UCLA vs Oregon Dual Meet

How many of those 10 athletes were later found to be drug cheats? Most of them, I bet...that's the LA Way.

Well, we're still trying to answer a question here. Why was there such a small fan attendance for the Oregon - UCLA meet and why does LA track and field events in general draw poor attendance? (i.e. ever been to HOME DEPOT track and field event?)

Many say they are busy coaching, running, taking their kids here and there, doing cultural things, etc. etc. I say rubbish! There is more going on here.......come on speak up! What is wrong with the sport?

Let's get creative, what does our sport need to pick it up to the next level? If we all start responding..... Maybe the experts will get the message!

Behold the Greatness that is Mike Berry:

http://www.flotrack.org/coverage/238647-2011-UCLAOregon-Dual-Meet/video/485397-M-4x400-F01

please.........get the message

Anyone looking to attend the UCLA vs USC track meet?

If 10 Medals at IAAF 2009 Berlin Worlds by L.A. T&F isn't good for you then what would be.

BTW, Home Depot never finished that track. It's still not finished. The press box is built on the wrong side so hundreds of writers would cram down at field level and ruin the meet for the fans. No water. No concessions. No toilets. Wood Chips to walk on. USATF blocked out seats at the 1st turn for VIPs, ruined the meet for the fans, and many refused to pay to see the meet under those conditions. No wonder people didn't show up.

So Cal USATF has two dozen high school and college meets the weekend of Home Depot. Remember that Los Angeles County, Orange County, and San Diego County are the premier training camps for sports in the world. More T&F medals come from this area than any other.

Anyone looking to attend the UCLA vs USC track meet?

I'll be at the UCLA & USC meet. It's Aug 24 to Sep 7 in Taegu, South Korea. Here's the link

See you there. Go Bruins !

opinion wrote:

What is wrong with our sport? We were at Mt. SAC this weekend to witness some of the finest athletes in our nation set some unbelievable times. Yet...the stands were empty.... and when someone did set a record, the fans hardly noticed. Unbelievable.

Did you go on Friday? Because I went on Saturday and the stands were packed. What's really unbelievable is how many distance running fans think the sport of track and field consists of distance events only. And then they don't even go watch those!

Broken Arrow wrote:

How many of those 10 athletes were later found to be drug cheats? Most of them, I bet...that's the LA Way.

Are you white? I bet.

UCLA's Chelsea Johnson won a Silver medal at Berlin, and hasn't tested positive.

medal wins at iaaf worlds and olys are the only thing that matter to so cal t&f athletes and coaches. from kintergarten we dream of being on the medal stand in front of the world at daegu worlds and london summer olympic games. meets are simply time trials and qualifers to get a chance at an wc and oly medal.

.

That is a pretty biased opinion regarding the PAC-10 (soon to be PAC-12) and the dual meets contested amongst member schools. Implying that there is no vaule to the meets is absurd. It would almost be as absurd as me saying that the yawn factor of a Div III SCIAC quad/tri is 10x higher and the wow factor is 10000x less than the UCLA vs Oregon, UCLA vs USC, Stanford vs Cal, Ohio vs Michigan, or (insert other Div I dual meet here).

Comparing the SCIAC format for dual/tris/quads to rivalry track and field duals of the PAC-10 is like comparing apples to oranges. To my knowledge that format is unique to that conference. IMO you shouldn't make the comparison. I think the seasoned and even novice track and field enthusiast would conceed that be it Div I or Div III, a hard fought meet is a hard fought meet. Please don't try and discount the value of the UCLA vs Oregon dual by saying that it doesn't matter...because I'm certain that those involved (athletes, coaches, alumni, etc) would argue that it means something to them

How much advertising was done for the meet?

I am a big fan of the dual meets.

A few issues with the dual are that unless you have someone in the booth announcing and following the action it is hard for the fan to keep track of the score.

The other major issue for the casual fan is following the field events and combining it with the whole of the meet. You have a little more than 1/3 of the events and most programs, college or high school have no way to indicate to the fan who is winning.

