Waching daily Aug 31 2017

I'm John Wise, Assistant Director of Track and Field

and Cross Country at Wichita State University.

Welcome to On Pace.

This is our first show, and we have a lot to get to.

After the MVC championships, the Shockers qualified

four athletes to the NCAA championships

in Eugene, Oregon, home of TrackTown, USA.

Highlighting the effort for WSU was junior Hunter Veith,

who finished sixth in the decathlon,

with a school record of 7,866 points.

This earned Veith First-Team All-American Honors,

and with the top four placers graduating in 2017,

look for Hunter to be challenging

for a national title in 2018.

On the Women's side, WSU did something it had

never done before, qualifying three ladies to one event,

for the first time in school history.

Nikki Larch-Miller, Breanne Borman, and Gavyn Yetter

all made it to Eugene in the heptathlon.

Borman and Yetter earned Second-Team All-American Honors

by placing 10th and 11th, while Larch-Miller was heading

towards a top eight finish before injuring her ankle

with two events to go.

All three of these ladies made

a major impact on WSU Track and Field,

and qualifying to the NCAA championships together

was a great way to end fantastic careers.

The Shockers once again showed their strength

on the international scene this summer,

as Deja Young won the 100 meters and 200 meters

at the World Paralympic Championships

in London, England in July.

You probably remember Deja's

highly successful 2016 trip to the Rio games,

where she also won the 100 and 200,

and became a Wichita celebrity in the process.

In the past three years, Young has now won

five gold medals and one silver at the World level.

We are certainly excited for her to put on the Shocker

black and yellow for her junior year in 2018.

WSU had Track and Field coach Steve Rainbolt

also spend some time in Europe as Assistant Coach

for Team USA on Thorpe Cup, a dual meet decathlon

that pits America versus Germany.

This is the third straight year Coach Rainbolt

has been part of the Thorpe Cup staff.

As last year, he led Team USA to a win as the head coach

of a team that included former Shocker Austin Bonner.

This year Germany came out on top

with a narrow victory on their home turf in Dusseldorf.

Every year the fall brings enthusiasm and excitement

to campus in the form of Shocker

Track and Field newcomers.

This year's recruiting class brings in over 40

talented athletes from around the United States

as well as the world.

Dozens of state champions and school record holders

will join the Shocker roster highlighted by freshman

Rayvon Allen from Rockwood Summit High School in Missouri.

Allen finished his senior year as a number two ranked

triple jumper in the nation in 2017,

and now teamed with All-American Jared Belardo

in the jumps, WSU will have a potent

one-two attack for the next couple years.

Late August and early September signal

the beginning of the cross country season.

Here's a look at the upcoming schedule.

The cross country season is just around the corner,

and we had a chance to catch up with Wichita State

cross country coach Kirk Hunter

at one of his early-season practices

to talk about the upcoming season.

(piano music)

- You know, you're coming off of summer,

it's a new team on the girls,

and the guys are kind of veterans

now they're coming together.

They seem like they did their mileage,

I mean, you know, in the summer we don't

really get to do much in terms of coaching them,

and things like that, they just

have to put in the time on their own.

At least what I can perceive,

this early in the season that they did a good job.

Remember your flip as you're going through this.

We all have so many new kids on our team this year

that, throughout our track program and cross country

it's going to be interesting to see how it all develops.

Who's going to be the impact kids,

who's going to come in right away and make an impact.

Kind of like Sidney Hirsch when she was here,

super freshman, I mean, that's what our model is now,

that's what we want, super freshmen.

Guys, we're going to go as far as we can together.

- Talk about the workout today.

What did you guys do today?

- We did an escalation run, it was basically

it increased their tempo ten seconds every mile.

Remember, I'd rather be too slow than too fast.

Help each other out, pull each other as far as you can.

Alright? Three, two, one, take off.

Nice and comfortable.

You know, part of the workout today

was running as a group, working as a team.

See how far you can go.

I want the same thing in races.

This was a pretty good route,

there was some mixtures of uphills, downhills,

cross country's that way, I mean ideally you want

to run on what you're going to race on,

but you know, when you're doing something like this

it's hard to find ten miles of grass

that you're going to run on,

so, man this is so much better for the body

and so much better for the kids that we get to do this.

That line is the finish.

See the red line?

A good majority made it, eight on the girls,

and a good majority made it, nine or ten on the guys,

so, impressive, because usually

I don't have freshmen make it that far.

