zippy-claws Posted January 15 Report Share Posted January 15 Here I am for my usual rant about the level that Zip T & F has fallen to, despite the MAC outdoor Championship for the men. As I said b in May, that win was fueled by the throwers and a few jumpers, mostly left over from Coach Mitchell's squad. I wasn't sure where the teams were headed after the opener, something called the Akron Haynes Lancaster Open, of which I am not sure it is named. Never heard the name, never saw an explanation on the website as to who it supposedly honored. But we got a full view of the state of the program at the Judd Logan Invitational over at Kent State this weekend. First off, we found out that the throws coach from last year called it quits after 1 season, despite his success with the throwers. What's up with that? Then it got depressing. A nice showing by Jamari and Josephine Davis making the finals of the 60. Both women were top 8 in the 200. Zips had NO women entered in the 400. Laura Genetin was the only Zip entered in the 800 and had a nice 5th finish. A couple milers. Zero Zip Women in the 3,000 and the 5,000. 1 hurdler, Jade Celestine who made the finals. 1 High Jumper who didn't make opening height. Bryne Rychick, a Mitchell - PVer finished 5th. We had ZERO long jumpers or triple jumpers. Best shot was 14th, best weight throw was 11th, and only 2 entries in both events. Where are all of Akron Women's Track athletes?????? We got smoked by Slippery Rock! Ashland! Tiffin! Malone! If this meet were scored as a team we would have placed like 6th at best. Surely the Champion men would do better? Tysean Baronette was the only entry in the 60 and he finished 8th, then 3rd in the 200. A best of 13th for the guys in the 400, we entered NO 800 meter runners. No milers - not one. I guess our CC Championship wasn't so powerful after all. Maybe our African runners didn't return to campus? ZERO 3,000 and 5,000 meter runners entered. ZERO 60 hurdlers entered! Our 4 x 400 relay teamed finished 4th to Ashland, Slippery Rock, and Ashland's "B" team! 1 high jumper, finished 15th. Garretson won the PV but we know he was a MItchell kid, and I can't believe he stayed. We did not enter a long jumper. We did not enter a triple jumper. Thank goodness for Josiah Cox and Jabari Neal-Jackson for returning, they both were placers in throws. Once again, we got smoked by DIII schools, DII schools. So why was I told by our "experts" in our forums that "The team was re-building as we speak!" last year when I was spewing? Where are all the Zip track men athletes at? Inquiring minds want to know! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
72 Roo Posted January 15 Report Share Posted January 15 I have seen nothing in this program's leadership that inspires confidence. Mitchell had us as a top 25 program despite limited resources. We need to copy what he did, not destroy it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hilltopper Posted January 15 Report Share Posted January 15 That was our B squad. Why would we put our A squad in such an irrelevant event. Expect a totally different result this weekend Mrs Mitchell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hilltopper Posted January 15 Report Share Posted January 15 The mens team will be strong. The womens team might be a year away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hilltopper Posted January 15 Report Share Posted January 15 Track is a different animal. You don't go all out at every event. It's a process. Pick your battles. Athletes are sent to different events to compete. Bottom line, the MAC championship is goal #1. Getting individual athletes a chance to compete at the NCAA's is #2. We still have athletes waiting for the NCAA clearing house to approve for mis-season. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
72 Roo Posted January 15 Report Share Posted January 15 I hope you are right. T & F is such a beautiful sport. I especially loved watching our team smoke the rest of the MAC, altho' EMU and Kent always pushed us to be our best. Mitchell was highly respected by area track coaches. He assembled a great staff of assistants in their specialties. Perhaps the best of all was Labadie in the intermediate distances. He was world class as evidenced by the growth and performance of Clayton Murphy. There is talent in NE Ohio and the state in general. i hope we get the lion's share of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zippy-claws Posted January 16 Author Report Share Posted January 16 17 hours ago, Hilltopper said: That was our B squad. Why would we put our A squad in such an irrelevant event. Expect a totally different result this weekend Mrs Mitchell. Oh! Mr. Wonderful! Thanks for enlightening us that our teams are so strong, so deep, that we have the luxury of a B TEAM! And not only that, we have a B team that is INVISIBLE! All those B team athletes that never bothered to be seen in the events we ran them in because the event was "irrelevant". I bet the other sports on campus wished they had a B team. 17 hours ago, Hilltopper said: The mens team will be strong. The womens team might be a year away. Strong in a 4-team conference! Wow, that's reassuring. Of course, we won't know until there's an event relevant enough for us to find out. Until then the Invisible B Zips will do their part to convince other track and field athletes to attend Akron. 16 hours ago, Hilltopper said: Bottom line, the MAC championship is goal #1. Once again, great goal, beat three other teams. Sheesh. You know, our Championship swim team doesn't always swim their best, or they limit their best to swimming at an 80% rate. But they all compete. 16 hours ago, Hilltopper said: Track is a different animal. You don't go all out at every event. It's a process. Pick your battles. That's right, as I said, you don't send them out to go "all out", but they compete, so when it comes time to compete in the Big Bad 4 team MAC Championships they'll be ready. Get your head out of the long jump pit sand and go to Youngstown State, Ashland, Even Walsh for cripes sake, and especially take a drive up to Geneva and SPIRE and watch their meets, and see what real track and field coaches do with their athletes. Or just go on line and see the times being posted all across the country in "irrelevent" events. Stop making excuses for what is fast becoming an irrelevant program. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zippy-claws Posted January 22 Author Report Share Posted January 22 So I'm assuming that the Akron/Kent Dual meet, a Wagon Wheel Event, would be considered a "relevant" meet. So I'm assumiing we sent our "A" team. I take no pleasure in posting this: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hilltopper Posted January 22 Report Share Posted January 22 2 hours ago, zippy-claws said: So I'm assuming that the Akron/Kent Dual meet, a Wagon Wheel Event, would be considered a "relevant" meet. So I'm assumiing we sent our "A" team. I take no pleasure in posting this: The same flu bug that has been effecting MBB and WBB also has taken it's toll on T&F. