Thoughts on Cheserek and Jenkins flying to Stanford and taking 2 spots only to jog

It was an insult to the other competitors in that race. Basically taunting those behind them. "We're jogging and still can beat you"

I don't have a problem with it but they could have easily just gone to a local meet and done the same thing. 29:00 is basically a tempo run for those two.

Were they paid to show up? If they were paid to show up they'd show up.

Absolute garbage, sad that Jenkins has to do that shit. Kid is straight fire. Coach should of let him drop fire

They paced Melancon and Neuman. It was about team. Doing just enough to qualify. Load up with 4 ducks in the 10k. Cheserek is a very team oriented guy.

Nothing about it bothers me

Why would anyone be bothered by it?

The meet is the equivalent of a heat at USAs. No one gets upset when people don't go all out in a heat. You simply do what you need to do to qualify.

The outrage actually though is interesting. It to me shows why track and field isn't more popular. ONe of the inherent things about the sport - that most people don't really seem to get - is most meets are nothing more than exhibitions/practice.

Jenkins and Cheserek aren't really racing. THey are practicing. Yes in most meets, people are racing all out but really the results are almost 100% totally insignificant until you get to a championship say NCAAs, USA, Worlds.

Pre-season football isn't real popular. Nor is pre-season track.

It only bothered me that more coaches don't seem to have a clue. Why would someone waste a 28:45 on an early April meet? It only showed me that Andy Powell gets it and others don't. With minimal effort he just got 4 young men into the Regional meet. Now they can train and race.

It bothers me that more coaches will let their young runners hammer a 10k in April, then at conference, then at regionals and try to actually have something left at the NCAA meet in June along with a bunch of other meets scattered in there.

Good for Powell and the Ducks!

You are correct that track has a limited fan base in part because most meets do not have meaningful results. However, I disagree that this is an inherent part of the sport. We have created this system where the only thing that "matters" is nationals and major championships. Our sport, in fact, is inherently competitive. Figure skating and judged sports are exhibition.

If track coaches, athletes, journalists and enthusiasts were serious about improving fan interest, event experience, athlete and coach wages, etc. they would be working in a more serious and organized fashion to improve the way our sport is conducted. If preseason doesn't matter and 99% of your sport is preseason that's a major problem.

NCAA coaches are working on changes to improve the sport at that level, but there is a huge disconnect between those that see team scores as the solution and those that don't.

On the pro level, our sport will never be popular in the US as long as it is predominantly run by a nonprofit that only cares about global championships. I think fan interest would increase and more athletes/coaches would prosper in a national for-profit league with domestic only competitors.

I have no problem with what Cheserek and Jenkins did at Stanford.

That said, I do think we have a problem in that our "regular season" is just championship meets and everything else doesn't seem to matter. Your analogy to the NFL doesn't hold up, as they also have a very popular 17 week regular season.

I think most track people do get that most meets are "exhibitions/practice," but that is also part of why our sport isn't very popular or well understood by the casual fan. How do you build a fan base when there are very few competitions that "count?"

As much as I love NCAA cross championships, the rest of the season is a joke. Half the teams 'tempo' most of their meets, athletes are regularly held out of the few meets that a team 'races' and so it all comes down to one day. That day is awesome, don't get me wrong, but there is no need to pay much attention before then.

Your XC critique is a good one. I think there is some discussion in coaches association to address this problem by not only assigning points for quality wins as we do now, but also subtracting qualifying points for losses during regular season and addressing "B" teams.

Here's why it doesn't bother me

1. This was not a scoring/championship meet. They met the entry criteria like anyone else. I don't see why they owe another athlete a chance for an early April time trial/PR chase when the meet also helped Ches/Jenkins accomplish their goals.

2. They helped pace teammates, one of whom did PR.

3. People complain about the lack of meets that mean something, but both are coming back this week to run a 5k in a scored team meet in Eugene. All the more reason to go as easy as possible last week. We say fans, especially the more casual fans, like meets that mean something. Guys can't go all out or run every week like a basketball or football player. If anything, I give them more credit for not going faster at Stanford because Oregon is at least making an effort to have a more team based meet that fans might enjoy more.

They pulled this crap at Mt. Sac last year, too--everyone 29+ in the 10000....and John Teters ran 10.14. But Trevor Dunbar of Oregon ran 13:28 at Mt. Sac, and the fastest 5000 at Stanford was 13:30.

That's not why track is not popular, and if course it IS popular in Berlin and Zurich with sold out 60000+ crowds. This is why there are no 10Ks in the Diamond League any more and XC is on life support.

Do you think the Notre Dame kid that ran 45.93 at Stanford thought his result was insignificant? What about Bromell running 9.90 and Kiryu running 9.87w at Texas Relays? Are they going to go 9.50 when they get "serious"? What about Geena Gall, who ran 4:17 at Stanford....and finished fourth?

There is no "distance running" in track and field. What just happened is why the best thing we can do to make track and field more popular is to get rid of distance (not mid-) events like the Europeans are doing. Let them run road races like the rest of the fitness joggers. Or have them run "distance carnivals" that nobody gives a damn about, like Mt. Sac does.

People who pull crap like the 10000 don't deserve to be out there.

Look, folks gotta qualify for the nationals in the 10,000, then they might have to run one at their conference meet, then they have the Regional, and then they have the NCAAs. That's a lot of 10,000s. No reason Ches and Jenkins should have run any faster than they did. And I doubt in a 10,000 with two heats and large fields that they can really be accused of taking up anyone else's spots.

coach d, the Stanford meet in general is not set up for a Joe Blow spectator meet on Friday. Berlin and Zurich are professional Diamond League, summer, events. You don't see large fans in Berlin or Zurich for a meet like Stanford. Standford is largely, but not exclusively, an early season test or rust buster for some pros and a time trial meet for a lot of college kids. This meet ended with six, 5ks and four 10ks. The end of the meet was a "distance carnival". It's not like they put all those 5k and 10k races in the middle of world class sprint races.

I was there and I actually booed them. It was completely embarrassing and they should not have been there. Until the competitive nature of this sport returns, NOBODY will care. We need regular-season meets which matter to the qualification process. It HAS to be this way.

card nall wrote:

I was there and I actually booed them. It was completely embarrassing and they should not have been there. Until the competitive nature of this sport returns, NOBODY will care. We need regular-season meets which matter to the qualification process. It HAS to be this way.

You must have missed the meet two weeks prior where these guys carried the bulk of the load at indoors. Sometimes you just have to run to get a time down and move on to the next race.

And if memory serves me well, they used to do the 10,000 as a straight time qualifier for NCAAs until people got in a hissy about how all the 28:50 guys who made it at Stanford in late March weren't fit in June. So now there is a qualification race at regionals.

I have no problem with them taking 2 spots in the race, especially considering they finished in the top 2 spots, but I DO have a problem when the top 2 run like little douches practically holding hands to the finish line. I'm not asking them to hammer the whole race, but at least run an honest final lap.

card nall wrote:

I was there and I actually booed them. It was completely embarrassing and they should not have been there. Until the competitive nature of this sport returns, NOBODY will care. We need regular-season meets which matter to the qualification process. It HAS to be this way.

Talk to the NCAA who made these guys qualify for regionals in the 10k. So, it's ok for any athlete who is trying to qualify for regionals, as long as its close to their PR, but if you're one of the better runners it's not ok? This is a 10k not a 1500m race. Mission accomplished. On to the next race.