My first year here, I think some of those guys

made it three or four miles, you know so

they're going eight, eight and a half, nine and ten,

I mean, that's impressive.

I think that's it, I'm going to go up to the next one.

I'm really excited about JK Gold.

You know, I've had many schools try to get me to go

to their meets on the same day and they want us to change.

We don't want to change.

This is ... you know it's JK Gold, first of all,

I mean for JK, the meet's been going for a long,

long time ago, before it was even called JK Gold.

As a team I think having the full track team out there

it already starts to integrate with our staff philosophy

of hey, we're one team, and we're going to work together,

and so having everybody out there together

cheering each other on, working, doing all the things

that we're going to do, I think it's invaluable

for, just to kick off our year.

- We're here with Coach Rainbolt and we're talking

about our new move to the American conference.

Coach, officially it happened in July,

but it was kind of announced in April, in the spring.

What do you think has been the general feeling

around the athletic department

with the change in the conferences?

- I feel like in the world of college athletics,

this is a significant step up for Wichita State

from the Missouri Valley up into the American.

For Track and Field, you know the Valley

is an awfully good track conference,

and so I feel like around our office,

that we feel like we just need to keep

doing what we're doing, we do need to step up our game,

I think it's going to be tougher for us to win championships

at the clip that we have been winning them,

but I think that we're going to be battling for titles soon.

Like that's going to be certainly our objective,

that's our focus.

- You know, you've been in the Missouri Valley

for almost 20 years and Wichita State has been

such a big part of the Missouri Valley.

Personally, how do you feel about moving

to a new conference?

Is there sad? Is exciting, or what is it for you

as someone who's been in the Valley for so long?

- You know, sad and exciting are two good descriptors.

I am a guy who cares about history.

I care about tradition.

I like tenure in a conference.

I like it when a coach has a long tenure at one school.

I love that I've been coaching

at Wichita State for a long time,

and I like the idea of continuing my career there.

So I'm going to miss the Valley.

I love the Valley.

I thought that Missouri Valley Track and Field

was great track and field.

I've been really proud of every team title that we've won.

And so I'm going to miss it, but I'm also excited.

This new conference is a terrific challenge,

there's a bunch of terrific coaches in this league,

and I think it's exciting for our team,

for the athletes in our team,

I'm really pleased to see the athletes in our team

able to tell me what the American looks like,

able to tell me who their main opponents are

in the American, who our main opponents are as a team.

I feel like the athletes are excited,

so I am too, I'm looking forward to it.

I guess I can, you can sense a little bit of mixed emotions,

but generally, I'm really excited.

- So you mentioned some of the coaches.

There's some famous coaches in this new conference.

- Yeah.

- When you throw around names like Leroy Burrell,

Carl Lewis, you know, Jeanette Bolden, Johnny Gray,

there's some great coaches, you know,

and not necessarily, it doesn't mean that they're

better coaches than the Missouri Valley,

because there are great coaches there,

but does that kind of increase the prestige

of coming to Wichita State for a recruit?

Does it make recruiting easier?

I know we've talked about recruiting around the office.

- Yeah, I don't know exactly yet

what impact it has on recruiting at Wichita State.

To say to a recruit that, down there

at the University of Houston

a guy who belongs in any discussion

about the greatest track and field athlete in history,

Carl Lewis, is the Assistant Coach,

and one of his main opponents when he was sprinting,

and a guy who, for a time, held the world record

in the 100 meters, Leroy Burrell, is the head coach.

I mean it's sort of remarkable

for those two guys to be there

at the University of Houston.

Same thing with Jeanette Bolden at Central Florida,

and J.J. Clark at Connecticut,

but it goes on and on, you know,

heck that leaves out Elvis Ford at Tulane

who was just an NCAA champion and Olympian,

you know, and people don't even know about him,

but that guy was a star, and a wonderful guy,

you know we used to compete against him in the Valley

at Illinois State and a great guy,

so anyway, yeah there's a lot of good coaches

in this league, and it's really going to be

a neat deal I think.

I don't know what impact it's going

to have on our recruiting.

I feel like that there will be a perception

that we have moved up to a higher level

and I'm hoping, obviously,

that's going to help us in recruiting.

That athletes will like the idea of

going to Orlando for a conference championship,

going to Houston for a conference championship,

going to Yukon for a conference championship,

and competing against really, really well-known programs.

