I wrote this after thinking about why you care so much about Conferences as an athlete, and why it's such a fun event to watch or follow.
Taken at the base level, the conference championships shouldn't mean a whole lot. Simplistic as it might be, on the Division 1 college level, athletes and teams are almost exclusively assessed by their performances at Nationals. To most stakeholders in Cross-Country programs, the happenings of September through Mid-November mainly act as a prologue or setup for the climax of the season.
What you see might deceive you, and what you might perceive as something might not be what you think—that is, if the minutiae of the rulebook says otherwise. This airtight adherence of the rules pervades all sports today ranging from officiating in football and basketball, and even in the administration of anti-doping punishment.
The most egregious offender and worshipper of all rules is probably the NFL. It has a long history of this too—can you say, tuck rule? Though, I love the championship that it spawned, the eyeball test unquestionably dictated that Tom Brady's forward tuck was indeed a fumble.
Anyone who has witnessed or played the game can watch that play a million times and believe it was a fumble, even as they knew the outcome of the rule. Common sense said it was not an attempted pass.
A great find by letsrun.com: This is footage of the 2010 Belgrade Race through History won by Mystery Man and blog favorite, Josphat Menjo. I can't say enough about this race- the cobblestones, castles, knights dueling and wielding swords to direct traffic, and so on. If you think the Boston Marathon is historic or that Franklin Park is scenic, well this one just blows those away.
If you want to learn more about Menjo and why he was running at obscure races (DL said he wasn't fast enough) and ran a 10,000 meters unpaced (he'd rather pocket their money) check out this fine read by Pat Butcher: http://www.globerunner.org/blog/?p=451 . In this Belgrade race, Menjo defeated Eliud Kipchoge who recovered from a mid-season bout with Malaria (now, that might explain his mid-season funk) to finish runner up here and at the Commonwealth Games. How about those Kenyans? Tomorrow, I'm going to write a more general column on rules and discretion in sports (anti-doping, officiating, in track, the NFL, the NBA et al.) and how I think the sports world's obsession with rules is killing discretion. Have a great weekend, all.
This weekend was the first pivotal weekend of the NCAA Cross Country Docket. The key meets were the NCAA Pre-National meet, the Chile Pepper Invitational, and a glorified Guelph-Wisconsin-Oregon tri meet (OK, its proper name is the Bill Dellinger Invitational). Here were the key stories of the weekend:
"Won't Get Fooled Again?"
Stanford dominated the Pre-National meet just as they did a year ago. This time, the Cardinal men did it at the front even more impressively with a 1-2-3 blanket finish in the blue race. In the process, the tree-o (had to, sorry) set the #9-11 marks of all time on the La Vern Gibson 8000m course. Team leader and individual standout Chris Derrick looked like he was loping
The Frazier-Ali evocations were apt as a frenzied and hoarse Toni Reavis giddily lost his voice and his mind. Before his eyes, an epic battle waged on between two of the finest marathoners today and of all time.
Entering the last mile, 2010 London Marathon winner Tsegay Kebede had almost comprehensively demolished a phenomenal field, that included marathon titans like 2:05 man Vincent Kipruto and 2010 Boston winner Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot, with a series of surges from 5,000 meters out that struck his competitors just as the day's uncomfortably hot weather rolled in quite uninvited. The damage was fatal to all but one man- an ailing Samuel Wanjiru.
"One of my favorite things about being a professional runner is that while there exists a small group who, though ignorantly, criticize loudly and anonymously online, the majority of the running community is amazingly gracious and supportive." - Ryan Hall after deciding to pull out of the Chicago Marathon
From the wikipedia entry for fan: "Merriam-Webster, the Oxford dictionary and other recognized sources define it as a shortened version of the word fanatic" _____________________________________
People tend to think long distance runners are crazy. They say things like: "you run an hour and a half in the pouring rain with your shirt off? you're insane!" or "you're going to run tonight for 5 miles, even though you just finished a 5K race? crazy!".
Imagine what they'd think about the guy on the left, Joe Detmer. Detmer makes all of that light, cheerful "craziness" look like child's play. You think a standard decathlon with 10 events in two days sounds intense and rigorous? How about a double decathlon, a mind-boggling 20 events in 2 days. If Detmer hears your "Coach, I can't do both the 800 and 1500 with only 2 hours rest", it's safe to say he is fully justified in giving a haughty snort and mimicking a chicken.
I wrote this after thinking about why you care so much about Conferences as an athlete, and why it's such a fun event to watch or follow.
