I ahve not been much of a track fan, but would like to start. How is a NC chosen in the sport? Does more athletes in the NCAA championship give the chance for more total points?

I would think it works like High School track state championships with total point totals, but good question though....?

How many athletes do the favorites have there? How many athletes do we normally have in years past?

Anybody.....?

Yes, I remember HS where the coach would have students running in events that they didn't train for just to get the points.

If it works that way, the more athletes, the better. I think we have 15 or so there. Can we win the team with that many? Or just individual?

Individuals have to finish in the top five at one of four regionals across the country or earn an at-large bid (if you stumble at the regional) to get to nationals.

Numbers don't necessarily matter. The number of potential individual/relay national champions you have on a team is the biggest indicator of how the team will do.

The best way to win a national title is to get 4 or 5 athletes that are locks at winning a national title in their individual events (if you're really fortunate, multiple events) and possible combine together in the two relays.

So where are we looking to finish up at in the rankings... or where are the mens and womens team ranked right now??

Do they televise this any where?

http://www.trackshark.com/

Doesn't look like we are ranked at all... seems like 14 qualifiers is overachieving then?

will probably be televised on tape delay in the next week or two on espn

right now our team is composed of many athletes good enough to make the national meet but very few (if any) are in the potential national champion category...if we have a bad meet, we might not score a point...if we have a great meet, we could have a handful of kids fight and scrape for minimal points here and there and maybe one of the teams could be top 25...

we won't be in this situation for long...Henry has a truckload of recruits coming in immediately...it could snowball quite quickly...

I am excited about it and I like the Building Champions initiative. I didn't really follow all the sports when I was in school - just the majors. Now, I regret that.

I am going to support all of them as best I can.

I think Track is definately on the way up.

Guess I should eat my words...congrats Fabrice!

Way to go, Fabrice!

The "Team" scored 10 points in the NCAA Championship Meet. Fabrice scored all of them. Had he not nailed the winning jump on his last attempt we could have been "skunked". This is our lowest finish in many years. It takes less participants to win the NC than a conference championship. Some teams recruit for the TEAM concept, some for National Championships. Many national champs did't do that well in their confeence meets. Having 2 or 3 people place high in individual events plus a high finish in the relays will ensure you a high finish at the NCAA. Bottom line is you don't have to have a "well rounded" team to do well at the NCAA.
Had a chance to be with Fabricee and his parents over the weekend and they are wonderful people. They made it over for the meet in Sacramento. Was a wonderful experience for them. Congrats Fabrice.

With the way this Oliver kid seems to be running, I would bet on us having a mile relay there next year...we had a guy in the open 400 at the meet this year...I'd bet Henry has two more quarter-milers in the bag for this year in addition to those two

Lookout-
I'm aware of Justin Oliver, who are some of the others on the way that will have an immediate impact? Oliver is the only one I ever hear about.

Just took a look at the recruiting class page on A&M's web site...he's got a 47.5 kid coming in from San Antonio and a 47.7 kid coming in from Louisiana...add those to Oliver and Bryan Kelly's best times and you've got a 3:07 mile relay -- and those are all open 400 times...you can shave a second off the three that aren't the opening leg, since they would be in-progress splits, to see what they should run next year which would be 3:04...that would DEFINITELY get to nationals and would likely have a chance at scoring...that doesn't even account for them turning in personal bests next season which you would hope they all three would do with the college coaching vs. HS...that would be a big improvement over our best time of 3:08+ this season

after looking at all the signees I saw Henry's got him a 10.2 sprinter coming in named Hordge too...sprint relay might be at the big meet too...that'll give us a pair of 10.2 guys...things are definitely looking up...