The official HEPS track and field thread, 2015-2016

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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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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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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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gonchar wrote:

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

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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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