Acc indoor track championships

[ThePanthers]

I'm not going to pretend I know all the details, but I've been following from a distance.

Seems the men are doing well and currently sit second place. And pitt had its first ever acc men's pentathalon champion.

The women side is not doing nearly as well and is in last place with only 1 point.

 

[ThePanthers]

Men finished 4th for their highest finish in acc tourney

 

[mike412]

Anyone remember when Pitt had the world record holding men’s indoor distance relay team and, a few years later, the men’s indoor 60 meter hurdles record holder? Not to mention a two-time Olympic 110m hurdles champion.

 

[singregardless]

Felix Wolter won the ACC Indoor Heptathalon - special!

Lauray and Men's 4x400 also brought home 2nd place finishes.

 

[TIGER-PAUL]

FINAL MEN’S STANDINGS
1. Virginia Tech 136
2. North Carolina 81
3. Florida State 76
4. Clemson 48
4. Pitt 48
6. Notre Dame 44
7. Virginia 40
8. Louisville 38.5
9. Duke 32
10. Miami 27.5
11. Georgia Tech 25
11. NC State 25
13. Wake Forest 23
14. Syracuse 13
15. Boston College 4


FINAL WOMEN’S STANDINGS
1. Florida State 95
2. Miami 85
3. Virginia 72.5
4. Virginia Tech 62.5
5. Clemson 62
6. Duke 59
7. Louisville 46
8. NC State 43
9. North Carolina 30.5
10. Notre Dame 28
11. Georgia Tech 26.5
12. Wake Forest 22
13. Pitt 14
14. Syracuse 10
15. Boston College 7

 

[CMUandPitt]

Still a loooooong way to go on the track, IMO. Lack of facilities obviously hurt quite a bit.

Team right now is extremely top-heavy; nearly all of the points from the ACC meet came from seniors. Depth also looks to be extremely weak -- no respectable school should have a kid go to the conference meet and run a 4:15 mile or a 14:54 5k. That's D3 shit.

What I haven't seen is an articulated strategy for what the team wants to be. Track, like most Olympic sports, has limited scholarships so you have to be choosy about where you want to devote your resources. Teams like Oregon go after mid-distance and distance; the Big 12 and SEC schools mostly focus on the sprints, and you've even got teams like VT (mostly PV) and UGA (multis) who focus on the field.

My view is that you want athletes, usually sprinters -- because a good sprinter can not only get you points in their main event, but also relays and potentially also the jumps. You get more bang for your buck than you would with a distance guy. But with that said, if you're in a conference where other teams are doing the same, then there's less advantage tit-for-tat for doing so.

I actually think for being a cold-weather state, PA's high school track scene is pretty solid. The state churns out 10-15 legitimate D1 scholarship athletes per year and while I can't blame us for losing to PSU, there is absolutely no way we should get beat by the Lehighs of the world for in-state talent. But again it maps back to facilities and strategy.

An interesting strategy that I've seen a few teams do is poach from D2/D3 -- Miami imported a kid who was a 2x national champion at WashU and GT did the same with a kid who was running at Emory. Given that Pitt sits in the middle of a pretty rich area for D2/D3, they could easily start to pad their depth.

 

[CMUandPitt]

So, I had some time to kill on a boring Zoom call and went through the 2019 PIAA results. Without knowing their training schedules or the provenance of the schools, I'd say the following would have been IMO scholarship candidates in-state:

Jared Bannon 14.11 100mh -- Seton Hill
Evan Dorenkamp 4:08 Mile -- Penn State
Salim Epps 47.48 400m -- Oklahoma
Godwin Kabanda 37.29 300mh -- Penn State
Tyler Shue 1:51.55 800m -- Penn State
John Franco 16'0 PV -- Georgia
Ezra Mellinger 23'9.25 LJ -- Duke
Lance Hamilton 22'8 LJ/49'6 TJ -- Penn State
Nick Hyde 65'6" SP -- St. Francis

From what I can see, all of those kids would have contributed and potentially gotten points as a true FR. The kid who went to Duke jumped 24'7" and finished 5th in the LJ. He's also apparently run a 21.46 200m so he's probably also helping their 4x4 and potentially their 4x1 come outdoor.

Hyde and Bannon in particular are head-scratchers given where they ended up.

 

[ThePanthers]

Still a loooooong way to go on the track, IMO. Lack of facilities obviously hurt quite a bit.

Team right now is extremely top-heavy; nearly all of the points from the ACC meet came from seniors. Depth also looks to be extremely weak -- no respectable school should have a kid go to the conference meet and run a 4:15 mile or a 14:54 5k. That's D3 shit.

What I haven't seen is an articulated strategy for what the team wants to be. Track, like most Olympic sports, has limited scholarships so you have to be choosy about where you want to devote your resources. Teams like Oregon go after mid-distance and distance; the Big 12 and SEC schools mostly focus on the sprints, and you've even got teams like VT (mostly PV) and UGA (multis) who focus on the field.

My view is that you want athletes, usually sprinters -- because a good sprinter can not only get you points in their main event, but also relays and potentially also the jumps. You get more bang for your buck than you would with a distance guy. But with that said, if you're in a conference where other teams are doing the same, then there's less advantage tit-for-tat for doing so.

I actually think for being a cold-weather state, PA's high school track scene is pretty solid. The state churns out 10-15 legitimate D1 scholarship athletes per year and while I can't blame us for losing to PSU, there is absolutely no way we should get beat by the Lehighs of the world for in-state talent. But again it maps back to facilities and strategy.

An interesting strategy that I've seen a few teams do is poach from D2/D3 -- Miami imported a kid who was a 2x national champion at WashU and GT did the same with a kid who was running at Emory. Given that Pitt sits in the middle of a pretty rich area for D2/D3, they could easily start to pad their depth.

