'nuf said--- defending National Champions.

I'll second that!

no you don't.

No, we don't. I love discussing track as much as anyone else, but how would it be served by having it's own forum? All that would happen would be that we'd have to click on a whole other forum to read threads about it. It's not like the other sports forum is so busy that track threads get pushed down to the bottom before anyone can read them, ala women's basketball.

Most of the people on this forum are fans of all of the "other sports," tennis, swimming, track, etc. so it's a good place for them all to be.

Even though I am incredibly partial to track, I understand AGBlastoff's point.

However, if women's basketball, golf & soccer deserve their own forum...SO DO WE!

-Mike Stulce


Champion Firearms - Aggieland's Premier Gun Source Since 1993!

Women's basketball got their own forum because the threads were lost on the men's basketball forum, and generally greated with "who cares about women's basketball" in the men's forum.

Soccer got it's own forum because there are a lot of avid soccer fans who would discuss everything in the world of soccer, not just Aggie soccer.

Golf got it's own forum mostly because of discussions about personal/professional golf, not because of discussions about A&M golf.

A T&F forum would have probably 3 or 4 active threads at one time. If you guys really want a track forum, you need to get a lot more discussion going about track. Most people view getting your own forums as an "honor" for that team when they succeed. In reality, it's more of a practicality thing, as I explained above. (See softball, which even after going to the WCWS championship game simply had it's name added to the A&M baseball forum, because there's just not enough discussion about either for them to warrant their own forums).

So give me SOME good Aggie sports news! How'd the Aggies do at Penn Relays today?

quote:

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Golf got it's own forum mostly because of discussions about personal/professional golf, not because of discussions about A&M golf.

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I'm pretty sure golf got its only forum because Traditions probably dropped a few grand for the sponsorship.

quote:

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Women's basketball got their own forum because the threads were lost on the men's basketball forum

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The same thing is happening to T&F. It gets lost amid Other Sports.

Penn Relays:
Usain Bolt is just incredible. It was great to see so many Jamaicans (and others) go to see him -- 54,000+ spectators for a track meet!!!! There were 117,346 fans over three days of races. Imagine what it must be like running in front of such large crowds.

Maybe the best effort of the entire meet was by A&M's Tabarie Henry. On the final leg of the 4x400, Tabarie dropped the baton, stopped, picked up the baton, and took off flying around the track about 20 meters behind the leader. Incredibly, he made up all but 1 meter and finished second behind a Mississippi State runner. He ran such a phenomenal race that he was the runner interviewed on TV [ESPN] instead of any of the Mississippi State team members.
http://news.pennrelaysonline.com/2010/04/24/college-mens-4x400-championship-3/

Jamaica boy's high school teams finished 1st, 2nd, & 3rd in the 4x100. One of the teams (Wolmer's Boys of Kingston) ran the race in 39.78. Only two Big 12 teams (Baylor & A&M) have run faster this year. Maybe some of these Jamaican runners will run for the Aggies one day.

Jamaica boys finished 1st, 3rd, and 6th in the 4x400 race.

High School Boys Relays Athlete of the Meet: Julian Forte of Jamaica’s Wolmer’s Boys ran the third leg on the winning 4×100-meter relay before anchoring the championship 4×400-meter relay with a split of 47.17.

PENN RELAYS - CHAMPIONSHIP OF AMERICA RELAYS

Aggie Men:
4x100: 1st, 39.08, Tran Howell, Gerald Phiri, Demetrius Pinder, Curtis Mitchell

4x200: 4th, 1:22.31, Tran Howell, Gerald Phiri, Demetrius Pinder, Curtis Mitchell

4x400: 2nd, 3:05.04, Tran Howell (47.1), Bryan Miller (45.8), Curtis Mitchell (45.66), Tabarie Henry (46.53)

4x800: 7th, 7:22.21, Sam Mutschler (1:52.02), Oscar Ramirez (1:48.32), Michael Preble (1:51.61), Joey Roberts (1:50.29)

Sprint Medley: 5th, 3:21.37, Bryan Miller, Tabarie Henry, Kyle Dykhuizen (46.3), Joey Roberts (1:51.9)


Aggie Women:
4x100: 1st, 43.09, Jeneba Tarmoh, Porscha Lucas, Dominique Duncan, Gabby Mayo

4x200: 1st, 1:29.42, Jeneba Tarmoh, Dominique Duncan, Jessica Beard, Porscha Lucas
Aggies set new Collegiate, Penn Relays & Franklin Field Record

4x400: 3rd, 3:32.86, Jeneba Tarmoh (55.2), Donique' Flemings (53.3), Ashika Charan (53.28), Jessica Beard (51.05)

Sprint Medley: 19th, 4:02.39, Chandrell Stephens, Elizabeth Adeoti, Andrea Sutherland, Sandy Wooten

Shuttle Hurdles: 1st, 52.50 Vashti Thomas, Gabby Mayo, Donique' Flemings, Natasha Ruddock
Aggies set new Collegiate, Penn Relays & Franklin Field Record

regarding the original post... How about renaming Other Sports to

Track & Field and Other Sports

?

not drunk... Gamedrunk!!!

