The Johnnies finished up with our eighth home meet of the year and I am excited to be on the road this weekend. There are benefits to competing at home, but most of us are welcoming a change of scenery. I want to thank all our officials, meet workers, student workers, SJU athletic trainers and facilities crew for helping to pull off this string of home meets. Most importantly, the rest of the track and field coaching staff put in a great deal of time and effort to host good meets. The secret to hosting a good meet: get yourself a Joe Vardas.
The big highlight of last week’s meet was the debut of our decathletes. The decathlon offers great entertainment to see the strengths and weaknesses of each athlete, the overall score lead changes, and which athletes rise to the occasion despite the grueling event circumstances. Even our student workers and athletic trainers got into the excitement by following along. By the end, these (non-track) student staff knew all of the athletes and were discussing the outcome after each event.
A quick story from the decathlon: our freshman Logan Hennen (Prior Lake), did not plan on doing the decathlon in college. He didn’t really plan on doing track in college, either; he was going to play football and would consider vaulting. With no football in the fall, he showed up to a few practices and it didn’t take us long to plant the idea of doing the decathlon. He embraced the idea and has trained well.
As the decathlon 1500 neared on Sunday, Logan had a look of apprehension. My go-to coaching move is to avoid talking to those guys. I’ll let them know I’m available if needed, and most times, they will decide on their own to compete. I’m sure most people can picture that look of near-dread that says “please, don’t make me do this.” It’s a similar look to the guys on the B team 4x400 meter relay as they look at their relay alternates who are staring at their shoes or all-of-sudden walking with a limp.
Nine events in, Logan went to see the athletic trainer because he was feeling “rough.” I chalked it up to fatigue and maybe a little fear of how the 1500m run would feel. I wasn’t sure if he would get on the track. Our athletic trainer, Holly gave him a pep talk and sent him on his way. The heavy winds and rain created quite the dramatic backdrop and in the end, Logan got it done and completed his first decathlon. It wasn’t pretty, that last event of the decathlon rarely is; but the best part is that Logan finished the race and went to the athletic training room the next day to thank Holly for the help.
I’ll provide an update on national rankings next week. This weekend we have split the team between two meets. The distance runners are heading to Hamline on Saturday evening for a 7:30pm start and the rest of us are headed to Northern State in Aberdeen, SD on Saturday for a noon start for field events and 2:00pm start for track events.
Have a good weekend,
JKG
PS. All this talk about decathlons might have you thinking, “What happened to that coaches decathlon that I donated to see happen?” My best answer is it’s a work in progress. It’s been a challenging several months for everyone, your favorite track coaching staff included. However, we are training and can report with certainty that these events were a lot easier to do when we were 20. When it happens, we’ll make sure you hear about it.