The official HEPS track and field thread, 2015-2016

More Ivy League self-congratulatory horse-pucky. Yawn!

Lynn Jennings, ironically from Harvard, MA did a couple of workouts for said coach and quit because he was clueless.

It wasn't till years later, and with workouts done on her own, did she don the Princeton colors.

rojo and Gregory Page,

Look what I found out there- from the Princeton Alumni Weekly Spring '77- article about BILL Farrell and his volunteer role as women's coach. Looks to have started the team during the winter of '75-76 (he must have been a JUNIOR in college himself) including XC and '77 track. Incredibly, had a couple very good competitors and placed high up in Ivy Champs, with 100% volunteer staff!

https://books.google.com/books?id=BRZbAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA2-PA83&lpg=RA2-PA83&dq=bill+farrell+princeton&source=bl&ots=PCBVzKabKk&sig=LC69_ihal5u1YkVa86Gc6JG1_vA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiisIWmrYfMAhVP3GMKHU7IC2oQ6AEIQjAG#v=onepage&q=bill%20farrell%20princeton&f=false

Wow, great find, gonchar--many thanks!

I had not realized Bill was an undergrad when he was coaching, much less a junior! I was well into my senior (1972-3) year when I started (though aged 20). Jeanne Osborn, a sister senior, was key in getting people on the team. (It was only years afterward that I realized, in an amazing coincidence, that Jeanne and I had both been members of the 1969 group of US Presidential Scholars.)

The seventies were a tough time to get teams started. There simply was very little money at most of the Ivies (and most of the country) anyway then; and even though Title IX had passed in 1972, most people still hadn't grasped the notion that women who paid the same college tuition as men should get about the same benefits!

So most women's teams were seriously, even absurdly, underfunded. At Cornell the women's t&f/xc program had a yearly budget of $600, which could only be spend on equipment--and that was only available because the golf team had disbanded. As a result our teams had to be "creative" about finding funds for travel and lodging. (Fortunately, Jack Warner, the Cornell men's coach, was tremendously supportive of our efforts and occasionally shared his team's transport with us, as well as adding women's events to his indoor meets.)

So it was a relief to hold the first Ivy t&f meet at CU--we had exhausted our resources by traveling to Hanover for the xc meet in the fall, and then to a meet at Princeton in the winter. We hosted the Ivies on a budget of $0: all-volunteer officiating (the starter paid for his own ammo!), and donated medals/trophy.

One of the nicest things to have seen in the years since, as we approach the 40th meet, is that women's teams are on a truly equal footing with men's, and that the list of events (though it took too long IMHO) is essentially the same. Nice to see that athletes don't have to sack out with sleeping bags on the floor of a dorm or gym, or scrounge up vehicles for car pooling!

Well, thank goodness it looks like there will be reasonable weather in the Northeast this weekend. Looking forward to some great Ivy performances!

Ho. Lee. Crap.

Rudy Winkler threw the hammer 72.36m/237-05 at Bucknell--about 6m farther than his Heps-winning throw of last year. That's an Ivy League record, I believe--the first of Conor's marks that he's broken, IIRC.

He also kind of broke the school record a little.

WOW!

ivy league record is 73.81

https://www.tfrrs.org/results/26097_1662091.html?athlete_hnd=3797077

cornell distance tearing it up this weekend

www.leonetiming.com/2016/Outdoor/Bucknell/

hammer_ wrote:

ivy league record is 73.81

THANKS for the correction. I had not dug deeply enough into the lists on HepsTrack.com.

My bad.

BRF wrote:

hammer_ wrote:

ivy league record is 73.81

THANKS for the correction. I had not dug deeply enough into the lists on HepsTrack.com.

My bad.

Still a great throw. Awesome season debut. Only about 5 feet away from McCullough's conference mark.

Another person creeping up on a conference mark is Allison Harris of Princeton. She cleared 13-05 1/4 this past weekend, making her #3 all-time. Conference mark is 13-09 3/4. Harris cleared 13-09 1/4 this past winter.

Also can't wait for Adam Bragg to break the conference mark in the outdoor pole vault. He's the third guy to break 18 feet in the outdoor pole vault (did it at the Texas Relays) and the conference mark is 18-01 1/4.

Time to think about Heps finishes? Incredibly, it feels like the outdoor season is almost over--yet a trick of the calendar gives us one more weekend of competition before Heps than we often get.

[Anybody else remember when Penn Relays was the end of the early-season meets, rather than a last tuneup before conference championships (or the *same* weekend as some conference meets)? College outdoor track used to be a May/June sport. Ah, well--things change.]

But some things don't change. Picking a favorite for the women's outdoor title, for instance. Harvard has put together one of the all-time great Ivy women's squads and could amass a monstrous margin of victory. The only thing I could see changing that would be if they decided to be very sparing with doubles. If I counted on the tffrs list correctly, they have the leading performer in 13/22 Heps events--and the #2 performer in 6/19 (you can only enter one relay squad)!

Although the Crimson number several seniors among their leading athletes, they have tremendous firepower among their underclassmen and could be set for years. This team is a dynasty reminiscent of Cornell's from some years back.

Speaking of which: can Cornell win the also-rans' contest, as they did indoors? Maybe. Compared to the indoor schedule, several outdoor-only events tend to help them (10,000, 400H, SC, 4x1, disc); but a couple of others hurt, and in most cases Princeton and Penn are the beneficiaries. My early, at least co-equal, pick for second is Princeton: competing at home, in Peter Farrell's last Heps, and with many seniors among their top performers. I could readily envision some really strenuous doubles/triples from the Tigers.

