The official 2017-18 HEPS TRACK & FIELD thread

Go Bluno wrote:

Let's get some love for those Bears in third, y'all.

Absolutely. Excellent performance--fine job by coaches and athletes!

This team is a sinking ship under Adrian Durant. Now that all the Coach Nathan athletes have graduated we see exactly where this team is lacking. Adrian Durant must spearhead recruiting and convince his team to run through a wall for him and Cornell. Really poor performance by the bigRED and we are extremely disappointed, how do you lose 3 good coaches in 2 seasons and watch your team fall from consistent 1st places finishes to now 5th in the league?

“we are extremely disappointed, how do you lose 3 good coaches in 2 seasons and watch your team fall from consistent 1st places finishes to now 5th in the league?”

I have 3 good reasons:

1) When you lose good coaches sometimes they left BECAUSE they are good...be it personal preference or bigger opportunities at institutions that will compensate appropriately for that coach’s skill set.

2) Cornell is not in Canada, yet near Sherk in a far, far away place, and without question in the middle of no where aka Ithaca. Ask a majority of Americans, where is Ithaca and they might say Greenland!

3) And this is the main reason in my opinion: when you as “an Alumni” anonymously come on this forum, lecture (poorly I might add. I expect better from an Ivy grad), and proceed to bad mouth this coach. The reason and problem is YOU!!

You want to see that ship not sink...then get off it with all your yesteryear baggage or go to that coach like a man (odds are you’re a male given you not giving the women’s coaches the same undivided disloyalty).

You said the athletes must be willing to go through a wall for their coach and school...well so to should the alum! Show all the coaches at Cornell how you’re willing to support them to be on top in a league. A league in which isn’t the same league as when you “competed” (seems like your only loyalty was to Coach Taylor and when he left...so did you.)

PS: I hope your disgraceful and disrespectful words of discouragement isn’t indicative of the “we” you speak of!

Good luck Coaches at Cornell!

Honestly, Cornell Men's Program is in need of change from the top down, whether it be a change in attitude or philosophy from Coach Durant. We alumni talk, we know what is going on inside the track center yet of course the current athletes will not speak up on the problems with the coaches to the actual coaches. However, we NEED a solid leader out of this HEAD coach because is not one. Coach Durant must prove to us that he is truly about us and not about himself. Just my opinion being under both Coach Taylor and Coach Durant.

As far as losing coaches. We all loved Coach Lang, didn't care much for Coach Megan and Simms we didn't have enough time to get to know, believe he only cared about the long and triple jumpers was the word on the street. It's not a coaches issue at Cornell, good coaches always come and go through the ivy league, it's a head coach issue.

Good Luck Cornell Big Red!

Big Red Alum c/o 2016

[quote]Bear Alum wrote:

Honestly, Cornell Men's Program is in need of change from the top down, whether it be a change in attitude or philosophy from Coach Durant. We alumni talk, we know what is going on inside the track center yet of course the current athletes will not speak up on the problems with the coaches to the actual coaches. However, we NEED a solid leader out of this HEAD coach because is not one. Coach Durant must prove to us that he is truly about us and not about himself. Just my opinion being under both Coach Taylor and Coach Durant.

As far as losing coaches. We all loved Coach Lang, didn't care much for Coach Megan and Simms we didn't have enough time to get to know, believe he only cared about the long and triple jumpers was the word on the street. It's not a coaches issue at Cornell, good coaches always come and go through the ivy league, it's a head coach issue.

Good Luck Cornell Big Red!

Big Red Alum c/o 2016

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Just a load of gossip driving the naive! Not one time have you mentioned any of you alumni having gone up to Coach Durant and spoke of any concerns or better yet ask how can you help make things better.

Everything sounds like any sports program in this nation That has gone through change...but when your actions as alumni are predicated on a selfish need to have the head coach cater to your biased perspective before you will step up and let that coach know your support is available?!? Just stop!! It is clear that you all had issues with this guy from the start.

Every program that goes through changes have dissenters and with Taylor having been there for awhile...I imagine there are many snakes in the grass!

I agree with one of the comments that said the problem is with you and any like minded alumni who would come out and speak negative words behind any coach’s back. None of you are trying to provide a path to better pastures for the current athletes, future ones, nor the program as a whole.

Hell the best remedy to most problems is communication, but coming on here to hide and spill gossip (or alternative facts) is not the ideal communication method. Unless of course your real purpose is to only see this coach gone! Look long, hard, and deep into your motives because until you all go and speak with that coach you have no idea what all may be happening and/or desired!

I saw Natalie Schudrowitz was a DNF in the women's 5k on Sunday. Good to see her try to compete but can anyone shed any light on what is going on with her? I'm assuming loads of injuries?

Okay, simmer down everybody. Cornell is going to be fine. They've got a good staff in place.