So I think, like you said, I don't think that means

that those programs are necessarily any better

than some of the ones in the Valley.

There've been some awful good track and field

in the Missouri Valley.

But, there might be a perception,

and maybe we'll benefit from that.

- Well if anybody who's been following our program,

they know last year we won four championships,

the year before we won three, seven championships

in the past two years was the first time

it's ever happened in the conference.

You know, does the expectation change,

you know, cross country's getting ready to start,

what are expectations for the first year,

is it kind of see how it goes,

or is the expectation hey we're going to battle

for championships right away?

- So, you know, I'm a guy who

I tend to be pretty transparent.

It's hard to be transparent in this situation.

Our women's team last year was really good,

and I think that we could have

battled for a title in that league.

We lost some immensely good seniors,

very good seniors, and we're replacing them

with some really good freshmen.

But it doesn't matter.

We're replacing seniors, All-Americans,

a few of them, with freshmen,

and some really good freshmen,

but they're going to take some time to get developing,

and to get up to speed in NCAA Division I Track and Field.

So on the women's side, I really don't know what to expect.

I think that we're certainly going to be talking

about battling up for a high finish,

but probably we're building, probably we're young,

and that might make it tough to envision

knocking off a title right away in year one.

On the men's side, we have a pretty intact,

strong team that's still together,

a championship team, that won two championships,

heck, the last four championships

in the Missouri Valley conference,

and I think that's a pretty good men's team.

Now, on that side, we're going up against

a really, really strong Houston team,

but I think that we're ready to compete

in that league with everybody else.

Right now I would have to say

I think Houston is the favorite, wouldn't you?

- Yeah. For sure.

- Yeah. I think Houston's the favorite.

But, I feel like that we can compete

with everybody else in that league,

and Houston better be ready and not stub their toe

or we'll be right there I think,

and so, you used the word expectations.

What are the expectations?

I don't know that I've established expectations yet.

Those are tough to establish until you get into the season

and you see how the conference descending order list

plays out and how it starts looking.

But we certainly, we had a team meeting yesterday.

You heard me say, hey we're going to be winning

championships in this league, and so let's start

thinking that way right now.

Let's start thinking about winning titles.

I hope the athletes heard that.

I hope that they begin developing that mindset collectively.

- Well it starts real soon.

We have the JK Gold cross country meet coming up,

so we're going to start finding out a little bit

about our team. - Yeah

- And so that happens right away and newcomers

start practice and the rest of the team will be going

right behind them, and so exciting time

to be part of Wichita State Track and Field.

- I think so. I think it's great.

I'm excited about it.

- Former Shocker Aliphine Tuliamuk

is no stranger to success, as she earned

13 First-Team All-American Honors while at WSU.

Her success has also translated

to her post-collegiate career,

and we had a chance to catch up with her on Skype.

So Aliphine, you have won four of the seven

USATF Road Racing championships this year,

there's four to go,

you've won over $40,000 in winnings this year.

Is this your main focus, this running road circuit,

or is there something else you'll be

focusing on more later in the year?

- Well the circuit for now is my main focus,

but then I think at the end of this year,

like maybe for the first season my coach and I

decided that I was going to try to run a marathon again.

We don't know exactly what we are doing,

I mean we kind of have a rough idea

but we haven't been confirmed yet,

so I'm just doing the circuit and then

the last race of the season,

which is like the Big Gold kind of,

I will be doing a marathon.

- So Aliphine, will you be running any races

on the track this year,

or are you solely focusing on the road,

and is there any chance you would come back to run

the inter-squad meet here at Wichita State?

- Well that's a good question.

Well I mean when you look at the track season

it's already almost over with the world

championships going on right now, so.

And for me really, I decided not to do

the world championships just because I wanted

to focus on the worlds and just to build up

for the marathon because if I was doing the track

then I wasn't going to be able to put in

a lot of miles like I want to

and I feel like I don't really have the speed

that I used to have when I was in college

because I'm now doing longer stuff.

So, yeah I would love to do the inter-squad

if I had the opportunity but I'm really not so sure

now because of my season the way it's kind of

structured right now, so maybe not this year,

maybe hopefully next year. We'll see.

- So recently you signed a contract with New Balance.

So what does it mean to be a sponsored athlete

by New Balance?

What does that mean to your running career now?

