up, even though it doesn't have a thing to do with track. The current issue of the Atlantic Monthly is "The Ideas Issue". A sidebar listing off some modest tongue-in-cheek proposals for the year ahead suggests the formation of "The Ice-T Party, supporting gun rights and a return to other hip-hop values".
The Diamond League showed us why it works. Saturday's adidas Grand Prix in New York was one of the deepest non-championship meets ever held in the USA. The field event depth was like nothing we'd ever seen, as the very best in the world showed up for the men's pole vault, triple jump and javelin throw and the women's shot put. In the triple, France's Teddy Tamgho put up the best distance the world has seen in the last twelve years. The other field events--the women's pole vault and triple jump--were still pretty good, and the running events brought unusually good fields across the board, even without a highly anticipated Bolt-Gay matchup. There was a great "three event challenge", a sort of a mini-heptathlon showdown between Jessica Ennis and Hyleas Fountain.
NBC is amateur hour. Of course, those tremendous field events were not even mentioned once on the NBC telecast. They still can't get field event leaderboard graphics on screen, as if they were still in the 1960s. Downtime between running events was completely wasted. When the Omega commercial transmits the excitement of a fake track meet better than the real broadcast does of a live one, you've got serious problems.
And here's the thing: the meet produced a vastly superior TV feed which was sent to the rest of the world. We didn't get to see it. They think we actually like it this way! The level of ignorance of the public desire is stunning.
Pray to every God you can think of that ESPN wins the next round of Olympic rights bidding. Whereas NBC is made up of amateurs, and their last-place standing in the network ratings shows it, ESPN is professional. Ever since investing heavily in soccer in general and the World Cup in particular, they've worked hard to convince Americans they love the Boring Game. What? I got it wrong? Sorry, that's the Beautiful Game. UEFA live and in HD two years ago. Club highlights all over SportsCenter. Major prime-time World Cup preview show this weekend, with the lion's share of the time spent on non-American teams. Plucked the world's best English-language soccer announcer away from the UK. If ESPN brings us the 2016 Olympics, rest assured they'll give a similar royal treatment to the Diamond League, VISA series and the World Championships. And we will forever be rid of Carol Lewis.
I'm doing OK in the Pick 'N Win Game. Yes, that's me in second place. Eat my dust, muthafuckas!
Sunday, June 06, 2010
Sunday Evening Decathlete
What did we learn this week?
I don't know anything. I didn't think the 5k American Record was going to be broken at the Diamond League meet in Oslo, and if it did I didn't think Bernard Lagat had it in him. Wrong. I thought Carmelita Jeter would beat LaShauntea Moore in the 200 meters at the same meet. Wrong again.
About that Oslo meet... David Lekuta Rudisha kicks ass. 21 years old, ran 1:42.01 on Friday, and the season is just getting started. Abubaker Kaki was supposed to be the new star in the 800 meters two years ago, but Rudisha is the man now.
The NCAA Championships at Oregon will be well attended. Yeah, we already knew that in general. But in particular, the number of tickets sold already exceeds the NCAA attendance record. Two years ago, Drake brought in 41,187 over the four days (despite half of Des Moines being under water) to break the old attendance record by over 6,000. GoDucks.com reports that only 4,675 tickets remain unsold for this week's championships, and since Hayward Field's seating has been expanded to "about 12,000", that means somewhere in the range of 42,000 to 43,000 tickets have already been sold.
State track meets are well attended. Again, we already knew this, but here's a new example. Yesterday's Ohio championships, which is three separate divisional championships held in succession, twice required an evacuation of the stands due to lightning. The heavy rain that came with it made sitting in the stands less than ideal. But here's the crowd later in the day:
and that doesn't show the backstretch or the mass of people standing at track-level around the first turn. There had to be at least 8,000 people in the stadium right then. Any college, even Oregon, would be tremendously happy to have such a crowd in bad weather. Most would be ecstatic to have it in any weather; Arkansas didn't have this many for the final day of last year's NCAA championships.
Small towns are the best places for sports. Example #1: A college teammate of mine has been coaching at his alma mater, a well-off Toledo suburban high school, but unfortunately was forced out last fall (through no fault of his own, I should add). Yesterday he told me he got a new job as assistant track coach and cross country coach at the high school in Delta (population 2,930), a rural town about 15 miles outside the western edge of the Toledo suburbs. He will be formally introduced to the community at a public event this week, a la Norman Dale in Hoosiers. For cross country!