Yeah. Hopefully getting the indoor track as part of victory heights along with the additional facilities will help lure those athletes.

 

[New York Panther]

Anyone remember when Pitt had the world record holding men’s indoor distance relay team and, a few years later, the men’s indoor 60 meter hurdles record holder?

Anyone remember Arnie Sowell, middle distance runner from the 50s who went to the Olympics?

 

[sskuba06]

Hyde is very good and his younger brother is a stud too. Hyde got a nice amount of $ from St Francis, close to 100%, which is why he chose to go there. He gave a verbal to Penn St, but they wouldn’t put the financial offer in writing so he backed out.

 

[Evenattheturn]

Anyone remember Arnie Sowell, middle distance runner from the 50s who went to the Olympics?

His daughter is Dawn Sowell-ran for Chester High then for LSU. Google her career to see that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

 

[CMUandPitt]

Hyde is very good and his younger brother is a stud too. Hyde got a nice amount of $ from St Francis, close to 100%, which is why he chose to go there. He gave a verbal to Penn St, but they wouldn’t put the financial offer in writing so he backed out.

Was Pitt involved at all?

I guess what I'm trying to say with my post is that the team obviously has a depth problem, and it's a bad look on the staff when PA (IMO) overproduces local talent above a level you'd expect and they're not in on any of them.

 

[ThePanthers]

Was Pitt involved at all?

I guess what I'm trying to say with my post is that the team obviously has a depth problem, and it's a bad look on the staff when PA (IMO) overproduces local talent above a level you'd expect and they're not in on any of them.

Aren't we behind the 8 ball though until we get upgraded facilities. I'd imagine it is difficult to recruit here right now.

 

[CMUandPitt]

Aren't we behind the 8 ball though until we get upgraded facilities. I'd imagine it is difficult to recruit here right now.

Absolutely, I think that's a huge part of it.

A few years back, there was a big movement to retrofit the Hunt Armory in Shadyside to something new. Here in NYC, the Armory is a world-class facility that hosts lots of local meets as well as some of the biggest international meets. I got the idea that since no program in town has an indoor facility, that it'd be a great thing for Pitt/CMU/Duq to share an indoor facility with local high schools. Didn't go anywhere though. Not currently sure what the status of that is; I think the last I heard the city was trying to partner with the Penguins to turn it into a local ice hockey facility.

When I ran at CMU, Duq used to hold their outdoor practices at Gesling an hour or two before we did. We'd see a Pitt hurdler every now and then as well. I don't see why Pitt couldn't use the track in Schenley as their home base, but I'm not up on the rules around co-opting public facilities like that.

 

[pittchagg]

Absolutely, I think that's a huge part of it.

A few years back, there was a big movement to retrofit the Hunt Armory in Shadyside to something new. Here in NYC, the Armory is a world-class facility that hosts lots of local meets as well as some of the biggest international meets. I got the idea that since no program in town has an indoor facility, that it'd be a great thing for Pitt/CMU/Duq to share an indoor facility with local high schools. Didn't go anywhere though. Not currently sure what the status of that is; I think the last I heard the city was trying to partner with the Penguins to turn it into a local ice hockey facility.

When I ran at CMU, Duq used to hold their outdoor practices at Gesling an hour or two before we did. We'd see a Pitt hurdler every now and then as well. I don't see why Pitt couldn't use the track in Schenley as their home base, but I'm not up on the rules around co-opting public facilities like that.

Ice rink was still the plan as of last year - they were trying to get grants for it, but covid threw a wrench into that for the time being. I also thought at the time that it would have been a great use for that space.

The Schenley thing is weird...I think Paco or bwh said at some point that Pitt had offered to pitch in for improvements to the facility if the city would have allowed Pitt to use it as their primary facility, but there ended up being some kind of issue. I know the facility as-is is pretty wide open, there isn’t any kind of fencing, and the turf inside the track is used pretty much from dawn to dusk. Maybe the city just didn’t want it to be locked down whenever Pitt needed it? Who knows.

Either way, it’ll be great when the indoor facility at Pitt finally gets off the ground. It’s hard enough to compete with just having an indoor or outdoor track, it’s gotta be almost impossible to have neither.

 

[CMUandPitt]

Ice rink was still the plan as of last year - they were trying to get grants for it, but covid threw a wrench into that for the time being. I also thought at the time that it would have been a great use for that space.

The Schenley thing is weird...I think Paco or bwh said at some point that Pitt had offered to pitch in for improvements to the facility if the city would have allowed Pitt to use it as their primary facility, but there ended up being some kind of issue. I know the facility as-is is pretty wide open, there isn’t any kind of fencing, and the turf inside the track is used pretty much from dawn to dusk. Maybe the city just didn’t want it to be locked down whenever Pitt needed it? Who knows.

Either way, it’ll be great when the indoor facility at Pitt finally gets off the ground. It’s hard enough to compete with just having an indoor or outdoor track, it’s gotta be almost impossible to have neither.

For sure.

The other idea I'd have is to work with University Prep. They're right next to where the Heights will be built, and look to have a huge open space that has some poorly kept tennis courts and an old cinder block track. I'd love to see if there was a way to work with PPS to build D1-level tennis and track facilities there with an explicit agreement that they are also available for use by PPS athletes.

 

[sskuba06]

I don’t think Pitt recruited him at all, for track. He was interested in playing football and contacted Pitt, but nothing ever transpired.

Was Pitt involved at all?

I guess what I'm trying to say with my post is that the team obviously has a depth problem, and it's a bad look on the staff when PA (IMO) overproduces local talent above a level you'd expect and they're not in on any of them.

 

[zookeeper2000]

When I was a kid they had some indoor track in South Park that seemed like an old barn. I can still remember the smell of hay as you entered the building...