Don't get me wrong, I love track meets just as much as everyone else and a track meet is a track meet. But does anyone else believe that Oregon track meets are hyped up to be WAY more than what they are? Quite frankly, they are starting to get ...... stale and boring.
It's just you, they have so many excellent athletes that they are getting tons of coverage, and they have two of the only 3 newspapers in the country with regular track and field reporters.
You are just paying too much attention.
The twilight meet is a long tradition, it is a low key meet, sometimes, and often a last chance qualifier for Pac Tens.
Oregon meets have not had the same luster the past couple of years. They used to have B heats and morning heats for their distance races and now the fields are much thinner in general. I don't include the OTC races in judging UofO meets. Those are total outliers. Collegiate fields are better over all at Mt SAC and Stanford.
Knot a Duck wrote:
Oregon meets have not had the same luster the past couple of years. They used to have B heats and morning heats for their distance races and now the fields are much thinner in general. I don't include the OTC races in judging UofO meets. Those are total outliers. Collegiate fields are better over all at Mt SAC and Stanford.
I agree. It seems to me that they just load the field with Oregon runners and maybe one or two others and a pacer. They seem like time trials to me.
I think the problen is you are comparing oregon track meets to Mt.Sac Relays, which of course takes place in the track capital of the world. Really not a fair comparison.
they are becoming more and more like a soap opera. too much injury, personality conflicts, etc.
The standing rule is, we do not compete against each other.
It's interesting, you ask any athlete who actually competes there, and they'll say the complete opposite. That could be the difference between a player and a hater though.
Briane and Ashton repeated today as PAC-10 Champions at Cal
http://trackandfieldphoto.com/MeetMatrix.php?Meet=2010%20Pac-10%20Track%20and%20Field%20Multis
DesmondDrekkers wrote:
I think the problen is you are comparing oregon track meets to Mt.Sac Relays, which of course takes place in the track capital of the world. Really not a fair comparison.
If you look at my original post, I did NOT compare the Oregon track meets to Mt. SAC Relays at all. I simply stated that they are overrated and boring. Stop trying to make me look like a troll.
Yes, it is definitely just you. Had you been regularly attending Oregon track meets from the late '80's until around 2005, you wouldn't be saying this. The current meets are fabulous, and loaded with All-Americans and professionals, who regularly turn out great times. Of course, most of the Oregon meets are for the purpose of getting Oregon athletes ready for the big meets that come later in the season (Pac 10's and NCAA's, Junior and USATF championships). The biggest this year of course is the NCAA nationals at Eugene during June. Let's see if it is still just you after that meet.
It's nice to have UO supplement the US college & elite track & field scene on the west coast. The more meets they have in Portland/Eugene the better I say. UO should continue to expand it's vision. Cal and NYRR added elite time trials to Brutus Hamilton. Stanford continues to set the standard for meets on the west coast. Nike puts up money when and where it counts with NXN, OTC, UO. Yesterday, Occidental Invite was huge again. Mt Sac is the largest relays in the world, with more entrants than Texas, Penn, Drake, and Kansas relays combined. Cerritos, Footlocker, Arcadia continue a long tradition of HS excellence. Every weekend including the months of December and January the So Cal USATF Assn is swamped with a half dozen gigantic T&F/XC meets held throughout the Southland. T&F/XC is going like ganbusters in L.A., O.C., Ventura, Kern, Riverside, and San Diego, and there is no relief in sight. We should be very happy to be a part of a great sport.
Are you the So Cal USATF PR guy? You sure sound like it, and your claims have the PR ring to them. Keep trying though.
UO T&F hasn't medalled in a long time at Worlds and Olys though like Cal Poly, UCLA, & USC have. USC & UCLA are the two top T&F schools at Worlds & Olys.
No Medals wrote:
UO T&F hasn't medalled in a long time at Worlds and Olys though like Cal Poly, UCLA, & USC have. USC & UCLA are the two top T&F schools at Worlds & Olys.
I didn't say anything about their athletes.
Just curious, how many athletes does Mt SAC have every year for its track meet ? (can't really call it a relay meet, as it appears that more people run individual events than relays)
Looks like it was a nice meet with a lot of local teams. Nothing better than inviting mom and grandma out to watch you compete.
They should have had some sprinters compete against the football players, shoot why not throw in a girl sprinter to mix it up. Great idea though.
dw wrote:
Looks like it was a nice meet with a lot of local teams. Nothing better than inviting mom and grandma out to watch you compete.
Yeah, that's pretty much what the twilight meet has been about. Northwest competitors in front of a local crowd of 3000-5000.
Filling up the west grand stands and having it spill out to the fences, the east grand stands and the corner seating in probably the lowest key meet of the season is very impressive in this day and age. Nowhere else comes close.
There were over 6,000 at the Twilight meet.
There were over 6,000 at the Twilight meet.
That's the diff btw rng, TV, Xc in So Cal & in the ROW.
In So Cal meets are for participants. Runners, throwers, sprinters, vaulters are what meets are for. If your aren't an athlete then why show up ? people figure. Meets are for active athletes.
For the ROW, meets are for sitdown folks in who sit in the stands. People aren't interested in running, jumping, throwing, vaulting, hurdling, shoot hoops, etc. They just sit there, happy as a lark, watching people bust their asses.
Sports Marketing guys turned me on to this.
Google Farms Portland OR wrote:
There were over 6,000 at the Twilight meet.
That's the diff btw rng, TV, Xc in So Cal & in the ROW.
In So Cal meets are for participants. Runners, throwers, sprinters, vaulters are what meets are for. If your aren't an athlete then why show up ? people figure. Meets are for active athletes.
For the ROW, meets are for sitdown folks in who sit in the stands. People aren't interested in running, jumping, throwing, vaulting, hurdling, shoot hoops, etc. They just sit there, happy as a lark, watching people bust their asses.
Sports Marketing guys turned me on to this.
I was fairly confused by this. Are you saying that the ROW does or does not come to track meets, or they just talk about people who go to them or what? Maybe it was the sentence structure, just not getting the point.
Anyway in Tracktown USA, meets are for athletes to participate and fans to watch them do so. They don't make the stands that big for athletes bags and extra javelins.
I doubt anyone ever started track hoping nobody would want to watch them compete or cheer for them.