Sometimes it seems like someone is looking out for you, but you wonder why it's you. I dawdled going home from yesterday's state championships, spending an hour at my sister-in-law's house before getting on the road for the 2+ hour drive. If I hadn't, I would have driven through this:
I don't know anything. I didn't think the 5k American Record was going to be broken at the Diamond League meet in Oslo, and if it did I didn't think Bernard Lagat had it in him. Wrong. I thought Carmelita Jeter would beat LaShauntea Moore in the 200 meters at the same meet. Wrong again.
About that Oslo meet... David Lekuta Rudisha kicks ass. 21 years old, ran 1:42.01 on Friday, and the season is just getting started. Abubaker Kaki was supposed to be the new star in the 800 meters two years ago, but Rudisha is the man now.
The NCAA Championships at Oregon will be well attended. Yeah, we already knew that in general. But in particular, the number of tickets sold already exceeds the NCAA attendance record. Two years ago, Drake brought in 41,187 over the four days (despite half of Des Moines being under water) to break the old attendance record by over 6,000. GoDucks.com reports that only 4,675 tickets remain unsold for this week's championships, and since Hayward Field's seating has been expanded to "about 12,000", that means somewhere in the range of 42,000 to 43,000 tickets have already been sold.
State track meets are well attended. Again, we already knew this, but here's a new example. Yesterday's Ohio championships, which is three separate divisional championships held in succession, twice required an evacuation of the stands due to lightning. The heavy rain that came with it made sitting in the stands less than ideal. But here's the crowd later in the day:
Small towns are the best places for sports. Example #1: A college teammate of mine has been coaching at his alma mater, a well-off Toledo suburban high school, but unfortunately was forced out last fall (through no fault of his own, I should add). Yesterday he told me he got a new job as assistant track coach and cross country coach at the high school in Delta (population 2,930), a rural town about 15 miles outside the western edge of the Toledo suburbs. He will be formally introduced to the community at a public event this week, a la Norman Dale in Hoosiers. For cross country!
Sometimes it seems like someone is looking out for you, but you wonder why it's you. I dawdled going home from yesterday's state championships, spending an hour at my sister-in-law's house before getting on the road for the 2+ hour drive. If I hadn't, I would have driven through this:
MILLBURY, Ohio – A tornado unleashed a "war zone" of destruction in northwest Ohio, destroying dozens of homes and an emergency services building as a line of storms killed at least seven people ...But most of the worst was reserved for a 100-yard-wide, 7-mile-long strip southeast of Toledo now littered with wrecked vehicles, splintered wood and family possessions.In two weeks I was supposed to manage a low-key track meet at Lake High School in Millbury. School officials haven't gotten back to me, as I'm fairly low on their priority list right now, but I assume the meet is off.
The tornado ripped the roof and back wall off Lake High School's gymnasium about 11 p.m. Saturday, several hours before the graduation ceremony was supposed to begin there.This is not dangerous-weather territory. No hurricanes, tsunamis, mudslides, wildfires, flash floods, or earthquakes. It isn't "tornado alley", either, but once every 20 or 30 years we get something that reminds us of the frailty of human life.
...Two buses were tossed on their sides and another was thrown about 50 yards, landing on its top near the high school's football field. More than 10 hours later, its right turn signal was still blinking.
...One of the victims was the father of Lake High School's valedictorian, said Tim Krugh, president of the school district's board...Neighbors said the house of the valedictorian's family was destroyed, and all that was left was a basement filled with water.
Saturday, June 05, 2010
Ohio State meet: Throws
This is the crowd for the throws alone--on a rainy day--and I couldn't fit all of the spectators in the frame.
Ohio High School Championships
So how often does a track meet cause a traffic jam? It does on every first Saturday in June here in Columbus.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Track on Old Sitcoms
Tomorrow is the Bislett Games from Oslo, the third stop on the IAAF's Diamond League tour. Tape-delay coverage begins at 8:00 PM on Universal Sports, should you be fortunate enough to have that channel available to you.
Right before the show begins, though, you'll have an opportunity to see more track. At 7:30, TV Land will show the episode of Sanford and Son in which Fred signs up for the decathlon in the Senior Olympics.
