November 11-12, 2011
Portage, Indiana
Pre-registration Cost (before November 9): $80
Registration after November 9 and “at the door”: $99
Location
Friday Evening, November 11, 2011 Best Western Hotel & Suites (Portage)
Saturday, November 12, 2011 Portage High School
Clinic and Registration Information Clinic Schedule
Best Western Hotel & Suites
(219) 734-6727
Standard Room: $79.99
Suite: $99.99
Ask for “NTCA” rate
Click here for hotel fact sheet and directions
MORE INFORMATION AT NTCA WEBSITE
BY DEAN CRIDDLE Belleville News-Democrat
For the past three years, picturesque Detweiller Park in Peoria has been like a home away from home for Freeburg twin sisters Caitlin and Kristen Busch.
Beginning sometime next year, it will be home.
One of the top running duos in the state for the past four years, Kristen Busch and Caitlin Busch have given a verbal commitment to attend Bradley University in Peoria beginning in the 2012-13 season.
The choice of Bradley seems perfect for the Busch sisters in terms of Detweiller, which is the site of Bradley’s home course. Kristen Busch won the Class 1A state title there last year and also has a second-place and a fourth-place medal to her credit. Caitlin Busch has placed seventh, fourth and fourth at Detweiller the past three years.
OPRF track and field star picks Blue Devils over Wolverines
By Brad Spencer/Sports Editor
Carl Heinz will take his leaping ability to Duke next year.
The OPRF senior, who last season became the school’s first track and field state champ in 24 years and the school’s first state champ in the high jump event since 1980, has made a verbal commitment to Duke after mulling over offers from Michigan, Wake Forest and Iowa, among others.
“Carl is comparable to a five-star football player,” said OPRF boys track and field head coach Tim Hasso. “To be ranked in the Top 5 in the nation; those guys are rare to come by. He had his pick of schools, and it was all about which one would be the right fit for him. Duke is a great school and has a great track and field program.”
Hasso said he was pleased that his high jumper was able to make the decision early, even though the official signing day isn’t until Feb. 1.
By Brenda Young
BELVIDERE — When Aaron Leonard took an assistant boys track position last spring at Belvidere High School, one of the people he called for advice was his uncle, who also coached him in the sport.
Leonard’s uncle is Belvidere North boys cross country and track coach Troy Yunk, whose Blue Thunder squad, the two-time Class 2A state cross country champions, is ranked No. 1 in Class 2A and 28th nationally.
This fall, Leonard, 23, became Belvidere’s boys cross country coach, and on Saturday his young squad will compete alongside Belvidere North at the NIC-10 conference meet.
“After coaching at Belvidere for 20 years, I am still one of their biggest fans,” Yunk said.
Yunk’s team will seek its fourth straight NIC-10 cross country title, while the Bucs look
to improve upon a fifth-place finish from last year.
“We have a young group,” Leonard said. “Five of our seven top runners are underclassmen. We are in the middle of the pack in the NIC-10, probably somewhere between 5 and 7.
“We are improving every day. I think where our program has struggled is summer running. When fall turns around, we have to make up for lost time, where teams like North have it down pat to where offseason is key.”
Leonard knows about the work regimen that Yunk has implemented because he competed in track and cross country for his uncle while at Belvidere in 2002-06.
Leonard was a member of the Bucs’ state qualifying team in 2004.
“Some of the workouts I use today are based a lot on when I was running for Troy,” said Leonard, who attended Northern Illinois University.
Leonard said he knew he wanted to be a coach one day, but didn’t think it would be track or cross country.
UTEP’s mere 17 points in 1981 still NCAA championship best
The UTEP men’s cross country team entered the 1981 NCAA Championships as a confident bunch. Before the meet started, the runners approached coach Ted Banks and told him they felt they might be able to get a perfect score, which in cross country means having five of the seven runners finish in the top five places.
Banks laughed and told them, “Let’s just worry about winning.”
However, his team narrowly missed its prediction, and to this day holds the best score at the NCAA Championships with 17 points. The Miner runners finished in five of the top six spots. Penn State’s Alan Scharsu was the only person to keep UTEP from perfection as he finished fourth overall. Providence finished a distant second as a team with 109 points.
“We were very fortunate to get 17,” Banks said. “It was beyond my wildest dreams. That was the best team I ever had, by far.”
“It’s completely absurd to score only 17 points at the NCAA Cross Country Championships. The talent on that team was just amazing. I just can’t ever see that happening again.”
– Florida State coach Bob Braman
Those are serious words coming from Banks, who led teams to six NCAA men’s cross country titles, including four in a row. However, looking at the pedigree of the 1981 Miner team, it is easy to see how they were so successful.
