WSU Athletics leadership met with members of the men's and women's track and field team to inform them that the program will be shifting to a distance-focused approach.
I bet this is more of a department cutting costs (salaries & scholarships) than putting all their chips in one basket. Colorado is also doing this, and it was largely considered as a plan to save up some money for football and basketball. Couple be wrong, but seems more like a major cut than a major shift in decisions.
They aren't strong at distance. They are going hurdles and sprinters. We are going to see a lot more of this thanks to the settlement. D1 track is getting nuked. D2 will start looking pretty good for high school athletes.
They could be returning to their glory days of the 70's when they had a number of top Kenyans running for them. Their focus now is to concentrate on the 1500 to 10,000 meter events.
They could be returning to their glory days of the 70's when they had a number of top Kenyans running for them. Their focus now is to concentrate on the 1500 to 10,000 meter events.
They just get 3 Athletes like Henry Rono and Samson Kimombwa An Athlete like Rono in his prime Could win the 5000, 10000 and Steeple And Score 30 points, An Athlete like Kimombwa could get 2nd in the 5000 and 10000 and if he wanted to probaly the Steeple so 24 points = 54 and lets say a Runner who could win the 1500 and get 3rd in the Steeple and 5000 = 22 points so all together 76 Points that should win NCAA Most Years.
This has all the fingerprints of the House NIL settlement on it. They are getting rid of field events and focusing on distance. They have roster limits and cannot be good at everything; they don't draw great sprinters or apparently throwers and field event types to WSU; distance runners give you coverage in both xc and track, unlike the sprinters and field competitors; and the school has a great distance tradition and is in a region with outstanding distance depth. Other schools are going away from distance. That settlement is going to be disastrous for track and field in the United States.
They could be returning to their glory days of the 70's when they had a number of top Kenyans running for them. Their focus now is to concentrate on the 1500 to 10,000 meter events.
They just get 3 Athletes like Henry Rono and Samson Kimombwa An Athlete like Rono in his prime Could win the 5000, 10000 and Steeple And Score 30 points, An Athlete like Kimombwa could get 2nd in the 5000 and 10000 and if he wanted to probaly the Steeple so 24 points = 54 and lets say a Runner who could win the 1500 and get 3rd in the Steeple and 5000 = 22 points so all together 76 Points that should win NCAA Most Years.
Rono still has the collegiate steeple record, 8:05.4, from 1978, in Seattle. Monster.
They could be returning to their glory days of the 70's when they had a number of top Kenyans running for them. Their focus now is to concentrate on the 1500 to 10,000 meter events.
They just get 3 Athletes like Henry Rono and Samson Kimombwa An Athlete like Rono in his prime Could win the 5000, 10000 and Steeple And Score 30 points,
"They just get 3 Athletes like Henry Rono and Samson Kimombwa" Thats a tall order.
An Athlete like Kimombwa could get 2nd in the 5000 and 10000 and if he wanted to probaly the Steeple so 24 points
They could be returning to their glory days of the 70's when they had a number of top Kenyans running for them. Their focus now is to concentrate on the 1500 to 10,000 meter events.
Their Kenyan freshman Evans Kurai just finished 5th at Nats in the 10000. He was ranked #1 going into regionals. Their other Kenyan freshman (age 27) was ranked 19th. It sounds like they have decided to go full Kenyan.
This has all the fingerprints of the House NIL settlement on it. They are getting rid of field events and focusing on distance. They have roster limits and cannot be good at everything; they don't draw great sprinters or apparently throwers and field event types to WSU; distance runners give you coverage in both xc and track, unlike the sprinters and field competitors; and the school has a great distance tradition and is in a region with outstanding distance depth. Other schools are going away from distance. That settlement is going to be disastrous for track and field in the United States.
What if you recruit football and basketball players that could also sprint, jump and throw? Throw back to the Jim Thorpe days, continue onto 13th grade and do track in the spring. Or maybe some teams will do what Oregon State has done, have only a women’s full squad. Is that any better?
Distance is cheap and you can get three sports out of it in the NCAAs eyes. Pole Vault poles, Javelins, equipment for those events are expensive. Horizontal jumps not really but o well.
We are going to see more and more programs pulling an Iona and having runners throw shot put to get countable athletes at enough meets.
This has all the fingerprints of the House NIL settlement on it. They are getting rid of field events and focusing on distance. They have roster limits and cannot be good at everything; they don't draw great sprinters or apparently throwers and field event types to WSU; distance runners give you coverage in both xc and track, unlike the sprinters and field competitors; and the school has a great distance tradition and is in a region with outstanding distance depth. Other schools are going away from distance. That settlement is going to be disastrous for track and field in the United States.
In some ways, I wonder if it might be better for a lot of schools to focus on one particular event group. Not only can you focus your recruiting on certain events, but you can also have all of your coaches specialize in that event group, instead of having to spread things incredibly thin. It would be much more of a pro-type setup to have a school with all distance runners and a couple of distance-focused coaches, or a school going all-in on sprints and having a bunch of top-caliber recruits and great sprint coaches.
This is a good thing. Make track and field a VARSITY sport, not a participation sport. 2-3 hour track meets that are entertaining and actually mean something!
current NCAA team champs are about having 3-5 ahtletes, not a deep team anyway. We need 2 seperate championships, one for team where all events matter, and one for elite individuals.
WSU selling out!!! Here comes University of New Mexico 2.0
The funny thing is that the Head Coach is a hurdles guy, and now he'll sit back and dump a sh^t load of money into Kenyan brokers and buy his way to winning, just like New Mexico.
What if you recruit football and basketball players that could also sprint, jump and throw? Throw back to the Jim Thorpe days, continue onto 13th grade and do track in the spring.
Tell me you don't understand the current state of D1 college football without telling me you don't understand the current state of D1 college football.
It. Is. A. Business.
If you are a football player who shows up on campus thinking you are going to CLASS (let alone practicing for another SPORT) then you won't be on campus very long.
