The official HEPS track and field thread, 2015-2016

Its amazing how static the top of the league has been on the men's side. After Penn's 2002 win, teams other than Princeton or Cornell have scored over 100 points just twice, Penn in 2004 and Harvard in 2014, both outdoors. This is with more points available outdoors too - no Navy, the multi, and now even a 4x800.

It would take a miracle situation (similar to 2002) for Penn to win this year. Not impossible, just improbable.

Worth noting that Mattis is not a huge guy: listed at 6-1 and (now) 245, though he certainly weighed less in earlier years. Some (relatively) "smaller" guys take longer to adjust to the college implements.

OTOH Stephen Mozia, formerly of Cornell, isn't terribly tall either, but possibly adjusted to the college weights a bit more readily.

I watched/shot the mens and womens Jav and Hammer the official used laser measuring devices rather than tape measures...not sure if they are fool proof but the measurements were quick and they werent struggling with 50-60m of tape. The winds were light to moderate which would have been more of a tailwind for the Jav throwers and a primarily a crosswind to the discus throwers...

I think some people were questioning the use of the laser measuring devices at IAAF Indoor Worlds a few weekends ago, but it was for the long jump and not the throws...

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PennPhotog wrote:

I watched/shot the mens and womens Jav and Hammer the official used laser measuring devices rather than tape measures...not sure if they are fool proof but the measurements were quick and they werent struggling with 50-60m of tape.

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ladedah wrote:

I think some people were questioning the use of the laser measuring devices at IAAF Indoor Worlds a few weekends ago, but it was for the long jump and not the throws...

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With some top performers absent, Cornell nevertheless won both sides of a meet at Cal Riverside: http://finishedresults.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/UCRF.htm

Results don't seem to be up on TFRRS yet.

Looks like the usual mix of first-meet marks, with some people in "off" events. Hairston (m) and Radoslav (w) won their 400H races handily, and the 4x100 squads were within a half-second of their winning times from last year's Heps.



Hey, did you know that this year is the 40th installment of the Ivy women's (outdoor) t&f championship? I was at the first--hope to see this one, too.

Peter Farrell - the only coach the women at Princeton have ever known - is indeed calling it a career after 39 years on the job.

We received the following release from Princeton this afternoon:

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Princeton wrote:

PRINCETON, N.J. (4/8/16) - Peter Farrell, the only coach in the history of Princeton women’s track and field, has announced that he will be retiring at the end of the year.

“After 39 incredible years I will be retiring from my position as the first and only Princeton women’s track and cross country coach,†Farrell said. “It has truly been an honor to coach here. There have been incredible experiences and memories that I will always hold dear. I’ve been proud of the young women I have coached and all they have achieved not only on the track here as student-athletes, but the incredible people they become after graduating. This was a professional experience I dreamed of as a young man. I was sitting in my dorm at Notre Dame and looked over at my college roommate and said to him ‘what does a kid with a history degree do for a living?’ I found my way to a terrific professional career as the head coach of Princeton women’s track and cross country.â€

Farrell guided the Tigers to 27 Ivy League team titles and coached 55 All-Americas and 182 Ivy League champions. He led the program to the Ivy League Triple Crown in 1980-81 and 2010-11 and is the only Ivy women's coach ever to achieve this feat even once.

“Peter Farrell is one of Princeton’s legendary coaches. For 39 years, he has consistently distinguished himself as one of Princeton Athletics finest teachers, both on the track and off,†Ford Family Director of Athletics Mollie Marcoux said. “Peter has been a pioneer in the growth of women’s sports at Princeton, and he has positively impacted the lives of thousands of Princeton athletes in his time here with his strong values, loyalty, leadership, mentorship and humor. His legacy will be one of great competitive success combined with a firm commitment to Education through Athletics. Peter will be sorely missed within the department and throughout the University. We wish him the best of luck in his retirement.â€

“Thirty-nine years ago both Peter and I arrived on the Princeton campus,†Princeton men’s track & field coach Fred Samara said. “I'm sure neither of us thought that we would coach for that long a time. Peter’s coaching record speaks for itself, he's a Hall of Fame Coach. What has impressed me through the years is how he interacts with his team and handles every problem that may arise with wonderful consistently and understanding. Peter leaves Princeton with a legacy that will be hard to duplicate.â€

The cross country team has been a regional and national power. The squad posted back-to-back fifth-place finishes at the NCAA Championships in 2008 and 2009. In fact the Tigers have finished among the top 15 teams at the NCAA Championship meet six times in the last 12 years. With 11 NCAA team appearances, seven Tigers have earned All-America honors. Winning nine Ivy League Heptagonal titles, the highlight came in 2009 when the Tigers had a 1-2-3-4-5 finish for a perfect score – something that had never been done in Ivy League history.

During the winter season, Farrell has helped to guide the indoor track & field team to nine Ivy League titles. Fourteen Tigers have competed at the NCAA Championships, most recently first-team All-America Cecilia Barowski who was sixth in the 800. She has since qualified for US Olympic Trials, with Farrell as her coach. Barowski is the fourth athlete Farrell will coach at the US Trials. Three former athletes went on to compete in the Olympics, three-time Olympian and bronze medalist Lynn Jennings, Debbie St. Phard and Katie McCandless.