I've always liked Sanford and Son. While All in the Family was probably the greatest American sitcom ever made, it loses something in the translation. It's still funny, but it was very related to the time in which it was made. Sanford and Son, on the other hand, is a double anachronism: not only is it more than thirty-five years old, it was out of step with its time even back then. Fred, Grady, Bubba and especially Aunt Esther all didn't belong in the 70s, so it's a great show to watch in reruns.
This particular episode isn't the height of Redd Foxx's comedic abilities, but the scene where Grady bosses Fred around as his coach is some great physical humor. It's worth your thirty minutes.
Of course, the best treatment of track and field on old sitcoms comes to us in two parts from The Cosby Show. In "Back to the Track, Jack" (1985), Cliff agrees to run in a masters' track meet to settle a decades-old dispute from a college mile relay race. Trying to get back into shape leads to top-notch Bill Cosby old-man physical humor. Another rematch is set in "Off to the Races" (1986), this time in the Penn Relays, in which both character Cliff Huxtable and actor Bill Cosby are caught by surprise when the opposing team is anchored by a ringer. Both episodes feature Olympic medalist Josh Culbreath as Cliff's college rival, and and Larry "The Mighty Burner" James as a relay runner.
Right before the show begins, though, you'll have an opportunity to see more track. At 7:30, TV Land will show the episode of Sanford and Son in which Fred signs up for the decathlon in the Senior Olympics.
I've always liked Sanford and Son. While All in the Family was probably the greatest American sitcom ever made, it loses something in the translation. It's still funny, but it was very related to the time in which it was made. Sanford and Son, on the other hand, is a double anachronism: not only is it more than thirty-five years old, it was out of step with its time even back then. Fred, Grady, Bubba and especially Aunt Esther all didn't belong in the 70s, so it's a great show to watch in reruns.
This particular episode isn't the height of Redd Foxx's comedic abilities, but the scene where Grady bosses Fred around as his coach is some great physical humor. It's worth your thirty minutes.
Of course, the best treatment of track and field on old sitcoms comes to us in two parts from The Cosby Show. In "Back to the Track, Jack" (1985), Cliff agrees to run in a masters' track meet to settle a decades-old dispute from a college mile relay race. Trying to get back into shape leads to top-notch Bill Cosby old-man physical humor. Another rematch is set in "Off to the Races" (1986), this time in the Penn Relays, in which both character Cliff Huxtable and actor Bill Cosby are caught by surprise when the opposing team is anchored by a ringer. Both episodes feature Olympic medalist Josh Culbreath as Cliff's college rival, and and Larry "The Mighty Burner" James as a relay runner.
Oslo Diamond League Preview
The meet will be webcast live staring at 2 PM EDT at UniversalSports.com. CBCSports.ca will also stream the meet.
TV coverage is at 8 PM Friday on Universal Sports, and at 2 PM Saturday on CBC.
1:15 PM: Women's Discus Throw
Leading entries: #1 Yarelis Barrios, #4 Nadine Muller, #7 Sandra Perkovic, #8 Stephanie Brown Trafton, #9 Nicoleta Grasu, #10 Yarisley Collado, #12 Aretha Thurmond, #16 Zaneta Glanc
Analysis: Barrios is the Diamond League points leader and hasn't lost this year.
1:50 PM: Men's Pole Vault
Leading Entries: #1 Steven hooker, #2 Malte Mohr, #3 Alexander Straub, #4 Renaud Lavillenie, #5 Steven Lewis, #6 Derek Miles, #8 Aleksandr Gripich, #9 Przemyslaw Czerwinski, #13 Maksym Mazuryk, #14 Michel Balner
Analysis: Hooker inexplicably bombed last time out in Shanghai. Look for him to get even with Mohr, who came out the winner there.
2:40 PM: Men's Shot Put
Leading Entries: #1 Christian Cantwell, #4 Ralf Bartels, #5 Dylan Armstrong, #6 Reese Hoffa, #8 Pavel Lyzhyn, #9 Tomasz Majewski, #14 Adam Nelson
Analysis: Armstrong is on a bit of a hot streak and broke the Canadian record yesterday. I think Cantwell is still too much for him, though.
3:43 PM: Women's Long Jump
Leading Entries: #2 Olga Kucherenko, #3 Darya Klishina, #4 Funmi Jimoh, #5 Keila Costa, #7 Naide Gomes, #8 Ksenija Balta, #11 Elena Sokolova, #15 Brianna Glenn
Analysis: Kucherenko put up the year's best mark last week.
