A Day to Decompress

Now that I have travelled for 24 hours and have slept for about 5, I wanted to write one last post to reflect briefly.  

First off, I will start with thanks.  This trip wouldn't have been possible without my family, especially my parents and my sister.  Without their support and encouragement, I might not have gone to China, so they had a huge hand in this endeavor.

Next I want to thank Shani and Amanda.  I began coaching them two years ago and I never would have guessed that I would have been at the Olympics a short two years later.  They have both improved tremendously and I can only hope that they will stay with it another few years to continue to progress and develop.   I really believe that even greater things are on the horizon.

My friends and extended family.  Whether in Nashville, Winston Salem, Gainesville, Boston, New York, West Palm Beach, or anywhere else in the country or the world, I wouldn't be here without all of your love and support!

All of my former coaches and mentors.  This starts with Mr. Inman all the way back at Ensworth who sparked my love for track and field.  Brooks Corzine and Robert Pruitt developed this into a passion and for that I am grateful.  Mike and Annie Bennett guided me through my last two years at Wake Forest and have continued to be friends to this day.  Finally, Mike Holloway and Dan Pfaff, at the University of Florida.  Though I received a Masters at UF in Sport Management, I still say that I got my Masters and Ph D in track and field learning from two of the greatest track coaches in the world.  

All of the athletes who have allowed me to coach and mentor them.  Starting at Florida and then at BU, you have all meant so much to me and I have learned so much about the art of coaching from all of you.  I am forever indebted to all of you for your persistence and dedication.

Ok.  Now on to what I was lucky enough to see and experience:

3 World Records:  I was front row for the men's 100, on the backstretch for the women's steeplechase, and up top for the men's 4 x 100 and they were all amazing.  The energy in the building when Usain ran 9.69 was like nothing I have ever seen or felt before.

The fall and rise of the American track team:  We started off slowly, but ended with a bang, winning the last two events of the meet with both 4 x 4oo relays.  It was pretty weird being up with all of those coaches and athletes who have experienced so many highs who were now experiencing so many lows.  That being said, it was neat to share in successes with others and help console those who didn't see the performances that they were expecting.

Upsets, disappointments and surprises:  It was amazing to see the number of World Championships winners and medalists from the year before not even make the finals of their events.  This wasn't specific to the US athletes, but we did seem to be hit the hardest.  On the flip side, to see someone like Stephanie Brown Trafton win the gold in the women's discus was equally amazing.  She barely made the Olympic team in Eugene, finishing a distant third behind Aretha and Suzy, but she led the qualifying round and took the lead with her first throw that she never relinquished.  Shalane Flanagan in the women's 10,000 was equally as impressive.  The pace was pretty hard from the get go and she was quickly in the chase pack of 6 or 7 girls, but it looked like she was going to finish 5th at best.  She never panicked and let 2 Kenyan girls fall off the pace before she was able to overtake them both and move up to third.  The look on her face when she crossed the finish line and still wasn't sure if she had medaled was priceless.

Steve, her husband, was a constant partner in crime for me when he wasn't with Shalane, so it was great to share that with them.  There are too many more of these to go on about, but needless to say, it was awesome.

The Chinese people:  They couldn't have been any nicer or more willing to please.  They were so eager for everyone to love Beijing and China that they all went out of their way to make us happy.  It certainly wasn't all rosy but they did an amazing job.  

The Facilities:  I guess China is one of the only places that could pull off the stuff that they did, but the facilities and stadiums were unbelievable.  I really can't imagine another stadium being as consistently breathtaking as the Birds Nest.  I'll just say that London has a tall order to even come close to China.  

The Great Wall:  Enough said.  

The Silk Market:  Constant haggling.  It was almost more fun to watch others experience it than it was to go through the process myself.  

All of the other coaches:  It really was an honor to spend as much time as I was able to spend with coaches like Clyde Hart, legendary 400 meter coach of Michael Johnson and Jeremy Wariner, John Smith, coach of countless world class sprinters, John Cook, Shalane and Shannon Rowbury's distance coach, as well as dozens of others.

That is all for now and might be my last post for this experience, but I want to end with one last thank you.  That is to all of you for reading this and all of the great comments and well wishes that I received.  Over time I realized that this was probably more for me than it was for all of you, but it was an awesome experience to share with you all.  I hope you all enjoyed it half as much as I did!!  

Now I am off to pack up everything I own and move down the East Coast.  I hope to talk with all of you soon.  Take care and best wishes!!!

Coming Home!

Leave in the morning.  Be back in Boston by 11 pm on the 24th.  Can't wait.   I'll probably post once more once I get back after I've had a chance to think about everything that I have seen and done.  I have lots of presents!! 

Gags, The Great Wall, and other odds and ends

I have been asked by my family and a few friends to continue updating the blog to let you all know what I have been up to these past few days.  I will also post a few more for posterity.