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zippy-claws Posted January 23 Author Report Share Posted January 23 19 hours ago, Hilltopper said: The same flu bug that has been effecting MBB and WBB also has taken it's toll on T&F. Get ready Akron, first it was the "B" team, then the NCAA holding up eligibility, now it's the flu, the next plague will be a swarm of locusts dropping onto Stile Fieldhouse before the next meet! Then raining frogs!! Beware..... 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hilltopper Posted January 24 Report Share Posted January 24 11 hours ago, zippy-claws said: Get ready Akron, first it was the "B" team, then the NCAA holding up eligibility, now it's the flu, the next plague will be a swarm of locusts dropping onto Stile Fieldhouse before the next meet! Then raining frogs!! Beware..... Thanks for being such a great fan! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zip_ME87 Posted January 24 Report Share Posted January 24 7 hours ago, Hilltopper said: Thanks for being such a great fan! ...and the AD thanks you for the excuses and saving some $$$ on the AI budget. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zippy-claws Posted February 25 Author Report Share Posted February 25 (edited) 3rd of 4 men's teams at MAC Championships. 8th out of 12 in women's. Interested to see how these results are excused by "those in the know". Kent State replaced their long-time coach Bill Lawson with an in-house selection of Nate Fanger, their throws coach, and brought back an ex-assistant coach in Mike Schoeber, and utilized recently graduated KSU athletes as assistant coaches for PV, jumps and multis. A Championship for the guys and a second for their Women. At the same time, Mitchell leaves and we bring in a coach who was supposedly a Combined expert, yet we still can't produce a heptathlete or a pentathlete indoors. If Garretson didn't have private coaching we wouldn't have won the PV. Track and field are now just "placeholder" sports for the Zips, unfortunately. I think there's enough ex-high school track athletes on campus that aren't on the team, that you could put a squad together and with a competent high school coach probably compete against our team. So Sad. Edited February 25 by zippy-claws corrected copy 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
72 Roo Posted February 27 Report Share Posted February 27 The results at the MAC championships were abysmal for our once proud top 25 track and field program. I would do everything I could to lure Mitchell back, even if he is making more money at Illinois as their PV coach than he made as head coach at Akron. He knew how to recruit and develop talent. This staff is doing neither. The results speak for themselves. Spend some of the UK & OSU FB guarantee money to get a quality coach in an olympic sport. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zippy-claws Posted May 6 Author Report Share Posted May 6 Well it's time to check in and see how all those predictions by the Sage on the Hill has predicted, our men's track team, going into the MAC Outdoor Championships have 2 runners in the top 100 in the nation D-1 in the 200, 1 in the 5,000 1 in the 400 hurdles, and of course our Mitchell-leftover PV at #1. On the women's side we have 1 woman in the top 100 in ANYTHING. We have 2 throwers in top 100 in discus. Big things happening for the track team, men will be strong, etc, etc, They'll probably do okay in the 4-team MAC men's championship (4 teams!!!), but Nationally have dropped to obscurity. Women have dropped even lower. And my final question is: If this coach is supposed to be such an expert on developing combined-event athletes, then why is it for the second year in a row we don't have a single heptathlete or decathlete competing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
72 Roo Posted May 6 Report Share Posted May 6 If you were grading this coaching staff you would give them an F. The magnificent pipeline that Mitchell established has gone dry. Pick any event area (sprints, middle distances, hurdles, field events, combined events, jumps) and we are weak. I have been waiting for this staff to rebuild to Mitchell level performance and it is not there. It's time for a change. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue & Gold Posted May 10 Report Share Posted May 10 Only 5 MAC schools sponsor Men's Outdoor T&F? 🤨🤭 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue & Gold Posted May 11 Report Share Posted May 11 Dammit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hilltopper Posted May 11 Report Share Posted May 11 20 hours ago, Blue & Gold said: Dammit Don't look now, but it appears we will win the Men's Championship. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue & Gold Posted May 12 Report Share Posted May 12 🔥🔥🔥 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue & Gold Posted May 12 Report Share Posted May 12 (edited) Edited May 12 by Blue & Gold Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue & Gold Posted May 12 Report Share Posted May 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hilltopper Posted May 12 Report Share Posted May 12 (edited) On 5/6/2024 at 3:08 PM, 72 Roo said: If you were grading this coaching staff you would give them an F. The magnificent pipeline that Mitchell established has gone dry. Pick any event area (sprints, middle distances, hurdles, field events, combined events, jumps) and we are weak. I have been waiting for this staff to rebuild to Mitchell level performance and it is not there. It's time for a change. She sucks so bad that she was selected as the top coach. If a couple of the girls who transferred out had given her a chance, we would have won the womens title too. You should be more worried about her getting hired away from the Zips. Edited May 12 by Hilltopper 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
72 Roo Posted May 13 Report Share Posted May 13 7 hours ago, Hilltopper said: She sucks so bad that she was selected as the top coach. If a couple of the girls who transferred out had given her a chance, we would have won the womens title too. You should be more worried about her getting hired away from the Zips. I appreciate your perspective. I'm glad you support the program. Look deeper into the program. You will find assistants that cannot compare to Mitchell's, lack of local (Ohio) recruiting, few if any performances ranking in the top 25 in the country. Winning the MAC is not an endorsement. But if you are saying it's a start, I agree. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue & Gold Posted July 11 Report Share Posted July 11 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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