The individual champion was Mathews Motshwarateu, who covered Wichita State’s 10k course in 28:45.6. Motshwarateu previously set the world 10k road record in 1980, becoming the first person to break the 28-minute barrier. The second-place finisher at the NCAA meet was Michael Musyoki, who finished a mere eight-tenths of a second behind Motshwarateu. Musyoki won the bronze medal at the 1984
Olympics in the 10,000 meters and set the world record in the half marathon in 1982. UTEP’s third-place finisher was Gabriel Kaman, who finished in 29:19.3 despite coming down with stomach problems halfway through the race.
By Yashmin Patel
When John Carlos was young, he saw a white police officer hit an African-American man sleeping on the ground with his baton to wake him up.
“It put me into shock. [I wondered] why did that happened? Why didn’t he do that a different way?” said the 1968 Olympic Bronze track and
field medalist, who infamously raised his fist at the podium to salute the Black Power Movement.
Carlos knew something was wrong when his father first told him all people in the world are not treated equal.
“I started thinking something’s broken, something isn’t right,” he said to University students and faculty Friday in the Lucy Stone Hall auditorium on Livingston campus while sharing his experience growing up with racial inequalities.
Carlos realized to what extent people were treated differently when he watched a fire department destroy an African-American family’s home.
“Someone ran and called the fire department because they saw smoke coming out a window,” he said. “So the fire department comes … with their axes, and they’re throwing furniture out the window, they’re throwing clothes out the window.”
He was confused as to why the firemen were throwing things outside if there was no fire and nothing burning.
“It didn’t take me long to figure out what was going on. It made me understand right then at a very early age that if you’re not in the equation, nobody’s thinking about you,” he said.
As Carlos experienced discrimination growing up, he found himself fighting for equality through boycott demonstrations and protests.
“You can’t let people dictate to you and not use your brain, [but] you have to say I have a brain to determine what’s right or wrong,”he said.
MACOMB, Ill. – The Western Illinois Athletics Department and Track & Field program have announced the Lee Calhoun Memorial Plaza Project, starting with an engraved plaque on the Lee Calhoun Statue out at the Hanson Field track.
Made by Lacky Monument in Macomb, the plaque was installed in late September. The plaque is the first addition to the plaza that honors Lee Quency Calhoun, who was the track and field coach at Western Illinois from 1980 until his untimely passing in 1989.
“Lee Calhoun is an international track and field legend, and Western Illinois University is privileged to have had him as our head track coach,” Western Illinois Director of Athletics Dr. Tim Van Alstine said. “To honor Lee and his contributions to the sport of track and field, we have dedicated the entrance plaza, which is adjacent to the starting line of the 110 meter hurdles, in his memory.”
DECATUR – Angela Hawk, a six-time All-America track star from Argenta, is among five former Big Blue students who will be honored as the newest members of the Millikin Athletic Hall of Fame during ceremonies today.
An awards dinner will be at 6 p.m. in the Richards Treat University Center as part of Homecoming festivities. The rest of the Hall of Fame class is Alison Davis Baker, Daniel Lloyd, Audrey Minott and Thomas Sur.
Hawk is one of the most decorated track and field athletes in Millikin history. The four-year letter winner also won four CCIW championships and still holds two CCIW records. She capped her career by finishing second in the triple jump at the 2006 NCAA Division III outdoor championships.
Hawk won the triple jump even at more than 20 meets and broke Millikin’s record in the event six times. Her leap of 40-5½ is
the current Big Blue record. At the NCAA outdoor championships, she placed seventh in 2004, sixth in 2003 and 2005 and second in 2006.
She also held the long jump record at 17-7½.
FULL ARTICLE
Contact: Clark TeuscherNorth Central College men’s cross country and track & field alumnus Patrick Rizzo ’05 has been selected to represent Team USA next month in the Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Rizzo is one of two U.S. men selected to compete in the marathon in the Games, which take place Oct. 14-30. The men’s marathon will be contested on Sunday, Oct. 30, at 8:30 a.m.
“It’s a tremendous honor to be chosen for the Pan Am Games,” Rizzo said. “I could never pass up an opportunity to represent my country.”
by Brian Cazeneuve
At the 2011 track & field world championships in Daegu, South Korea, Jenny Simpson got the surprise of a lifetime; track & field circles (ovals if you prefer) consider the photo that captured her reaction as the photo of the year. Someone unknowing of her recent accomplishment may ask,
“Jenny Simpson, are you going to the moon?”
Nope, that’s not it. This was a look of shock and awe, a willing suspension of disbelief, caught in a moment of hope and uncertainty.
“Jenny Simpson, did you just win the lottery?”
Sorry, try again. It was wide-eyed amazement, euphoria tied up under some thought that it might just be a dream.
“Jenny Simpson, you’re a world champion?”
That’s the scene. If ever the thrill of victory had a pinch-me freeze frame, there it was. And the response was absolutely appropriate: Simpson was just a rookie miler on the international circuit, competing in an event she was coaxed into by injury. She was the national runner-up in an event no U.S. athlete had won on the world stage in 28 years, crossing the line ahead of presumptive favorites at the World Championships in Daegu last month.
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