Blogs : Trackshark

Into the homestretch they come...

The month of May is almost here, which means the final stretch of the outdoor season is upon us.  With the bulk of the conference meets set to take place over the next three weeks, along with the NCAA Regional Championships just four weeks from this Friday, now is the time for the athletes to hit their stride.

It should be an exciting next month of action and Trackshark will have every angle covered.  Let's take a look at what to expect this weekend across the country including links to host pages.

Conference Championships:

- America East Championships (Maine)
- Atlantic 10 Championships (Massachusetts)
- Big East Championships (Villanova)
- CCAA Championships (Cal State LA)
- GLIAC Championships (Saginaw Valley State)
- GLVC Championships (SIU Edwardsville)
- GNAC Championships (Central Washington)
- GPAC Championships (Morningside)
- MAAC Championships (Rider)
- Mason-Dixon Championships (Christopher Newport)
- MEAC Championships (Morgan State)
- NCAC Championships (Ohio Wesleyan)
- NEC Championships (Robert Morris)
- New England DIII Championships (Coast Guard Academy)
- Patriot League Championships (Navy)
- PSAC Championships (Indiana, PA)
- WIAC Championships (Wisconsin-Eau Claire)

Other Action:

With the slew of conference meets set to the weekend of May 17, there should still be a few athletes expected to compete at a high level this weekend, including perhaps the best dual meet of the year as UCLA hosts USC.  Some of the meets to keep an eye on will include the following.

- Arizona Double Dual
- Arkansas Twilight
- Cal Poly vs UC Santa Barbara
- Cornell Invitational
- Duke Twilight
- George Mason Invitational
- Houston Invitational
- Illinois State Redbird Classic
- Iowa Musco Invitational
- Kansas State Ward Haylett Invitational
- Liberty Twilight Qualifier
- Mississippi Open
- Missouri Open
- Montana State vs Montana
- Ohio State Jesse Owens Invitational
- Princeton Elite Meet
- Stanford Payton Jordan Cardinal Invitational | Accepted Entries
- UC Irvine Steve Scott Invitational
- UCLA vs USC
- Washington State vs Washington
- Weber State Open

Get the complete list of meets set to go on the schedule page.

Trackshark is taking a vacation (April 19-27)

As the title states, I'll be on vacation with the wife and baby during that time period. Updates to Trackshark.com will be at a minimum (no weekend review, front page updates, etc.).

I know this is the worst time to go away during the peak of the collegiate season (Drake, Penn, Mt. SAC, ACC, etc), but it's the only time that we can all go on a vacation this year. It's been a long time since our family has been away and we're in dire need to take one.

Thank you for understanding and I'll be back for all the action leading up to the first weekend in May.

Track & field rises with internet coverage

Remember when you had to wait for that issue of Track & Field News to arrive in your mailbox (or in my case, under the door in my dorm room at college) to catch up with the latest news and information in the world of our sport? Those days are long gone as you can now find news and results (and even video) nearly instant after every meet on a Saturday night.

Scott Bush of Milesplit.us recently shared his views on this new world with his blog entry at Runnerville.com. From the latest marketing ideas to what USA Track & Field truly cares about, Scott hits a home run from every angle.

Perhaps the drawback in all of this is that our sport is very difficult to cover. How does one cover a meet with so many events going on at the same? If you set a long jump record, how do you get pub when someone may be filming the second heat of the 200 meters? The sport of track & field can be, at certain times, a roller-coaster affair of media coverage.

Here at Trackshark, our focus is at the collegiate level. By no means can I cover every single event at every single meet. It took me four hours this past Saturday night just to look at all the results from every meet across the country to compile in the weekend review.

Four hours just to look at results and that doesn't even take into consideration everything else at the professional level. 

Right now, I can head over to ESPN.com to get the latest baseball box scores in a matter of 15 minutes.

With our sport, there are so many athletes, so many events, so many heats of a darn 200 meters that it can be somewhat boring for an average fan to even keep up. We can talk all day about how to better serve the fans as that's for another day.

Where do you get the latest news on professional track & field? What about running? If you're a running fan, do you care at all about the field events?