They did have some sudden staff changeover (family reasons, mostly), and when that happens the new coaches are generally going to need a couple years to start getting top recruits (the *key* to winning at Heps--ask Fred Samara or Steve Dolan!), then another year or two to coach them up.

Their throws coach is one of those recent additions (but arrived before the new jumps/men's distance coaches) and his throwers did a solid job at Heps--looks like he's gonna bring in some good recruits this fall, too. The other newbies will get there soon enough.

Look, Cornell men and women had a subpar meet. We notice it just because it's such a rarity for them, not because they're suddenly led by poor coaches. I'm the Big Red Fan, so I'm biased, but I think they'll show considerable improvement outdoors.

And let's not overlook the fine job that Fred (Princeton men) and Steve (Penn M&W) have been doing, as well as the good work at Dartmouth and Brown! The League just gets more competitive year by year.

Anywho,..

Took at look at the TFRRS NCAA Qualification lists. Here's what we got in the top 16:

w-60: Gabrielle Thomas, 7.25, t-15th

w-200: Thomas, 22.91 (converted), 7th

m-800: Myles Marshall, 1:47.74, 12th

LJ: Cha'Mia Rothwell, 6.27m, t-16th

TJ: Simi Fajemisin, 13.11m, t-15th

WT: Adam Kelly, 22.09m, 11th

DMR: Brown men, 9:29.90 (converted), 12th

I decided to try to go back and see what actually went wright and wrong at the meet.

I created a spreadsheet where I compared the actual scores to what was projected based on the actual entries/descending order lists.

I've only done it for the men so far. I didn't count the 4 x 800 and DMR as to me the descending order lists don't mean a lot there.

Here who is most underperformed and overperformed based on the entries and what they'd done coming into the meet.

Dartmouth 24

Yale 19

Princeton 11

Brown 5

Penn 5

Columbia -16

Harvard -23

Cornell -25

The order of finishing coming in was supposed to be

1. Princeton

2. Penn

3. Cornell

4. Brown

5. Harvard

6. Columbia

7. Dartmouth

8. Yale

but ended up being

1. Princeton - Same

2. Penn - Same

3. Brown -Up one

4. Dartmouth - Up three

5. Cornell - minus 2

6. Harvard - minus 1

7. Yale - plus one

8. Columbia - Minus 2

So Dartmouth, Yale and Princeton over performed and Cornell, Harvard and Columbia under performed. See for yourself here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/125xsoNaG-TynDHTVIXDVThxZAm1Cpv5bcFyk8o7d2qs/edit?usp=sharing

Looking ahead to next year. Princeton loses A TON to graduation. Their senior class is better than the REST OF THE LEAGUE COMBINED. Check this stat out.

Points scored by seniors (this may be off by a tiny bit)

Princeton 105, the rest of the league 98.5

How is that even possible? So mega hats off to this year's Princeton senior class.

Here's how that broke down

Princeton 105

Brown 28.25

Cornell 23.5

Penn 22

Harvard 12.0

Yale 9.0

Dartmouth 3.5

Columbia 0.25

So if I remove senior points from this year's point total (i didn't rescore the meet, I just took out the senior points), I get

Penn 80

Dartmouth 67.5

Princeton 64

Brown 56.75

Harvard 39

Columbia 37.75

Yale 37

Cornell 34.5

I'll bet everything i own that Cornell doesn't finish last next year.

Will you do the Women as well? If not, I could try to calculate it tonight...

C/M Runner wrote:

Will you do the Women as well? If not, I could try to calculate it tonight...

I'll do it.

Ok, thanks Rojo.

I was looking at the iHeps results to see what changes have been made to the all-time and meet-record lists.

Three meet records were set in each competition (although technically, one of the men's marks was tied).

For the men, the 200m had the most marks that entered the record books, but this event is still "young" at iHeps so it's bound to keep getting new marks in the meet top-10. Otherwise, the men's hurdles final was FAST - yielding two of the top three times in conference history (one of them is graduating).

The women had more improvements in the meet and all-time top-10 lists than the men. For the women, the 1000m had the most new marks as it is a young iHeps event as well. Majority of the marks were set by underclassmen.