- Well as a professional athlete, you know like

you can only make so much money from winnings,

and it's not always guaranteed that you're going

to win every race, and having sponsorship

is very important because for example like,

I mean I have a little bit of salary from

New Balance, something that I didn't have last year,

but more important I guess for like a professional athlete

the way you make money when you have sponsorship

is that any race that you win, you have bonuses.

And I have a bonus structure with New Balance

so any US championship road race that I win,

I get some money for kind of like performance bonuses,

and that's really nice because that adds up

pretty quick and, you know when I think about where I am

financially right now compared to last year,

I'm way ahead, just you know when I only count

the balances, I mean the bonuses,

and little salary that I have.

And also like I don't have to worry about

buying shoes, which is very important

because I go through shoes like,

now that I'm running at least 100 miles a week,

by the end of like, one or one and a half months,

my shoes are like, you know I don't need to use them

anymore so I need new shoes,

and if I were buying them for myself

it would get really expensive,

so it's kind of nice that way.

- So now you live in New Mexico,

and you run and train with the Harambee Project,

and Coach Ryan Bolton.

What does this project entail,

and how has this group enhanced your career?

- The Harambee Project,

well harambee is actually a Swahili word.

It means that when we come together we achieve more.

And so this was a project that was here,

and the reason why I moved to New Mexico

in the beginning was I wanted to train

with Caroline Rotich and she won Boston Marathon

a couple of years ago, and we have another girl,

her name is Simone Abnet and she lives in Albuquerque

so like, for example when I was in college

I had to always find guys to pace me all the time

and then after I got out of college I didn't really

have that advantage, but then having a training group

is really good because, say like yesterday for instance

we had a tempo eight miles.

If I were doing it by myself I don't think

I would have been able to hit the times

that we were supposed to, but because you are there

the three of us pushed together and that really helps.

And for me that harambee word has a lot of meaning

because I don't really know how to run by myself,

to do well, to train well by myself,

so I need people so we can push each other.

And it's really enhanced my running career

just because I feel like the training that I have

right now is just like a stepping stone

from what I was doing in college,

except now that I am probably focusing more

on longer stuff, long runs, and even like workouts

and stuff like that, but yeah.

Being part of a group is really important

and our coach is very knowledgeable,

he really knows what he's doing and by the way

he was in the 2000 Olympics for the Triathlon,

so he's pretty ... and he ran also, he ran in college

and so he really knows what he's doing

and I feel like since I got out of college

I only got better and better every year

and that was just because of, you know I have a good coach

and having good training partners.

- So recently there have been a lot of Shocker women

going after college to be successful

in distance races like Kellyn Johnson,

and Tonya Nero, Desiraye Osburn, yourself,

why do you think Wichita State has been so successful

in producing women's distance runners after college.

- You know I think that the training structure

that we have at Wichita State,

especially for the long distance, is really good.

I feel like, for all those women,

they were super prepared when they,

you know, became poorer runners.

Like, when I think about myself, for instance,

I mean I didn't succeed right away.

I needed a lot of adjustment,

but I think that the environment

that we have in Wichita State in terms of training

and the family, like the teamwork and all that stuff

I think that really built us and made us stronger

and doing all those workouts that we used to do

and especially running with the guys for me for instance,

it really helped like, it kind of helped me

persevere a lot because when it comes to professional

running, I mean some of those training,

especially when you're training for a marathon,

it's really tiring, you know you get really tired,

and you just don't want to do more,

but then because you've learned how to persevere

from like four years when you were in college,

I think that really prepares you and so for me

I feel like we've been successful, you know,

as Wichita State alumni just because

of the training that we had.

And of course like I mean we used to have those talks,

you know, we'd talk about how

when you get out of school it's different,

it's kind of a different life and I feel like

whenever we had like those meetings and we'd talk about

stuff like that, like we were prepared,

and so like when I got out of college

and I wasn't able to perform right away,

I feel like those talks helped me to be patient.

Like I just exercised a little bit of patience

and now it's paying off.

- Welcome to our round table discussion today.

Our topic is going to be with

the idea of changing the world record.

Should the world records be reset

because of some of the doping scandals

and accusations of the seventies and eighties.

Today to talk about this topic we have Jason Parr,

he's the Head Distance and Cross Country Coach

at Friends University.

We also have Raquel Stucky, who's the owner

of First Gear Running Company.

Mark Phillips is the Head Coach

at Cowley County Community College.

