December 2004 Issue

Where Are They Going

compiled by Dan Lilot

Our annual roundup of what went down in the collegiate recruiting & eligibility wars

Powerhouse Conference: Big 12

Baylor (Clyde Hart): N—Jeremy Jackson 13.71. JC—*Jerome Miller 13.96. DNR—*Jeremy Wariner 20.61, 44.00.

Colorado (Mark Wetmore): N—Ryan Deak 4:07.33+, 8:54.74+, 14:24.89; Bradley Harkrader 9:18.38(A)+; Chris Pannone 9:17.09+; James Strang 4:12.98+. DNR—*Dathan Ritzenhein 3:42.99, 13:27.77, 27:38.50…

(for more, read the December Issue of Track & Field News)

Rating The Recruiting Classes

Cal men and LSU women claim top-haul honors

1. Cal

Chris Huffins was a world-class all-arounder in his competitive days and his second recruiting class in Berkeley draws from all across the event spectrum. The new recruits are headed by a trio of All-Americas that put the Bears atop the overall heap: Nate Rolfe (No. 1 in the hammer, 237-1, and No. 3 in the discus, 206-2), Ed Wright (7-0, No. 2 in the high jump) and Alex McClary (1:50.28, No. 3 in the 800). McClary is joined by twin Andrew (1:51.78). Good sprint/jump help will come from Rashaad Nunally (10.51w/24-11 1/2) and Steven Conrad (21.35/24-2).

2…

(for the rest, read the December Issue of Track & Field News)

Prize Recruit: Walter Dix

by Dan Lilot

Walter Dix is not the most talkative interview subject. Our No. 4 High School All-America ranker in both the 100 and 200, the Coral Springs, Florida, alum answers most questions with a simple “yes” or “no.”

But steer the conversation over to his participation in this past summer’s Olympic Trials, and the Florida State frosh opens up.

“I think it will give me an advantage at the college level,” says Dix of his two rounds of the 200 in Sacramento. “There were a lot of college guys who didn’t make the Trials, so I’ll have some confidence when I race them.”

And while Dix’s 6th in his OT quarterfinal may not strike fear in the hearts of the top collegiate speedsters, it does suggest—along with his 10.28/20.62 bests— that he can make an immediate impact on the NCAA scene, although not necessarily where you might think…

(for more, read the December Issue of Track & Field News)

Prize Recruit: Josh McDougal

by Sieg Lindstrom

Josh McDougal has chosen a running career path that is almost the inverse of World Junior distance teammate Galen Rupp. While the Oregonian chose to go directly from high school to the pros, McDougal has gone from home school in New York to college at Liberty in Virginia.

McDougal, who turned 19 in June, brought with him two-years-younger brother Jordan, who earned high school equivalency and a stellar SAT score before his 17th birthday.

Now the siblings are roommates enjoying the transition to a larger academic environment. Jordan redshirted cross country while Josh raised his game with big wins at the Great American and Paul Short Invitationals and the Big South conference race.

“It’s just been great,” says Josh, “the social aspect of things. Back in home school my brother and I were best friends. We still hang out together a lot, but it’s nice to hang out with a lot of other people too.”

For track season, McDougal, the No. 3-rated All-America in the 2M, has his eye on…

(for more, including the T&FN 2004 High School lists, read the December Issue of Track & Field News)

Prize Recruit: Jocelyn White

by Jon Hendershott

“Sometimes, recruiting is just a roll of the dice,” says North Carolina throws coach Brian Blutreich. He knows that when a college program takes a chance on a good high school athlete, he/she may never improve on prep achievements.

“We committed to Jocelyn White when she was a junior,” Blutreich continues. “Now having her in our program, I feel she can become the best discus thrower I’ve ever coached.”

That’s going some. During his UNC tenure, Blutreich—himself a ’92 Olympian in the discus—has tutored Laura Gerraughty to NCAA shot titles and an ’04 Games berth and Karen Wyzykowski to the javelin’s American Junior Record…

(for more, read the December Issue of Track & Field News)

Event Of The Year: The 400

by Steve Bailey

High school quartermilers had a vintage year in ’04, with four performers in the sub-46 category, the only time that has happened other than ’85, and a pair at sub-45.5 for the first time ever.

The fastest—and highest-rated—was East Carolina’s prize recruit, Lashawn Merritt at 45.25 (see box for the destinations of all the leading 400 performers). Let’s take an early collegiate look at Merritt, the three other sub-46s (Xavier Carter, Elzie Coleman, Demiko Goodman) and the fifth member of our All-America team (Keith Hinnant):

1. Merritt The World’s Top Junior

Lashawn Merritt got an early start working with East Carolina coach Bill Carson. But like most of the cream of the stellar crop, don’t expect to see him until later in the indoor season.