3:49 PM: Women's High Jump
Leading Entries: #1 Blanka Vlašic, #2 Chaunté Howard Lowe, #3 Ruth Beitia, #5 Svetlana Shkolina, #6 Emma Green, #7 Levern Spencer, #9 Irina Gordeeva
Analysis: Lowe is riding a good streak, beating the nearly-unbeatable Vlašic and then breaking the American record. Vlašic is considered nearly unbeatable for a reason, though. This is likely to be a very interesting competition.
4:04 PM: Women's 400 meters
Leading Entries: #2 Amantle Montsho, #3 Novlene Williams-Mills, #4 Debbie Dunn, #5 Shericka Williams, #8 Christine Ohuruogu, #12 Monica Hargrove, #13 Denisa Rosolova
Analysis: Toss-up. No strong favorite here.
4:15 PM: Men's 400m Hurdles
Leading Entries: #2 Kerron Clement, #3 Bershawn Jackson, #4 Isa Phillips, #6 L.J. van Zyl, #11 David Greene, #12 Justin Gaymon, #14 Michael Tinsley
Analysis: Probably a homestretch battle between the top two Americans.
4:20: Men's Javelin Throw
Leading Entries: #1 Andreas Thorkildsen, #2 Petr Frydrych, #3 Tero Pitkämäki, #5 Guillermo Martinez, #7 Vadims Vasilevskis, #11 Teemu Wirkkala, #12 Ari Mannio, #17 Antti Ruuskanen
Analysis: The place will go wild every time Norway's Thorkildsen steps up to throw, especially if he is winning as expected.
4:25 PM: Women's Steeplechase
Leading Entries: #1 Gladys Jerotich Kipkemoi, #2 Milcah Chemos Cheywa, #3 Lydia Rotich, #4 Sofia Assefa, #7 Katarzyna Kowalska, #13 Mekdes Bekele, #18 Sophia Duarte
Analysis: Kipkemoi won fairly easily last time out in Shanghai, in a time superior to everyone else's PR save Cheywa.
4:45 PM: Women's 100m Hurdles
Leading Entries: #1 Lolo Jones, #2 Priscilla Lopes-Schliep, #6 Perdita Felicien, #7 Delloreen Ennis-London, #8 Danielle Carruthers, #13 Vonette Dixon, #14 Carolin Nytra, #19 Christina Vukicevic
Analysis: Jones has been her usual inconsistent self lately, while Lopes-Schliep is steady as a rock. They're far better than anyone else, though. If Jones has it together she wins, otherwise it's the Canadian.
5:00 PM: Men's 100 meters
Leading Entries: #2 Asafa Powell, #11 Michael Frater, #14 Richard Thompson, #15 Lerone Clarke, #16 Churandy Martina, #20 Trell Kimmons
Analysis: If there's one thing the Diamond League has failed to do, it's get the best men's sprinters to face off. But this is only the third meet, so maybe these are just undercards. In any case, Powell is the class of the field.
5:10 PM: Men's 800 meters
Leading Entries: #1 David Lekuta Rudisha, #5 Abubaker Kaki, #7 Alfred Kirwa Yego, #8 Marcin Lewandowski, #11 Bram Som, #12 Augustine Choge, #18 Adam Kszczot, #21 Michael Rimmer
Analysis: There's talk of a possible World Record here. Rudisha and Kaki are great runners, but that record is an awfully tough one. If the pace is too agressive, the two favorites could fade and open the door for an upset.
5:20 PM Men's 5000 meters
Leading Entries: #1 Eliud Kipchoge, #2 Vincent Chepkok, #3 Edwin Churuiyot Soi, #5 Imane Merga, #13 Chris Solinsky, #14 Tariku Bekele, Bernard Lagat (#8 at 3k)
Analysis: Your usual Bislett Games long-distance clash of the titans will be renewed. From a US perspective, there's also the possibility of an American record, but I don't think Lagat has much of a chance at it. If it happens it will go to Solinsky.
5:40 PM: Women's 200 meters
Leading Entries: #5 Carmelita Jeter, #6 LaShauntea Moore, #12 Sheri Ann Brooks, #16 Cydonie Mothersill
Analysis: This is a bit out of Jeter's comfort zone, but she's a much better sprinter than Moore.