So you look at the UCLA Oregon Dual and UCLA takes the 100, 200, 400IH, and 4x1 and Oregon takes the 4, 8, 1500, 5k, 110, Steeple and 4x4. Looks like Oregon is crushing UCLA unless you are getting instant updates from the field and finding out that UCLA is sweeping the PV and shot and taking the top 2/3 in the Disc and LJ.

These are critical events. At the high school level I guarantee no one is following these events except coaches and those who are jumping or throwing and parents.

Create lineups ahead of time and lay out the meet in a bulletin. Highlight the individuals to watch, the swing events, the relays and maybe the Tier 2 guys or gals that could step up.

Get an announcer to provide instant information from the field and the track. People want an instant score.

Lastly you have to advertise your rivalry a bit. Take your schools biggest rivalry and spread the word. Make sure the meet will last 2 hours and do a home and home. Or one year you host, and the next we host. It can be done, it just needs to be done right.

good luck. there's already dozens of meets and roads that weekend just in los angeles alone. trying to cram in a sprintfest to fill in for mt sac going bible belt (a few years back) might work but i'm coaching that day so i can't make it.

Question asked: what's wrong with the sport in the USA? Question answered by guys like you: Racism, drugs and super egos. The general public doesn't like this kinda crap and never will...so long as the LA egotistical, racist, PED users are the ones winning US medals, no one will give a crap to support track and field.

I agree with "my take on it." Track is at its best when people know the score and know what is going on in the field events. Whenever track is on tv, the broadcasters constantly update you on the VISA Championship standings because it is more exciting when something more is at stake than just beating the people around you. Similarly, when the NCAA championship is on TV, they put an emphasis on the team standings because it is more exciting and more relatable to the average person when a team title is at stake.

Furthermore, a good announcer who can say, "that ranks #7 in the US this year" makes all the difference. Even a "track-educated" audience isn't going to have the record books memorized. Cheap meet programs should be filled with interesting statistics, but not everybody will buy a program or keep it open, so the announcer can be useful in pointing out interesting stats in addition to updated team standings.

You can say that the fans in Eugene are smart and track-educated, but how much of that is fans taking cues from a good announcer?

Spot on! This kind of thinking coul rejuvenate our sport! The announcing and advertising for the UCLA-OREGON meet were very good and if we continue to have these kinds of meets and more schools adopt this kind of format then the sport will grow and the fan base to all track and field meets will grow.

The NCAA should get rid of indoors or cut down on indoors and start an early dual meet season in Feb or March and have a true team national championship but then also have an individual national championship that overlaps with the team championships but also goes later into the summer, kind of like NCAA gymnastics does it. There has to be some sort of change to make it more about the team.

I know there is a strong anti-Oregon/Nike/Bowerman bias on this board, but I find it interesting that much of what is being said here was the belief of Bill Bowerman decades ago.

I had the privelege to contact him and seek a donation when we were constructing our track (back in the 90's). He donated $5000 towards our project but indicated he would happy to give more if we were willing to scale down our project size (4-6 lanes instead of 8, 300 meters instead of 400 meters, etc.) He explained that his vision of T&F was to move to more dual meets and do away with the big invitationals.

You also can't do an overkill of T&F. You have to start small and create a demand for the product.

Look at UCLA. They have dual meets this year with Oregon, USC and Tennessee. Not sure but that is probably the most in the country. The coach is keeping the product small and identifiable.

Look at some other schools and you see Texas Relays, Drake Relays, Penn Relays, maybe an invite, conference meet, regional meet and ncaas. A lot of these meets have a lot of tradition but thats a lot of races.

A casual fan might see this invitational here or this relay carnival there and check it out. But after 4 hrs of endless relays and only a handful of awesome races they become a little less interested and bored. Next time around they wont go because they remember it took 7 hrs to get through everything.

You have to get both rivals in on the meet and advertise it. Michigan has a ton of rivals. They really could have a great dual meet schedule. OSU, Michigan state, and Minnesota. Schedule some home and homes and get the local high schools and alums out. Go look at the schedules of OSU, MSU, UM and UM. They barely compete at home.