Sophomore sprinter on the Wichita State

Track and Field Team, Daysha Bullocks.

And President of the Shocker Track Club, Darren Muci.

So I'm going to start with Jason.

What do you think of the idea of getting rid

of the old records and setting new records,

or maybe having a point of which the records

will begin again?

- I think as you look back from the years of competition,

what do we know to be true back in the 70s, 80s,

about doping, and what they were actually using,

I think if you compare that to today's genetics

and what people are able to get through the drug market

and what they're able to do, I don't know where you find

that baseline of truly finding out what was being used

and what wasn't being used.

The one thing that I love is going to see

that old school track and field I think in an authentic

way that was done the right way.

In today's age we've seen a change in performances.

We can talk about baseball, we can talk about triathletes,

we can talk about the cycling world,

we can get into all of the sports that,

in some degree, have some kind of doping issue.

You know, for me I want people to live up

to the integrity of what every sport's about,

and I want you to build a train,

because you've trained hard for that,

not because you need an edge,

and by doing that, going and doping,

and taking away from the people that are truly

doing what they need to do to get to that level.

- Raquel, what do you think about this topic?

- You know, I don't know. It's very controversial,

especially when you put the word probable in there.

Let's take for instance Shalane Flanagan was just recently

upgraded her medal from the 2008 Olympics,

so she was upgraded her silver medal.

That took nine years to come with a definite response.

And, I think that, all in all said, that's definitely

worth the wait, but you can't go on probability.

You know, true testament, you gotta find out the facts.

And that's, you know, I hate the fact that that's marring

our sport in track and field.

And, good point, that goes across all lines of sport,

unfortunately, where you can physically see it the most

is going to be track and field.

You know, when you see races that are just unbelievable

what's the first thing you think?

And it's truly unfortunate, but you know

as far as resetting, boy that's just

a hard correct answer.

You would like to think that, you know,

in the 70s and 80s it was gutsy performance

that was getting people through, you know,

those advancements in doping, and so on and so forth,

I mean, if those weren't discovered,

we need to figure out a way to set them aside

or have a little bit more than just probable.

So, that's kind of my thinking there.

- Mark, what do you think?

- I agree, I think probable is a horrible word to use

in this situation.

If you can't go back and prove that they were doing it,

how do you take those away?

And that's, just like that situation with the medal,

they went back and proved it.

So, I think if you can't take it away because of proof

I think it's pretty hard to do that.

- Daysha, you're somebody that's wanting to break records

some day, what do you think about this?

- I just think that now doping is a part of the atmosphere

of track and it wasn't like that at first,

so for me I'd like it to go back to its traditional

because I think that track is at any given day,

anybody can come and be the underdog and come and win,

and I just feel like if that's the case

they shouldn't be questioned if they were doping or not,

just because they worked hard.

So, I think like everybody else said,

I mean if you have proof that they did it

then go ahead and take it away from them

because they're unworthy of it,

but if there's no proof about it then

I mean, there's nothing that we can do about it

because it was in the 80s, so it wasn't really a big,

no one really knew much about it until right now.

- Darren, you're president of a track club, where you see

your athletes competing against the world-class athletes

at Olympic trials and USA championships.

What do you think about this?

- And I'm also a long-time track and field official,

so I've seen a little bit of everything.

I think we'd agree that there are some questionable

records out there.

For me, the women's 400 meter and 800 meter records

stand out as a bit odd.

That said, they were set, the athletes did have to perform.

Let's leave the records alone.

But we do know this, and Jason hit on this,

we've got athletes that are working hard

to do things the right way, there's a bar out there,

we know that they're going to hit and break those records

at some point.

Let's give our current athletes a chance to do

the best they can, and break those records

and get them removed.

- Okay so I'm going to agree and disagree with everybody.

And I'm going to say I think there should be two sets

of records.

Let's, we just had 17 years ago, the turn of the century,

so let's have some pre-2000 records and post-2000 records.

And, you know you see that a lot,

you'll see a meet with different records listed,

and you know, maybe that's a way to go

and if the post-2000 record is the record,

then there's only one record.

And that way at least it gives,

there'd be two record-holders and that would

maybe give a little more attention to the sport

for records that seem unbreakable at this point.

So anyway, that's my opinion.

What do you think?

This is definitely a topic that obviously within our panel

we don't all agree on, so what do you think?

Add your comments to our website

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