5:50 PM: Men's Mile
Leading Entries: #2 Deresse Mekonnen, #4 Asbel Kiprop, #5 William Biwott Tanui, #9 Mekonnene Gebremedhin, #16 Gideon Gathimba, #18 Geoffrey Kipkoech Rono, #21 Juan Carlos Higuero
Analysis: Kiprop is probably the best miler of the bunch but runs dumb from time to time, such as in Shanghai. I don't think he's going to get burned twice in a row, though.
TV coverage is at 8 PM Friday on Universal Sports, and at 2 PM Saturday on CBC.
1:15 PM: Women's Discus Throw
Leading entries: #1 Yarelis Barrios, #4 Nadine Muller, #7 Sandra Perkovic, #8 Stephanie Brown Trafton, #9 Nicoleta Grasu, #10 Yarisley Collado, #12 Aretha Thurmond, #16 Zaneta Glanc
Analysis: Barrios is the Diamond League points leader and hasn't lost this year.
1:50 PM: Men's Pole Vault
Leading Entries: #1 Steven hooker, #2 Malte Mohr, #3 Alexander Straub, #4 Renaud Lavillenie, #5 Steven Lewis, #6 Derek Miles, #8 Aleksandr Gripich, #9 Przemyslaw Czerwinski, #13 Maksym Mazuryk, #14 Michel Balner
Analysis: Hooker inexplicably bombed last time out in Shanghai. Look for him to get even with Mohr, who came out the winner there.
2:40 PM: Men's Shot Put
Leading Entries: #1 Christian Cantwell, #4 Ralf Bartels, #5 Dylan Armstrong, #6 Reese Hoffa, #8 Pavel Lyzhyn, #9 Tomasz Majewski, #14 Adam Nelson
Analysis: Armstrong is on a bit of a hot streak and broke the Canadian record yesterday. I think Cantwell is still too much for him, though.
3:43 PM: Women's Long Jump
Leading Entries: #2 Olga Kucherenko, #3 Darya Klishina, #4 Funmi Jimoh, #5 Keila Costa, #7 Naide Gomes, #8 Ksenija Balta, #11 Elena Sokolova, #15 Brianna Glenn
Analysis: Kucherenko put up the year's best mark last week.
3:49 PM: Women's High Jump
Leading Entries: #1 Blanka Vlašic, #2 Chaunté Howard Lowe, #3 Ruth Beitia, #5 Svetlana Shkolina, #6 Emma Green, #7 Levern Spencer, #9 Irina Gordeeva
Analysis: Lowe is riding a good streak, beating the nearly-unbeatable Vlašic and then breaking the American record. Vlašic is considered nearly unbeatable for a reason, though. This is likely to be a very interesting competition.
4:04 PM: Women's 400 meters
Leading Entries: #2 Amantle Montsho, #3 Novlene Williams-Mills, #4 Debbie Dunn, #5 Shericka Williams, #8 Christine Ohuruogu, #12 Monica Hargrove, #13 Denisa Rosolova
Analysis: Toss-up. No strong favorite here.
4:15 PM: Men's 400m Hurdles
Leading Entries: #2 Kerron Clement, #3 Bershawn Jackson, #4 Isa Phillips, #6 L.J. van Zyl, #11 David Greene, #12 Justin Gaymon, #14 Michael Tinsley
Analysis: Probably a homestretch battle between the top two Americans.
4:20: Men's Javelin Throw
Leading Entries: #1 Andreas Thorkildsen, #2 Petr Frydrych, #3 Tero Pitkämäki, #5 Guillermo Martinez, #7 Vadims Vasilevskis, #11 Teemu Wirkkala, #12 Ari Mannio, #17 Antti Ruuskanen
Analysis: The place will go wild every time Norway's Thorkildsen steps up to throw, especially if he is winning as expected.
4:25 PM: Women's Steeplechase
Leading Entries: #1 Gladys Jerotich Kipkemoi, #2 Milcah Chemos Cheywa, #3 Lydia Rotich, #4 Sofia Assefa, #7 Katarzyna Kowalska, #13 Mekdes Bekele, #18 Sophia Duarte
Analysis: Kipkemoi won fairly easily last time out in Shanghai, in a time superior to everyone else's PR save Cheywa.