Outdoors, Farrell has claimed nine Ivy League titles and has sent 27 Tigers to the NCAA Championships. A total of 23 student-athletes have been award 29 All-America honors. 2014 brought the program’s first NCAA Champion in hammer thrower Julia Ratcliffe. Ratcliffe who has taken the year off from Princeton this year to train for the Olympics in her home country of New Zealand, was the nation’s leader all season and had an undefeated year. The semifinalist for The Bowerman Trophy, awarded to the top collegiate track & field athlete in the nation was the NCAA runner-up this past spring.

A national search for Farrell’s successor will begin this spring

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I was an undergrad at Princeton--a junior--in 1978, the year that Pete Farrell started the women's track team. My girlfriend at the time was a member of that team. It was a startup in every sense of the word. Nobody who gazes down at the thing called "women's track" now, almost four decades later, can imagine how DIY it was at the time. My GF was a crew jock, not a runner, but her father was a marathoner with the NYRR and so...well, SOMEBODY had to be on the team, and so she became a part of it. She was game, but heavy thighed, full-chested, not very fast. I watched her run one race in Jadwin Gym that winter of '78. The women's track thing was almost a joke, but they were definitely jocks and nobody was laughing.

I believe that Lynn Jennings arrived the following fall. I watched her run one XC workout. She left everybody in the dust. She was no joke. And it was on.

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KudzuRunner wrote:

I was an undergrad at Princeton--a junior--in 1978, the year that Pete Farrell started the women's track team. My girlfriend at the time was a member of that team. It was a startup in every sense of the word. Nobody who gazes down at the thing called "women's track" now, almost four decades later, can imagine how DIY it was at the time. My GF was a crew jock, not a runner, but her father was a marathoner with the NYRR and so...well, SOMEBODY had to be on the team, and so she became a part of it. She was game, but heavy thighed, full-chested, not very fast. I watched her run one race in Jadwin Gym that winter of '78. The women's track thing was almost a joke, but they were definitely jocks and nobody was laughing.

I believe that Lynn Jennings arrived the following fall. I watched her run one XC workout. She left everybody in the dust. She was no joke. And it was on.

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so with Farrell's retirement are they're not going to fold up the program? ;)

I must correct the above posts!

Peter has done wonderful things for his program and for the Ivy League as a whole, as I've said before, but Peter Farrell was NOT the first women's t&f/xc coach at Princeton. That distinction belongs to Bill Farrell (no relation, as near as I know), who IIRC was the one that actually started the women's program and coached it for some years. It is not the case that Peter started the team from nothing; Bill and the women whom he coached had laid a decent foundation.

It was Bill Farrell who took the Tigers to the first women's Ivy Championship t&f meet, which we hosted at Cornell in 1977. His Princeton women placed third, which is where Peter's first squad also finished, the following year.

Peter may have been the first paid women's coach at Princeton. But simply not being paid (Peter Fox Smith of Dartmouth and I weren't either!) is not a valid reason for denying Bill Farrell the recognition that he deserves.

This spring does indeed mark the 40th edition of the Ivy women's outdoor championships, which I believe Princeton will be hosting. What a wonderful thing it would be if both Peter AND Bill could be honored at that time for their contributions to Princeton and the League.

I see that the meet Cornell was planning to host today has been snowed IN: they're going to hold it in Barton Hall. http://cornellbigred.com/news/2016/4/7/womens-track-field-womens-track-and-field-moves-meet-to-barton-hall.aspx

I must say that I can't wait to see what the performances in the indoor 2K steeplechase are!

Thank you Mr Page for this correction. I was an undergraduate at Princeton at the time Bill Farrell was the so-called 'volunteer' coach of women's track and cross. This is not to take away from Peter Farrell at all, not at all, just a historical accuracy and recognition of Bill Farrell's dedication and pioneering at the time.

Great pickup from those that were there in that seemingly lost year of '77.
Hopefully Princeton and the LR front page header will get this corrected to make the distinction.

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gonchar wrote:

Hopefully Princeton and the LR front page header will get this corrected to make the distinction.

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Credit where it's due: LRC has corrected its front-page article. Very quick response, and much appreciated!

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Gregory M. Page wrote:

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gonchar wrote:

Hopefully Princeton and the LR front page header will get this corrected to make the distinction.

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Good catch, gonchar--I hadn't seen the front page.

In fairness to LRC: They probably just went with the misleading Princeton press release. But they should know better now--in fact I'll email them, given that they probably can't monitor every post on every thread.

As for PU: I'd hope that they'd make some kind of correction, but won't hold my breath. I'm not a cynic (I don't think I could have gotten the Cornell team and the Ivy meets started, if I were!), but it's possible that the time of no-paid-coach-for-the-women is not a period that Princeton would want to revisit or acknowledge--you know, given that Title IX passed in 1972, and Peter (aka paid coaching) didn't arrive until 1977.

I'd love to be wrong, though, and to see Bill Farrell get some recognition from PU. He was and is a good guy.

--Greg Page

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Very good all around. Being in Jersey, in Princeton in '77 holds a special place in my heart- my breakout year in HS. Amazingly, the State HS track Champs were held that Spring in the old Palmer Stadium at Princeton as well! Not sure it ever was again.. A beautiful track venue if there ever was one, the classic horseshoe, even better than Wallace Wade at Duke.

The story of Bill Farrell's unpaid year at Princeton is fascinating..great material for a nice piece in a magazine at least. I do agree it may not be something Princeton really wants to highlight..