I can say, without a doubt, there is not one place to get this news. You have to visit a conglomerate of websites to gather all this information (Letsrun.com, Trackandfieldnews.com, IAAF.org, etc.). I visit Letsrun.com every day just because they know what news is important to the running fans of the world. You can't get this information anywhere else.

If you want to see the latest video highlights, you should know where to go with Runnerspace.com and Flotrack.org in the mix. However, what about the field events? This is, after all, track & FIELD. I'm sure both sites are working on this and they do a tremendous job already with what they do. I just don't want to see the field events being left out of any coverage. If you don't think they're important, just ask the coaching staff at Arizona State.

If you want to see the latest headlines in the sport, you can head over to TrackandFieldNews.com or IAAF.org.

If you want to find the latest high school information, just head over to MileSplit.us or Dyestat.com.

If you want to find the lates college information...well, you know where to go.

If you want to download or listen to some excellent podcasting with some of the top runners in the world right now, check out TheFinalSprint.com.

I'm sure there are many, many more that I'm leaving out.  As you can see, that's the point of this entry.  There are a ton of sites out there, none of which focuses only on the sport of track & field as a whole.

So what's the solution? How do we best serve the current fans while also trying to gather new one's? Should we all be competing against each other in a sport with very little revenue to play with in the first place?

It takes time, money, patience and good 'ole fashion hard work.

No one should be forced to read 98% of their coverage focused on 800 meters and up if, and only if, their intention is to cover all events within the sport.

The fans deserve to see an equal balance of news, insight and information for all events.

As someone who's been involved in covering the sport for nearly a decade, I realize that it's impossible to please everyone. That just comes with the territory.

A year from now, I hope to see a site that can cover all the events with the kind of passion that every fan can appreciate. As noted, it's going to take plenty of patience and hard work. The athletes deserve it. Our sport deserves it. You deserve it.

Weekend review for April 5, 2008

Why spend hours clicking on each result trying to find all the top marks when you can view them all on one page?  Look no further than the Trackshark Weekend Review.  The latest is linked below.

www.trackshark.com/coverage/2008/april5.php

A review of Trackshark.com - This is why we exist

It came to my surprise that Eric from Athletics in the News provided a review of Trackshark and our coverage of the 2008 NCAA Division I Indoor Championships.  You can read the review at the link below:

http://athleticsinthenews.blogspot.com/2008/03/about-track-news-sharks-and-things-in.html

Eric also compares our coverage of the meet with that of Track & Field News.  I did not have the chance to visit their coverage page during the meet since I was so busy providing our own, but I had the chance to take a gander after the weekend and I thought it was excellent as well.

Track & Field News is still playing catch-up, if you will, in the transition between print-to-internet.

Many people don't realize that I actually designed their site and they were very generous to offer me free hosting in return for advertising a few years ago.  They have fine people over there and I have a great deal of appreciation for what they do.

Going back to Eric's review of Trackshark's coverage of the NCAA meet, I was not present at Arkansas although many people thought I was.  We did have several photographers at the meet, but nothing in terms of on-the-field coverage. 

I was stuck back here in Massachusetts for the weekend for my full-time job that I couldn't afford to leave.  That first day coverage was quite hectic.  Here was my day:

6am - wake up, shower, have breakfast with my wife and 1-year-old daughter

7am - drive daughter to daycare

8am - go to work

5pm - come home from work

6pm - eat dinner with family

7pm - start live coverage of NCAA meet from our bedroom

midnight - go to bed

The person we should all thank here is my wife who was taking care of our daughter while I was having fun on the computer all night.  While others were on location at the meet, it still felt as though I was there thanks to the technology available. 

Trying to pipeline that information into one clean, organized and generous package is what I tried to do and what Eric was trying to get across.

If others in our sport would understand what the fans want to see, then it would only be better for all of is.  This is why companies such as CBS College Sports (formerly CSTV) bother me.  They claim to be the "home" for college sports, yet they haven't even updated their own site on who won the meet:

http://www.cstv.com/sports/c-xctrack/cs-c-xctrack-body.html

This is why Trackhark exists.  This is why Track & Field News provides what they do for all of you.  Without us, what would the alternative be?