Carson likes his athletes to start competing after the winter break and Merritt readily admits he’s anxious to see what the new training has brought him.

“Carson knows what he’s doing,” Merritt says. “He takes a lot of athletes who have run 47 and he makes something out of them. His whole program can run 4x4 and also 4x1 and 4x2.”

In July, as a member of the staff at the World Junior Championships, Carson…

(for more, read the December Issue of Track & Field News)

Chock Joins Rupp In Oregon

by Rich Gonzalez

In the latest twist to an unpredictable chain of events, 5K High School Record holder Caitlin Chock has resurfaced with Alberto Salazar’s entourage at the Nike Oregon Project. She joins Galen Rupp (T&FN, November) in Portland as Salazar’s centerpieces in a youth movement aimed at steering the future of American distance running back into the fast lane with a pair of high school stars who will not use their collegiate eligibility…

(for more, read the December Issue of Track & Field News)

What’s Next? – Some Major U.S. Players Take Stock

Johnson Reflects On Athens Fall

by Sieg Lindstrom

High hurdlers hate it when those 42-inch hurdles get uppity and suddenly raise themselves to 43.

“Tell me about it,” says Allen Johnson of his Olympic quarterfinal crash-and-burn. “We had two of them at 43.”

Of course, Johnson knows there weren’t really any 43-inchers in his lane in Athens when he fell and missed out on a chance at a second gold in the event.

What really happened, he explains,…

Stember Changes Coaches

by Jon Hendershott

Looking back on the Olympic Trials, Michael Stember admits, “Maybe it took bombing at home, in the big meet, for me to realize I needed a change.”…

Krummenacker Recharges

by Sieg Lindstrom

David Krummenacker looked ready for big things when he won the world indoor 800 title in ’03, then won his third straight national title. But the 29-year-old Georgia Tech alum finished only 4th at the Olympic Trials. He cites no cataclysmic health issue or training gaffe that led to his disappointing result.

“Preparing for the Olympic Trials,” he says, “I kind of set everything up for the 800 and I poured my heart and soul into it. It just didn’t happen.”…

Nelson Back To School

by Jon Hendershott

Two-time Olympic shot silver medalist Adam Nelson definitely plans to continue throwing for another four years. Says the 29-year-old Atlanta native, “I’ve lost the last two Olympics by a total of 8cm [31/4 inches]. I’ve got to give it one more shot.”

Yet he clarifies, “I’ve never based my athletic success on winning the Olympics—but it would be cool to retire on the note of having won the ’08 Olympics.”

The Dartmouth grad will soon expand his life focus…

Lincoln Still On Schedule

Daniel Lincoln has always been one on whom the NCAA’s pointed party-line term “student-athlete” sits well. Lincoln walked onto the Arkansas team from a high school for academically-advanced students and earned his undergraduate degree in three years so he could pursue a Masters his senior year (’03, during which he won two NCAA titles).

The Olympic Trials steeple champ’s ultimate professional goal is to become a physician…

(for more, read the December Issue of Track & Field News)

Jamaica’s New Sprint Aces – Asafa Powell and Veronica Campbell

by Charlie Mahler

Everybody knows sprinters are fast. But in just one season, Jamaican stars Veronica Campbell and Asafa Powell—relative newcomers to the highest stratum of the sport—established themselves as two of the world’s fastest.

Campbell, 22, won three medals in Athens including 200 and 4x1 golds. Powell, 21, clocked a record-equaling 9 sub-10s and lost but a single century all year—unfortunately, it was in the pressure-cooker of the Olympic final.

Campbell, still the only woman ever to win a 100/200 double at the World Junior Championships (’00), paced herself through a long season. She opened her collegiate campaign for Arkansas in January, won the NCAA Indoor 200, swept the 100/200 at the SEC Outdoor and anchored Arkansas’ 5th place 4 x 1 at NCAAs. In retrospect, she probably would have won both dashes, but missed her individual events at the nationals after a hamstring injury kept her out of the Regional qualifier.

After the school year Campbell eschewed her remaining collegiate eligibility for a pro contract with adidas. She promptly won a 100/200 double at the Jamaican Championships—in 11.06 and a PR 22.18 —before winning two of the three GP events she entered leading up to the Games.

In Athens…

(for more, read the December Issue of Track & Field News)

Suzy Wasn’t Surprised

The now-discredited Regina Jacobs had long aroused her suspicions, says prime rival Suzy Favor Hamilton

by Sieg Lindstrom

When a champion gets caught cheating there is always—though not always enough—righteous indignation in support of the runner-up. Rarely, though, do questions about unconfessed malfeasance cut as deeply as in the case of Regina Jacobs, who beat Suzy Favor Hamilton to the ’03 USATF women’s 1500 title. It was a title she would have to relinquish a year later when she accepted a 4-year ban for a positive THG test taken at that meet (T&FN, September).