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The same thing is happening to T&F. It gets lost amid Other Sports.

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Did you type this with a serious face? Threads that haven't been posted on in 16 days are still on front page. There's never more than 7 or 8 active threads at one time. No track threads are getting lost. Eyeroll.

Wow, that's awesome about the huge crowds. 54,000...great exposure for the Ags since they've been running well.

And holy eff about the Jamaican highschoolers. Get them on the track, or get them on the football field. Someone's gotta figure out a way to get some of those guys to College Station

I agree with the OP and would love to see a track and field forum on Texags. It is by far the best sport at Texas A&M and will remain that way as long as Pat Henry and Vince Anderson are here.

The issue is that track is the 6th or 7th most popular sport in America and there are just so few people that follow it. Even though just about everyone ran track at some point during middle school or high school.

The awareness of the track and field program on campus will drastically change once Pat Henry builds a new outdoor track facility, which will rival the current indoor facility. That will give students an opportunity to watch our incredible team throughout the spring semester.

It is very hard for students to get behind a sport that they hardly ever get to see.

No, we don't. There's hardly enough T&F to warrant the thought of having it's own board, yet alone when you take away everyone who wouldn't go to a T&F only board but might come to the general board periodically.

The most important three words in this thread are "and Vince anderson" by cstrack. Crucial this man stays, expect the name to come up in the offseason for other head coach roles

[This message has been edited by the3rd200 (edited 4/28/2010 3:09a).]

I agree with you that Vince Anderson is the key. He is one of the top sprint coaches in the US, college or pro.

I also agree with you that he would make a great head coach and almost every D1 school in the country would replace their coach with him in a heartbeat. But I highly doubt that he will go anywhere, because he doesn't have a masters degree. To be a D1 head coach in track, you have to have a masters. He has over 180 undergrad hours, but no masters.

Our assistant coaches are higher paid than any other coaching staff in the US. I don't think that he could make this kind of money as an assistant at another school.

Well said, Mike!

"Gentlemen, we have boat drinks."

RhinoVic
CO'89

Julian Ried, one of the Aggie jumpers is from Wolmers in Jamaica, and I know that he has at least one younger brother at Wolmers right now. Pat Henry is a well known man at that school, dont be surprised if some of that relay team are one day Aggies.

With regard to Vince Anderson and his needing a master's to be a head coach, that is not correct. Very few programs require a master's degree and the programs that do require it are generally small schools in which the coach will have to teach classes. If Vince Anderson leaves for a head coaching job it will be to an SEC, Big 12, Pac 10 type program and he would not need a masters for any head coaching job in a major conference.

Can you imagine any AD saying to Coach Anderson, “Mr. Anderson. Your record demonstrates that you are an exceptional track coach but you are not qualified to coach here because we need a coach with a master’s degree.”

Those were words directly from coach Vince Anderson when he came to coach here in the fall of 2004. I'm not going off of any research on the topic, so if this is not true than I guess I'm wrong. This is just what he said.

There are certain conferences/schools that they require you to have a masters or above. Quite a few others just require you to have an undergraduate degree. Think of the Tier one schools that call some of the conferences home. I assume most of the Big10 and the Pac10 have the same "must have a masters or above" rule, then again I assume the SEC may likely only require an undergraduate degree. It differs from school and conference and although it is the "stated rule" at a few places, it has also been known to be broken/bent for a top coach. Vince Anderson would take any program in the nation not named Texas A&M and make them better. Not saying other top teams aren't elite, but that a coach like Anderson can pull in some of the elite talent that we currently are scooping all of. Anderson was actually the best hire that Pat Henry made and it has been reflected in our results.

As for the rule being known for sometimes breaking or bending would be if Anderson went to lets say Stanford and while he doesn't have a masters, he could be "working towards a masters" and would likely still be able to coach and then graduate in a couple years with a masters degree in something.

Anderson is very possibly the top assistant in the country and we very likely have the best Head Coach for T&F (that is mens or womens) and again... it has been reflected in our results. We have elite recruiting, elite coaching, elite facilities and so it is no surprise that we have elite results. (Just imagine if we could say that last sentence about all the other sports on our campus)

I'm not sure that Stanford or the Big Ten schools are concerned about coaches with lesser qualifications hurting their schools reputations. I think that those who require masters degrees has more to do with the massive amount of coordination and logistics that comes with running a T&F program (having 8 assistants, 50 athletes who all are doing entirely different things, hell, even two different sports if you include CC), or if the coach was expected to teach as well.

FWIW, there's no indication that Stanford's "director of Track and Field" (AKA head coach) has a masters degree.

http://www.gostanford.com/sports/c-track/mtt/floreal_edrick00.html

Cal recently had a head coach with no undergraduate degree. Things did not work out and he became an assistant at Boise. Don't know where he is now.

I enjoy following T&F, but agree that it does not need it's own forum. The personal/non-Aggie related T&F traffic that would be analogous to the soccer and golf forums generally shows up in the Health & Fitness forum now. I think that everything is getting plenty of exposure as it is currently set up.