Men? Tough to call at this early point. Princeton, at least so far, has a real boom-or-bust team: the potential for a *lot* of points in several events, but offset by several others in which they've shown little or nothing--at least so far. Cornell has some gaps of its own (notably, and somewhat surprisingly, in the throws), but overall shows a bit better event coverage to date. Nevertheless, PU came out of Barton Hall with a championship indoors, and it's hard to pick against them (in their own house) outdoors.

I haven't done any virtual scoring, but Penn and Dartmouth seem safe to repeat as the next two places, just as they did indoors. But I'm going to go with Penn, which has perhaps the most nearly *complete* team among the Ivies, for third--particularly if Awad is involved in multiple events. Dartmouth had an outstanding meet indoors and was a worthy third, but if Penn even approaches its potential I can't see Dartmouth as repeating that outdoors.

So does anybody have the time schedule for Heps? I need to make 'rangements...

Ivyguy wrote:

Cornell has some gaps of its own (notably, and somewhat surprisingly, in the throws)...

Wait--did *I* say that?

What a difference a weekend makes! HTer Rudy Winkler was having a great season and pretty much carrying the flag for Cornell throws, but now word from Ithaca is that he has company at 70+ meters: Rob Robbins, the #3 Ivy javelin thrower ever and Heps champ way back in 2013 (who blew out his elbow two years ago and had Tommy John surgery), has opened his season at 71.59 and leads the League's spearchuckers by 25 feet.

The Big Red actually have a dozen men competing in the throws (more than their fine group of female throwers!). None of them is a senior. I stand corrected.

kibitzer wrote:

So does anybody have the time schedule for Heps? I need to make 'rangements...

Aaaaand once again, the Penn Relays results are slow to show up on tfrrs.

I do not understand what the holdup could possibly be. *smh*

It's 7:30 on May 1st and there are *still* no Penn Relays results on tfrrs. Grrrrr.

And this is not the first time, either, IIRC.

I agree: it's hard to see what the (apparently) persistent problem is, but there's evidently a problem somewhere!

At least the results from the Cornell meet on Sunday are posted:

https://www.tfrrs.org/results/41568.html

With temps in the upper 40s and some pretty stiff winds it was a typical Ithaca spring day. Maybe good preparation for the conditions at Cornell's Ivy League meet next week though.

Still some good results. The big one was Stephen Afadapa's high jump. He cleared 2.00 at Penn Relays on Friday and today he pulled out a lifetime best 2.19 (= 7-2+)! Also some decent times in the sprints and middle distances considering the conditions and some good marks in the other field events.

Same general remarks hold for the women's events.

Did anyone see this ridicullous quote from Tommy Awad? Congrats on winning Penn 4 x mil but golly gee, why do all Ivy Leaguers think they are the best?

"I think it’s about time we get back to the years where Fikes was one of the top guys and we were third at NCAAs in cross country. Our time is now, and I think we finally built a team that’s one of the best track and cross country programs in the country."

If "one of the best" means top 40 or 50, then ok. But if you aren't even winning a conference title in a non-scholarship league, how are you one of the best programs in the country?

The reason Penn Relays results take a long time on TFRRS is how the results are entered. I've been told that if there are any mistakes the whole file has to be resubmitted, and the Penn Relays' file is by far the largest one they receive each year. Evidently the file size can crash TFRRS in the process too.

BillCarr wrote:

The reason Penn Relays results take a long time on TFRRS is how the results are entered. I've been told that if there are any mistakes the whole file has to be resubmitted, and the Penn Relays' file is by far the largest one they receive each year. Evidently the file size can crash TFRRS in the process too.

Well that makes sense, I think. Anyway, this year (as in most years) Penn Relays actually added very few leading marks to the tfrrs Ivy League lists.

I've decided to go ahead and "virtually" dope out this weekend's meet, just going with the marks that are listed on tfrrs up to now. I'm not going to be obsessive about fractions and my arithmetic might be off a couple points, but these should be in the ballpark.

Men: Cornell 185, Princeton 135, Penn 109, Dartmouth 74, Yale 58(!), Harvard 55, Brown 45, Columbia 15

Women: Harvard 223 (let that sink in a minute), Princeton 120, Cornell 91, Penn 86, Columbia 51, Dartmouth 44, Brown 35, Yale 27

I just went with what was on the list--obviously, undoable doubles/triples could affect the real meet. And as usual there's a dearth of marks in the 4x800--and no doubt some people will debut in the 5,000 and 10,000 (especially the latter) and the multis at Heps. But anyway this is how things look based on the tfrrs lists of season's performances to date.

Personally, I'm going to pick H for the women's title (really putting my neck out on that one); and I see the Big Red as favorites in the men's meet, but only slightly: Princeton's men tend to come up big at home and have a history of productive seasonal debuts at Heps. It wouldn't surprise me if the meet came down to the relays--again.

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Separate question: a couple of years ago there was a little discussion about how only a couple of teams actually fill the squad limit at Heps. At that meet, I believe it was only Princeton's men and the Cornell men and women.

What teams do you think will field full squads this time? I'm guessing the Harvard women, Princeton M & W, and probably both Cornell squads--who else? Penn M/W, maybe? It just seems like it'd be hard to win Heps if you're outnumbered--but didn't the Columbia women win indoors a few years ago, with less than the squad limit?