4:45 PM: Women's 100m Hurdles
Leading Entries: #1 Lolo Jones, #2 Priscilla Lopes-Schliep, #6 Perdita Felicien, #7 Delloreen Ennis-London, #8 Danielle Carruthers, #13 Vonette Dixon, #14 Carolin Nytra, #19 Christina Vukicevic
Analysis: Jones has been her usual inconsistent self lately, while Lopes-Schliep is steady as a rock. They're far better than anyone else, though. If Jones has it together she wins, otherwise it's the Canadian.
5:00 PM: Men's 100 meters
Leading Entries: #2 Asafa Powell, #11 Michael Frater, #14 Richard Thompson, #15 Lerone Clarke, #16 Churandy Martina, #20 Trell Kimmons
Analysis: If there's one thing the Diamond League has failed to do, it's get the best men's sprinters to face off. But this is only the third meet, so maybe these are just undercards. In any case, Powell is the class of the field.
5:10 PM: Men's 800 meters
Leading Entries: #1 David Lekuta Rudisha, #5 Abubaker Kaki, #7 Alfred Kirwa Yego, #8 Marcin Lewandowski, #11 Bram Som, #12 Augustine Choge, #18 Adam Kszczot, #21 Michael Rimmer
Analysis: There's talk of a possible World Record here. Rudisha and Kaki are great runners, but that record is an awfully tough one. If the pace is too agressive, the two favorites could fade and open the door for an upset.
5:20 PM Men's 5000 meters
Leading Entries: #1 Eliud Kipchoge, #2 Vincent Chepkok, #3 Edwin Churuiyot Soi, #5 Imane Merga, #13 Chris Solinsky, #14 Tariku Bekele, Bernard Lagat (#8 at 3k)
Analysis: Your usual Bislett Games long-distance clash of the titans will be renewed. From a US perspective, there's also the possibility of an American record, but I don't think Lagat has much of a chance at it. If it happens it will go to Solinsky.
5:40 PM: Women's 200 meters
Leading Entries: #5 Carmelita Jeter, #6 LaShauntea Moore, #12 Sheri Ann Brooks, #16 Cydonie Mothersill
Analysis: This is a bit out of Jeter's comfort zone, but she's a much better sprinter than Moore.
5:50 PM: Men's Mile
Leading Entries: #2 Deresse Mekonnen, #4 Asbel Kiprop, #5 William Biwott Tanui, #9 Mekonnene Gebremedhin, #16 Gideon Gathimba, #18 Geoffrey Kipkoech Rono, #21 Juan Carlos Higuero
Analysis: Kiprop is probably the best miler of the bunch but runs dumb from time to time, such as in Shanghai. I don't think he's going to get burned twice in a row, though.
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
Your Track Vault Pick of the Week
Fifty years ago today, Herb Elliott and Dyrol Burleson were on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Now a new and different Elliott is on tour, a brief trip this time, to California, where he has a schedule of three races at 1,500 meters and a mile. Only one of these is very important: the mile he will run this week at the Modesto Relays against a field that includes Dyrol Burleson (see cover), the youngster from the University of Oregon who is the best miler America has ever produced.
Rethinking Collegiate Regionals and Nationals
Recently Texas A&M head coach Pat Henry was interviewed by Flotrack about last weekend's NCAA preliminary rounds, and he did not have nice things to say about it. He said it was bad for track & field. This was discussed at Let's Run, and I responded by saying "by which he means 'bad for Pat Henry'."
I said this because I've heard the same coaches bitching about whatever regionals system we've had ever since they were put into place in 2003. And most people with important jobs in D-I athletic programs are nakedly self-serving, as it's an unwritten portion of the job description. (Personally, I think the constant airing of complaints is also bad for college track, as sportswriters and potential spectators are told that there's no reason to pay attention to the regional meets. We need to encourage attention, not discourage it.)
But, unusual for Let's Run, the ensuing discussion was illuminating and productive. As I read and thought and looked at the evidence, I came to the conclusion that Pat Henry really is in favor of emphasizing team competition. All of Texas A&M's home meets were scored in one way or another, and Henry brought his team to one of the few outdoor scored invitationals, the Pepsi Challenge in Eugene. Furthermore, it has been said that he suggested a team championship at the nationals eerily similar to one I recently proposed--one that would be much more difficult for his teams to win than our current national championship system.