Jacobs had also won 9 of the last 11 U.S. title races outdoors plus two national crowns in the ’80s. Six times since ’94 Favor Hamilton had placed 2nd behind her.

One could not help but wonder how many of those fabulous finishes—Favor Hamilton left in Jacobs’ wake—came through illegal aid. Was one half of this bitter rivalry an empty suit? Jacobs’ decision to retire without apology or explanation just ahead of her ban did nothing to clear the air.

Favor Hamilton, breaking her own silence at long last, is moving on.

“I’ve definitely come to grips with everything that’s happened and I have no problem talking about it,” she says as she prepares for her 15th post-collegiate season…

(for more, read the December Issue of Track & Field News)

T&FN Interview: Breaux Greer

by Toby Cook

The phrase “star-quality” rarely gets bandied about in track & field. At least, that is, when one assumes the meaning that’s associated with the arena of entertainment.

However, if you’ve been to the Nationals or the Olympic Trials in the past few years, your eyes have more than likely found their way to one end of the infield, where a recently-quiet American event has begun to glisten with the not-so-muted performances of a 28-year-old Louisiana javelin thrower named Breaux Greer.

In 2004, he was poised to take center stage in the sport’s biggest venue, only to have the effort of an American Record 2 months prior to the Olympics result in a torn ligament (ACL) in his left knee.

What ensued was a season as broad in results and emotions as his taste in music (“everything from Brian McKnight to Dave Matthews to Slipknot”).

Greer culminated his European campaign with a bookend American Record in Monaco, a crusade-like return from an abysmal Games.

An athlete with a sense of flair, Greer has a penchant for quips, salty language, showmanship and the outlandish, but that doesn’t always belie the sense of pain and disappointment experienced on myriad levels during the last year’s campaign.

One can’t help but think that given another event Greer would already be a household name. But, despite the odds, he rumbles on in his unique, aggressively upbeat manner, determined to have it all on his terms and with his little slice of cake, too.

Greer is part of the elite throwing group coached by Georgia assistant Don Babbitt in Athens, Georgia (T&FN, March ’03). He and his 14-year-old Lab, Ginger, share a house with Olympic shot silver medalist Adam Nelson and his wife Laci and their Great Dane, Cassius.

We met up with Breaux, dressed in a homemade t-shirt stating “I Rock Catholic Girls” on a quiet autumn Sunday over a cup of coffee and a large order of Tater Tots:

T&FN: First of all, you’ve just had surgery. What did they do, exactly?

Greer: I had an ACL put in from a cadaver from a 25-year-old guy. The funny thing is…

(for more, read the December Issue of Track & Field News)

Bryan Clay Still Pinching Himself

by Jon Hendershott

Even three months after the Olympics, there is a tone of disbelief in Bryan Clay’s voice. The 25-year-old Azusa Pacific alum still finds it hard to grasp that he won the silver medal in the Olympic decathlon, with an 8820 score that made him the No. 2 American ever.

I always believed I could be good,” says Clay, Texas-born, Hawaii-raised and track- developed in Southern California.

“But what’s been so weird for me to realize is, I look at Americans like Dan O’Brien, Chris Huffins, Dave Johnson, Steve Fritz, Bruce Jenner, even Bill Toomey. They are legends. Wow!” he says breathlessly. “They all have done so much.

“And now my name is among them; I’ve actually done more than some of them. I’m making my own legacy in the decathlon. Even now, it’s still hard to believe.”

Yet Clay is more matter-of-fact when he continues, “I feel I went way beyond my expectations this year—but I also feel I really didn’t do anything special. I just did my job and was consistent…

(for more, read the December Issue of Track & Field News)

U.S. Shut Out Of The Big Leagues?

by Sieg Lindstrom

As briefly reported in T&FN last month, plans to hold the 2006 World Cup at the Home Depot Center in Carson, a suburb of Los Angeles, have fallen through and an IAAF rep offered the stark assessment that the U.S. may never again host one of the international governing body’s major events.

As the Anschutz Entertainment Group— which owns the Home Depot Center—and USATF attempted to finalize a contract with the IAAF for the Cup, the parties could not agree to terms on the payment of some $1 million in U.S. taxes on prize money, Anschutz rep Michael Roth told the Associated Press…

Why The U.S. Is Such A Tough Sell

“IAAF events are virtually a non-starter in the United States for several reasons,” says Craig Masback, who offered a bluntly realistic assessment to T&FN via e-mail, listing several reasons:…

(for more, read the December Issue of Track & Field News)