Let the NCAA know you appreciate the live video

Every year we track & field fans seem to complain about the coverage of our sport. Either it's too delayed on ESPN, they never show all the events or it's simply "dumbed" down for the fans.

Well, this year's NCAA Division I Indoor Championships proved to be much different in terms of live coverage. They actually offered live, FREE video over the internet of the meet. I know they could have panned over to the field events more often. However, when there are at times 3 events going on at once, it's impossible to have the video feed live on every attempt/race.

Even more, they allowed us to live blog the events in real time, unlike other sites where you had to manually refresh your own browser to follow the action.

Please do me a favor and send a thank you note to the following people for allowing this to make it happen. We've sent complaints in the past, so let's offer some positive feedback this time. Thank you!

-------------

Kristen Jacob of the NCAA - kjacob@ncaa.org
Phil Pierce of Arkansas - ppierce@uark.edu

Coverage of NCAA Division I Indoor Championships

I'll be covering the NCAA Division I Indoor Championships along with a live Blog every night on our coverage page, linked below.  Enjoy the meet everyone!

www.trackshark.com/coverage/2008/ncaa_indoor.php

NCAA Division I Women's Preview and Form Charts

Talk about a close call.  It should be quite a show on the women's side as it just may come down to the 4x400m relay as Arizona State, LSU and Michigan appear to be the favorites.

www.trackshark.com/coverage/2008/ncaa_indoor_women.php

NCAA Division I Men's Preview and Form Charts

Florida State and Tennessee should be the favorites for the men, by my calculations. Of course, the meet is not competed on paper.

www.trackshark.com/coverage/2008/ncaa_indoor_men.php

Interviews: Ryan Whiting of Arizona State

Whiting is the collegiate leader in the shot put this season and will be a favorite for the title. A former National High School Athlete of the Year, Whiting just may win even more awards at Arizona State.

www.trackshark.com/interviews/2008/ryan_whiting.php

Interviews : Bianca Knight of Texas

The outstanding freshman sprinter from Texas has plenty of international competition under her belt. Knight will look upon those experiences during the NCAA and USATF Championships.

www.trackshark.com/interviews/2008/bianca_knight.php

Weekend review for February 16, 2008

Get all of the top marks from around the country in the weekend review.  Starting this weekend, we'll have a new format which will list all the marks via HyTek results so all the marks are included (such as those from the professional ranks).

www.trackshark.com/coverage/2008/feb16.php

Weekend review for February 9, 2008

Why spend hours clicking on each result trying to find all the top marks when you can view them all on one page?  Look no further than the Trackshark Weekend Review.  The latest is linked below.

www.trackshark.com/coverage/2008/feb9.php

Weekend review for February 2, 2008

Get all of the top marks from around the country in the weekend review.

www.trackshark.com/coverage/2008/feb2.php

Weekend review for January 26, 2008

Get all of the top marks from around the country in the weekend review.

www.trackshark.com/coverage/2008/jan26.php

Interviews : Adam Harris of Michigan

Harris has emerged as one of the top sprinters in the nation with his 6.64 performance in the 60 meters this season. With a long season still ahead, Harris talks about what it will take to keep it going.

www.trackshark.com/interviews/2008/adam_harris.php

Weekend review for January 19, 2008

Get all of the top marks from around the country in the weekend review.

www.trackshark.com/coverage/2008/jan19.php

Interviews : Virgil Hodge of TCU

Hodge claimed the 60 and 200 meter titles at the Arkansas Invitational. As one of the premier sprinters in the nation, Hodge looks forward to another fast season.

www.trackshark.com/interviews/2008/virgil_hodge.php

Interviews : Fatmata Fofanah of Georgia Tech

Fofanah earned an NCAA automatic qualifying and personal-best time of 8.04 seconds in the 60 meter hurdles at the Kentucky Invitational. She discusses her goals and expectations for the rest of the season.

www.trackshark.com/interviews/2008/fatmata_fofanah.php

Weekend review for January 12, 2008