The prevailing opinion, though, is that we won't be arguing about regionals any longer because a new proposal has gained near-universal acceptance among the coaches. Dubbed the "Wilson Plan", after the Minnesota coach who came up with it, it takes 32 athletes in each event directly to the nationals, some by virtue of marks and some by virtue of winning their conference championships. It's thought that this will be what we do next year.
I wouldn't presume that regionals are dead, though. No one would have predicted we'd have this year's system. I think I'm beginning to understand the thought processes of the NCAA Championshisp Cabinet, the group from whence it came. You see, in every other sport, there is some system of playoffs or regional competition leading into the NCAA championship. You can actually see some form of what the NCAA's administrators want when you look at these nifty brackets. The assumption that outdoor track & field, which is relatively important among the NCAA's 23 different sports, would be allowed to be different just because the coaches want it that way defies the "logic" of large bureaucracies.
I think we're going to have some form of regional competition for a long time. What we have now is very hard to follow, because there are "playoff brackets" for forty different events. Following those are complex and time-consuming. Neither do they address the issue that team competition is what drives interest in college track, and right now we have little more than a huge collection of individual competitions.
What kind of regional competition could heighten the importance of team competition, make regionals truly interesting, and yet not stifle the individual competition portion of track & field? I've got a few ideas.
We could use Henry's combination team/individual championship plan in the old four-region format. In each region, eight teams would qualify for the regionals based on either winning one of eight to twelve major conferences or by the results of scored meets during the season. Another sixteen athletes in each event would qualify as individuals based on whatever criteria we want, most likely a descending-order list.
Those eight teams would be allowed two athletes per event, and team scores would be tallied among those athletes only, much as we do in cross country. At the end of the meet, the top two teams qualify to the nationals, along with the top four athletes in each event not on qualifying teams. At the national championships we'd repeat the system.
In what way would this make things more interesting? The team scores at regionals would be hugely important. Finish third and you can't compete for the NCAA Championship. But more importantly, getting your team to the regionals would require competing in a few scored meets during the regular season.
Going into regionals, we'd then have an NCAA Championships selection show for track & field, as the NCAA does for about twenty other sports. National team rankings would be based not on a bunch of arithmetic as we do now, but on actual results of actual meets. Who won a meet would be the headline because it would really mean something (and because there would be a winner).
A minor technical point: I don't think I'd have the decathlon/heptathlon be part of the regionals or the team scoring. For one reason, it's not reasonable to ask a full multi-event competition out of a young athlete three times in five weeks (conference, regional, national). But also, provided that the multis are completed before the rest of the nationals begin, a decent multi-event athlete can have a big impact in an eight-team meet by scoring in several events. We want to promote this kind of team heroism, not reduce it.
So who would have qualified this year? Assuming that at least a few team-scoring meets would have been part of everyone's schedule, here's who I would have predicted for each of the old four regions. Auto qualifiers are noted.
East
Florida (SEC champ)
Florida State (ACC champ)
UConn (IC4A champ)
South Carolina
Georgia
Virginia
Virginia Tech
North Carolina
I don't think there's much doubt about which two teams would get to the nationals here, as Florida and Florida State are far better than the rest.
Mideast
Notre Dame (Big East champ)
LSU
Auburn
Mississippi
Mississippi State
Wisconsin
Ohio State
Louisville
LSU would get to the nationals easily, and I think Auburn would likely be second over Wisconsin.
Midwest
Nebraska (Big 12 champ)
Minnesota (Big 10 champ)
Houston (C-USA champ)
Wichita State (MVC champ)
Oklahoma
Texas A&M
Texas Tech
Baylor
This would be a dogfight between Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas A&M.
West
Oregon (Pac-10 champ)
BYU (Mountain West champ)
Utah State (WAC champ)
Southern Cal
Stanford
Arizona State
UCLA
Cal State Northridge
Oregon and Southern Cal would have a pretty easy time of this, despite the fact that BYU is a very good team.
I said this because I've heard the same coaches bitching about whatever regionals system we've had ever since they were put into place in 2003. And most people with important jobs in D-I athletic programs are nakedly self-serving, as it's an unwritten portion of the job description. (Personally, I think the constant airing of complaints is also bad for college track, as sportswriters and potential spectators are told that there's no reason to pay attention to the regional meets. We need to encourage attention, not discourage it.)