For those of you who aren't in the track world, and that is probably most of you, you probably have no idea who Gags, or Frank Gagliano, is, but I have gotten to spend some time with him and you all would love him.  Gags is known as the Godfather of American track and field.  He was a college coach for quite a while at Georgetown and then moved out to Palo Alto to coach distance runners at what was called the Nike Farm Team.  He has spent the past two years in Eugene, directing the Oregon Track Club and he has a few runners here at the meet.  I had the chance to go to the Great Wall with Gags, Jerry Schumacher, the former Head Cross Country Coach at Wisconsin, and John Hayes, the Head Cross Country Coach at Air Force, and I couldn't pass up the opportunity.  We left at 7:00 am from BNU and hailed a cab.  The closest section of the Great Wall is called Badaling and it is also the most visited section.  As our cab driver didn't speak any English, he proceeded to call his boss and put her on speaker phone to talk with us about payment.  Remember that the local currency is yuan, pronounced you-on, and that Gags is a large Italian New Yorker with the accent to boot.  These are both important parts of the story.  We let Gags take the lead and we came to the conclusion that the hour cab ride to the Wall, the cab driver waiting about an hour and a half, and the hour cab ride back would cost us 500 yuan, or about $65!!  As Gags was talking to the lady, he yelled into the spear, "Ok, so this is gonna cost us 500 younos (you-knows)?"  We were all dying in the back and she proceeded to go with it and called them younos as well.  Needless to say, we haven't let Gags forget that one.  

We got to the Wall and Gags headed to the Gondola as Jerry, John and I went to take the stairs.  Remember, these aren't ordinary stairs, this is the Great Wall.  It was like a death march up this thing.  Nothing is more embarrassing than a 6 year old girl in tap shoes and a dress running past you as you struggle up the Great Wall.  It wasn't my best showing but I made it up to the top with the rest of the guys and we got our picture up there.  Then, for some reason, all of the locals started taking our picture and started asking to have pictures with us!!  Too funny.

Here are some great videos that I have taken over the past three or four days to let you guys know what I have seen and done.

The first is a of a cab driver talking on the phone.  For some reason this totally cracked us up:

The next is a video of Jerry Schumacher shopping for gifts for his kids:

The next is of another Cab driver.  Even though this looks staged, I swear that he said this before I recorded it, I just prompted him to say it again so I could get it.  Hope you like:

Hope that one works.  

Thats all for now.  Hopefully more in a day or so.

A Note to All

This is especially to my athletes from BU, but also to those of you that might be reading this who I haven't been able to communicate with.  For those that don't know, I have accepted an Assistant Coaching position at the University of Virginia to coach the jumps and multis.  I will be starting there as soon as I return to the State so I won't have a lot of time in Boston.  While this is a great opportunity for me to be much closer to home and to work with and for some great people, it wasn't an easy decision.  I have developed so many great relationships with people within the BU community and in Boston in general, and have some of the most dedicated athletes that a coach could ever hope for, so it will be incredibly difficult to leave all of you.  I have received lots of great notes from some of you and I can't let you know how much they have meant to me as I am so happy that you have all realized how much I love this sport and how much I have enjoyed helping you all develop as athletes, students, and most importantly, individuals.  Because I have stepped down, my BU email has been shut off and I have been asked to let all further communication be handled through the BU coaching staff, which I totally understand and respect.  I wanted to let you all know about these developments so you don't think that I am trying to leave Boston without contacting any of you.  As always, if you guys need anything, I am always here to help in any way that I can.   

A Punch in the Gut

I wish I could say that last night went well, but I would be lying if I did.  I was in the coaching box between coaches from the Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia.  It was more than a little smelly.

I gave myself plenty of time to get to the stadium, as I have heard horror stories about getting to Olympic stadiums.  I got lucky in catching a media shuttle with Mario Sategna, Texas' field events coach, and Will, one of the 24 hour fitness guys.  Once we got to the Olympic Green, we had to walk for about 20 minutes to the security check.  The line took over an hour.  It was like Disneyland gone totally wrong.  Personal space is a foreign idea in China.

Once we got into the Olympic Green, we still had a 20 minute walk to the stadium.  I let the guys go in so that I could head to the warm up track.  Because I'm not high enough on the totem pole, I didn't have access to the warm up track, so I had to talk to Shani through a fence.  Shani was feeling good so I headed into the stadium to wait for things to start.  The meet started at 7:00, and the TJ didn't go off until 9:40, so I had time to kill.  I had tickets for the nosebleed seats, but there were plenty of seats all over the place.  There were over 80000 in the stadium, but there were still places to finds empty seats.  I made my way down to the 6th or 7th row right at the start of the 100 so that was nice.  I watched the men run, talked with some folks from Australia who were there to watch there son in the 1500.  After that I headed over to the TJ coaches box in the first row of the stands.

