Kyle Merber's Post SB Tweet - "Don't let the Eagles winning the Super Bowl distract you..."

What's this all about?

Old news -

https://trackandfieldnews.com/index.php/category-features/3308-arkansas-to-debut-national-relay-championships

The winner of the Arkansas meet will be the 'national champion' the same way that UCF is the national champion. Just because you say it doesn't make it true.

(obligatory "I didn't say it, I declared it")

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/c1ae922f-dede-46a9-b24a-ccb3b17a5878

The Penn Relays are boring. Who cares?

Is this the same Merber that said he had the intention of winning the Wannamaker Mile yet didn't even try to go with O'hare?

The "relay national championships" gimmick deserves to be mocked to death. Letsrun should refer to it as the Arkansas Regional Relay Exhibition or something.

When was the last time that Merber supported the Penn Relays by running there?

Apparently when you run for the biggest and baddest shoe company in the world, like Mr. Merber does, you are allowed to hand down self righteous judgements onto people who have been in the running business much longer than you!

Merber fail wrote:

Is this the same Merber that said he had the intention of winning the Wannamaker Mile yet didn't even try to go with O'hare?

I'm not one to bash runners on here but this guy really needs to shut up and actually produce a result that resembles anything close to something significant.

ET Call Home wrote:

Apparently when you run for the biggest and baddest shoe company in the world, like Mr. Merber does, you are allowed to hand down self righteous judgements onto people who have been in the running business much longer than you!

The first amendment right extends to all individuals within our borders.

We have a few huge outdoor meets in this country- Penn, Texas Relays, Drake- USATF has to work with them.

I know they have the USA vs the World but I think some invitational pro races- like a MILE race along the lines of the Liquari/Ryan Dream Mile back in 1971 would help.

word picture wrote: When was the last time that Merber supported the Penn Relays by running there?

is running there the only way to support the Penn Relays?

cheers.

Couldn't agree with Kyle more. The people behind the fake national relay meet don't get it. Because we are a minor sport, we need to be aware of the positives about it and support it whenever and wherever we can. By going up against Penn, you are being destructive to one of our only year-in and year-out great events and the sport in general.

TD/SATRACK wrote:

Couldn't agree with Kyle more. The people behind the fake national relay meet don't get it. Because we are a minor sport, we need to be aware of the positives about it and support it whenever and wherever we can. By going up against Penn, you are being destructive to one of our only year-in and year-out great events and the sport in general.

+1

Agreed and ya'll need to relax, Kyle is a very good runner. Good personality. Good for the sport.

runn wrote:

We have a few huge outdoor meets in this country- Penn, Texas Relays, Drake- USATF has to work with them.

I know they have the USA vs the World but I think some invitational pro races- like a MILE race along the lines of the Liquari/Ryan Dream Mile back in 1971 would help.

Penn has some "pro" individual events, but it's more along the lines of "semi-pros": 100m, 400m hurdles, mile, steeplechase, 5k, and 10k. The 100m and mile are on Saturday. The long distance stuff are on Thursday night, and the 400m hurdles are Thursday and Friday mornings (after the HS and college heats). You aren't really going to get big names in those events, but I have seen some international athletes in the pro 100m (I think they are also there for the USA vs the World 4x100), like Christopher Lemaitre of France a few years ago...

Arkansas

Relay

Spring

Exhibition

Seriously mate? wrote:

I'm not one to bash runners...

Proceeds to bash runner.

He's done plenty, and is great for the sport, even if he isn't making world teams. Lots of people on Letsrun really love to tear down anyone who is even remotely fun and isn't a WR holder.

Hosting a track meet is about money.

There’s plenty of teams who don’t make it to Penn who can go to Arkansas instead. The quality of both meets will not be diminished.

Penn Relays, no doubt has a rich history and is great for the sport, but it's such a hassle for top college teams now a days. There's 15 heats of every event, community, high school, college, pro, the meet is often times unorganized, it's 3 days long all day every day. If you're an elite collegiate program, you want your athletes to go, preform well and leave. I think many northeastern schools will stay true to Penn, but you can't really blame school that are from across the country to not go there.

Also, I think it's great we have a national relay championships kind of like what IAAF did with the world relays. A lot of times we don't get to see a high quality relay meet besides Florida relays and even then they don't have competitive distance relays (4 x8,4 x mile, DMR). I think it's great for top programs from difference conferences to come together and match up. Let athletes get a good effort in before the conference meet.

Penn relays is great, but we just need a relay meet that's solely focused on college. That is not Drake or Penn and to have the national relays be at the end of April is perfect.