But, unusual for Let's Run, the ensuing discussion was illuminating and productive. As I read and thought and looked at the evidence, I came to the conclusion that Pat Henry really is in favor of emphasizing team competition. All of Texas A&M's home meets were scored in one way or another, and Henry brought his team to one of the few outdoor scored invitationals, the Pepsi Challenge in Eugene. Furthermore, it has been said that he suggested a team championship at the nationals eerily similar to one I recently proposed--one that would be much more difficult for his teams to win than our current national championship system.
The prevailing opinion, though, is that we won't be arguing about regionals any longer because a new proposal has gained near-universal acceptance among the coaches. Dubbed the "Wilson Plan", after the Minnesota coach who came up with it, it takes 32 athletes in each event directly to the nationals, some by virtue of marks and some by virtue of winning their conference championships. It's thought that this will be what we do next year.
I wouldn't presume that regionals are dead, though. No one would have predicted we'd have this year's system. I think I'm beginning to understand the thought processes of the NCAA Championshisp Cabinet, the group from whence it came. You see, in every other sport, there is some system of playoffs or regional competition leading into the NCAA championship. You can actually see some form of what the NCAA's administrators want when you look at these nifty brackets. The assumption that outdoor track & field, which is relatively important among the NCAA's 23 different sports, would be allowed to be different just because the coaches want it that way defies the "logic" of large bureaucracies.
I think we're going to have some form of regional competition for a long time. What we have now is very hard to follow, because there are "playoff brackets" for forty different events. Following those are complex and time-consuming. Neither do they address the issue that team competition is what drives interest in college track, and right now we have little more than a huge collection of individual competitions.
What kind of regional competition could heighten the importance of team competition, make regionals truly interesting, and yet not stifle the individual competition portion of track & field? I've got a few ideas.
We could use Henry's combination team/individual championship plan in the old four-region format. In each region, eight teams would qualify for the regionals based on either winning one of eight to twelve major conferences or by the results of scored meets during the season. Another sixteen athletes in each event would qualify as individuals based on whatever criteria we want, most likely a descending-order list.
Those eight teams would be allowed two athletes per event, and team scores would be tallied among those athletes only, much as we do in cross country. At the end of the meet, the top two teams qualify to the nationals, along with the top four athletes in each event not on qualifying teams. At the national championships we'd repeat the system.
In what way would this make things more interesting? The team scores at regionals would be hugely important. Finish third and you can't compete for the NCAA Championship. But more importantly, getting your team to the regionals would require competing in a few scored meets during the regular season.
Going into regionals, we'd then have an NCAA Championships selection show for track & field, as the NCAA does for about twenty other sports. National team rankings would be based not on a bunch of arithmetic as we do now, but on actual results of actual meets. Who won a meet would be the headline because it would really mean something (and because there would be a winner).
A minor technical point: I don't think I'd have the decathlon/heptathlon be part of the regionals or the team scoring. For one reason, it's not reasonable to ask a full multi-event competition out of a young athlete three times in five weeks (conference, regional, national). But also, provided that the multis are completed before the rest of the nationals begin, a decent multi-event athlete can have a big impact in an eight-team meet by scoring in several events. We want to promote this kind of team heroism, not reduce it.
So who would have qualified this year? Assuming that at least a few team-scoring meets would have been part of everyone's schedule, here's who I would have predicted for each of the old four regions. Auto qualifiers are noted.
East
Florida (SEC champ)
Florida State (ACC champ)
UConn (IC4A champ)
South Carolina
Georgia
Virginia
Virginia Tech
North Carolina
I don't think there's much doubt about which two teams would get to the nationals here, as Florida and Florida State are far better than the rest.
Mideast
Notre Dame (Big East champ)
LSU
Auburn
Mississippi
Mississippi State
Wisconsin
Ohio State
Louisville
LSU would get to the nationals easily, and I think Auburn would likely be second over Wisconsin.
Midwest
Nebraska (Big 12 champ)
Minnesota (Big 10 champ)
Houston (C-USA champ)
Wichita State (MVC champ)
Oklahoma
Texas A&M
Texas Tech
Baylor
This would be a dogfight between Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas A&M.
West
Oregon (Pac-10 champ)
BYU (Mountain West champ)
Utah State (WAC champ)
Southern Cal
Stanford
Arizona State
UCLA
Cal State Northridge
Oregon and Southern Cal would have a pretty easy time of this, despite the fact that BYU is a very good team.
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