It was amazing how close we were, but it was almost too close.  It's difficult to see the entire run and jump when you are that close, but I am certainly not complaining.  It's better than getting emailed videos.  Shani looked good on her warm up approaches and her short run jumps were good as well.  We made a few adjustments and we had even planned to take one full jump before the meet started, something we usually don't do.  That didn't go so well, but it wasn't terrible.  She was the 17th of 18 jumpers, which is a large number of jumpers.  There was another flight of 18, so this is the 36 best Triple Jumpers in the World.  On her first jump, she was a little behind the board and the jump was not what we were hoping for, so we made a few changes and went with that.  The second jump was a little better, but she was still out from where I would have liked her, so I told her to scoot up about 8 inches from where she was starting.  On her final jump, she did everything that we wanted to do and had her best jump of the meet, but she was over by about an inch, so that was the end of the meet.  As soon as she was done, I had a camera in my face, getting my reaction.  To say I was bummed would be a major understatement.  It wasn't the outcome that either of us were hoping for or expecting.  Right now I am at a loss, so I won't dwell on it.

On the other hand, it was a night of highs and lows for the US team.  All of the 100 runners are through to the semis.  The men's shot putters didn't have a great night with a silver, 6th, and 12th.  Erica, our other triple jumper did not advance.  The highlight was Shalane Flanangan.  She broke her own American record to finish 3rd in the 10,000.  She is married to a good friend and former roommate of Johnny Rich, so I was incredibly excited for them.  That is the first medal for an American in a distance race, man or woman, not including the Marathon, since 1992!!  

That is all for now.  I will try to update for the rest of my stay on what I am able to see and do.    I wish I had better news to report, but sometimes you have to take the good with the bad.  The countdown to my trip home has begun.

PRELIMS!!!

OK.  Today is the day of the prelims.  You can find lots of information here:  http://www.iaaf.org/OLY08/results/eventCode=3659/index.html

It all comes down to this.  Here is some more information:

Shani leaves the village at 6:45

1st Call is at 8:38

2nd Call is at 8:42

3rd Call is at 8:47

The Call Room closes at 8:50

They will be taken onto the field at 9:10

The Competition starts at 9:40

The automatic qualifier is 14.45m which equals the American record.  Shani jumped 14.38 at the Olympic Trials so she is fully capable of this!  They take the top 12 jumpers to the finals on the 17th.  Anyone who jumps over the Auto Qualifier is guaranteed a spot in the final.  Only once in the past 8 years have there been more than 12 girls advance to the finals so we know we will be in the mix.  Everyone cheer us on as loudly as you can.  Yell at the TV or the Computer or whatever other device you are using.  I want to hear it over here!!

Keep us in your thoughts!!! 

Nike Hospitality, The Pearl Market, and US Women's Basketball

Today started with a bang and ended with one as well.  I headed over to the Nike hospitality area with Jason Vigilante, Leo Manzano's coach, and John Hayes, flag bearer Lopez Lomong's coach.  Jason helped John and I get a visitor's pass into the place as security was pretty tight and right off of the bat I felt out of place.  You don't think of the crazy corporate things that go on behind the scenes, but the Olympics is as corporate as it gets.  To top it all off, I saw some pretty impressive people.  To give you an idea, Hichem El Gourrouj, the world record holder in the 1500, and Sergey Bubka, the world record holder in the pole vault, were the light weights.  Not really, but when the Prince Albert of Freaking Monaco is there, things change.  The place was pretty swank as there were lots of athletes rolling through there to get their complimentary bags of gear and shoes.  Pretty cool.

From there, Jason and I wandered on to the Pearl Market and it was much different than the Silk Market.  Though they are pretty much the same thing, they are at different places and the crowds are considerably less so your bargaining tool is better.  I was able to get tons of gifts for friends and family there so I was really happy with my haul!

We came back to BNU and grabbed some food and hung out for a bit.  Shani had grabbed me some tickets for the US Women's team so I headed off there with Andreas, Muna Lee's personal coach.  We got there at 8:15 when Australia was playing Korea.  If you haven't seen Australia's women's uniforms, then you'll get a pretty good idea from this link:

http://en.beijing2008.cn/news/sports/headlines/basketball/n214530923.shtml

It was quite a site.  Because Shani got us the tickets, they are for the "athletes section" so they were 3rd row right behind one of the goals.  The place was pretty empty but its always neat to see other sports.  We had a few other coaches and administrators from other countries around us so it was good to talk with them.  After the game ended, the teams left the court and then they prepared things for the second game, the US vs Mali.  Can't say that I am too familiar with Mali, and I'm sorry to say that the Malians didn't seem too familiar with basketball.  The final score was 97 - 41.  The game was secondary to what took place during though.  As the players were warming up, we heard a noise from the fans that clearly wasn't for the players.  We looked around and saw Carlos Boozer, Chris Bosh and Dwight Howard headed right to the same section as us.  They were about five or six seats away from us.  I got a great picture of Boozer's and Howard's watches which were totally covered in diamonds.  I'll be sure to put them up later.  

That is all for now.  Shani's family gets in tomorrow and she has a short walk through / warm up at the stadium tomorrow as well so I might not even see her tomorrow.  I might be heading to US women's field hockey tomorrow morning to see some old friends from Wake and BU.  Hope all is well and my thoughts are with the Jones family right now.  I really wish I could be there with you all right now in this difficult time.