Men:

60 - #6 meet (6.76f - sr)

200 - #1 meet (21.37 - jr); #3 meet (21.51f - sr); #7 meet (21.58f - jr); #8 meet (21.60p - sr); #9 meet (21.65p - jr)

HH - #1 meet & #2 all-time (7.81f - so); #2 meet & #3 all-time (7.82f - sr); #7 meet (7.92p - so); #10 meet (7.94p - jr)

DMR - #1 meet (9:43.16 - sr,sr,sr,sr)

PV - #10 meet (5.20m - sr,so)

LJ - #10 meet (7.52m - jr)

WT - #5 meet (21.52m - jr); #7 meet & #5 all-time (21.39m - jr)

Women:

60 - #1 all-time & meet record (7.25p - jr); #2 meet (7.26f - jr)

200 - #3 meet (23.26f - jr); #5 meet (23.69p - jr); #10 meet & #5 all-time (23.90 - so)

500 - #9 meet (1:13.09f - fr)

1000 - #3 all-time & meet record (2:44.85f - sr); #5 meet (2:48.36p - sr); #9 meet (2:48.85p - jr); #10 meet (2:48.93p - sr)

HH - #1 all-time & meet record (8.20f - so); #2 meet (8.28p - so)

DMR - #5 meet (11:28.61 - sr,so,fr,sr); #10 meet (11:33.95 - jr,so,sr,fr)

HJ - #10 meet (1.80m - jr)

PV - #4 all-time & #5 meet (4.05m - so); #10 all-time & #9 meet (3.95m - sr)

LJ - #3 all-time & #3 meet (6.27m - so)

TJ - #4 all-time & #5 meet (13.11m - so); #7 all-time & #9 meet (12.99m - so)

SP - #10 meet (15.23m - sr)

WT - #10 meet (18.60m - jr)

Pentathlon - #5 all-time & #3 meet (4013 - jr); #4 meet (3952- so)

f - done in the finals

p - done in the prelim round (if applicable)

Great stuff, rojo and Mary--thanks!

Ok. Women's research is done. Here is how the women's teams did as compared to scoring the descending order list of the entries (I didn't score 4 x 800 , DMRand 5k for the women as so few had run the 5k) Note if I took the 5k out of the men's DMR as so few had run it then Princeton would have had the best meet at +28).

Teams that scored more than the descending order list

Princeton + 12

Dartmouth + 11

Cornell +9

Penn +2

Harvard +1

Yale +1

Teams that scored worse than projected

Columbia: -2

Brown: -33

When I was researching the points scored by seniors (note for the relays, I just divided by the percentage of seniors, i didn't give more for a senior anchor on the DMR), I uncovered the most unreal stat of all time. Harvard had a total of two seniors competing at the meet. 2. No wonder their streak ended. I know maturity isn't nearly as important on the women's side as men's but that's amazing to me.

I'd love to see a percentage of what percent of incoming recruits quit/burnout before it's all said and done for every school and every sport in the Ivy League. Does anyone know if ADs quietly compile those stats?

I'm so amazed by that I'm going to look at how many seniors competed period per team.

Cornell - 12

Columbia 9

Penn - 9

Brown 8

Princeton - 5

Yale - 5

Dartmouth - 4

Harvard - 2

Anyway, here are the points scored by seniors.

Penn 47.5

Columbia 43.25

Cornell 37.5

Princeton 21

Dartmouth 19

Brown 12.5

Yale 9

Harvard 6

So here is the scores without seniors

Harvard 99

Penn 89.5

Dartmouth 77

Princeton 44

Cornell 37.5

Brown 34.5

Columbia 36.75

Yale 6

Interesting analysis of the women's scoring, rojo. Really underlines that Harvard's defeat this year is more likely a blip, rather than the signal for a long-term decline. If other women's programs can't match Harvard's recruiting (maybe by going international--or *more* international?), it's still going to be tough to beat the Cantabs on a consistent basis.

Thanks for your work.

rojo wrote:

When I was researching the points scored by seniors (note for the relays, I just divided by the percentage of seniors, i didn't give more for a senior anchor on the DMR), I uncovered the most unreal stat of all time. Harvard had a total of two seniors competing at the meet. 2. No wonder their streak ended. I know maturity isn't nearly as important on the women's side as men's but that's amazing to me.

I wouldn't say that Harvard lost because they didn't have any seniors. They lost because their strongest group right now are in the sprints and jumps and they have a limited presence elsewhere (their dominant thrower graduated in 2017 and they lost their distance girls due to transfer and injury). I was amazed that they got 2nd in the DMR and won the 800m though. Penn was very well rounded, and it's the well rounded teams that win the team championships.

C/M Runner wrote:

Penn was very well rounded, and it's the well rounded teams that win the team championships.

Usually, but not always!

Some years back, the Cornell women's team famously scored in every event at Heps (a very rare accomplishment)--and didn't even finish second!

Ivyguy wrote:

C/M Runner wrote:

Penn was very well rounded, and it's the well rounded teams that win the team championships.

Usually, but not always!

Some years back, the Cornell women's team famously scored in every event at Heps (a very rare accomplishment)--and didn't even finish second!

Ok good point. In an ideal world, the most well rounded teams win championships.

The Cornell athletes have voiced their displeasure with their iHeps results in the school newspaper.

http://cornellsun.com/2018/02/26/pretty-awful-to-say-the-least-disappointment-at-ivy-heps-gives-track-and-field-new-drive/