Braves,
I don’t exactly know where to start. We are incredibly
excited about this team because of the group that we have right now. I want to
highlight a few things from yesterday.
·
We had more relay teams at the meet than every
other team, combined. That tells me
that we have a dedicated group who is willing to work hard for each other. That
is a huge component to a successful team
·
Many of you were at the arena for 8+ hours, and
through it all I never once heard someone complain about the time, the
difficulty of the races, or anything else. Thank you for your positivity. As a
coach we love seeing that because positivity is a precursor to improvement, and
as a human being I appreciate it because complaining is exhausting. You helped
make my life easier, and you made the experiences of your teammates better as
well.
·
We had over 50 kids compete in over 120 events,
and most of you did at least 3. We had the second biggest group of athletes,
which had nearly 1000 athletes registered. That is something for each of you to be proud
of, because it is a manifestation of your commitment and support of your
teammates.
·
We also appreciate how smoothly you made
everything go. You arrived early to the meet to prepare yourselves and support
your teammates. For the most part you helped each other and figured out how to
manage warming up and checking in the bull pen. BYU’s system with the bullpen
is more complex than the others but you navigated it well.
·
BYU is a very competitive meet, with schools
from all classifications from Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming participating. It is
rare to make it on to the podium where only the top 6 finishers of each event
place in a field typically ranging from 50-200.
·
Nainoa in the weight throw and Rachel in the 60
hurdles both finished in the top 6.
Obviously the relays at the end of the meet were a huge
highlight for me because of what it says about you and our team, but one moment
in particular stood out and epitomizes what this team should be about. Dodds
ran the anchor leg of his Senior team relay and had a lead over the Sophomore
team. Nafus took his hand off to anchor it for his team. Both of whom had already
run a 400 and a 200 so they may have had reason to be tired and give a half
effort, but they laid it on the line and went to work. Nafus closed the gap on
Dodds who was fighting like crazy to preserve the win. They both ran hard through the line. They ran hard for
their teammates and got better as athletes. That is what we expect from you
each practice and race: pushing yourself and your teammates to be better, day
in and day out. Ultimately Dodds hung on to win by .3 of a second.
Looking ahead to next week we will have a typical week of
practice followed by a meet up at Utah State on Saturday. ALL events will be
competed on Saturday, including field events. Registration for this meet is
done at the meet, so you won’t have
to do anything online to get into this one. Registration closes at 9 AM there,
so make sure you arrive plenty early to register. The nice thing about USU is
that they charge 5 per athlete, and then you can race in as many events as you want.
Again, we recommend at least two events plus a 4x400 at the end. USU typically
ends much earlier than the BYU meet, but it also has a rolling schedule so it
is tough to give a time estimate. There is no open 200, but there is a 4x8 and
the beginning of a day, a 4x200 in the middle, and a 4x400 at the end. You are
welcome to compete in multiple relays, but we still want you in individual
events as well so you can see your personal improvements. We will give more
information on this meet during the week. As usual, directions to this meet can
be found on our schedule on the website www.bravestrack.blogspot.com Contact me with any questions.
We took a ton of pictures at BYU and you can view those on
our website by clicking the pictures link on the side of the main page and then
following the links. You can also add pictures to that page by dragging and
dropping them from your computer or using your phone.
Check out our Instagram @bravestrackandxc to see some other
photos from the meet.
After each meet I update the performance lists and the
Bountiful all-time performance lists. You can also find those on the website,
though admittedly I haven’t finished them quite yet. I hope to by tomorrow morning
at the latest.
Keep up the great work Braves, we are off to a good start, and
there is a lot more we need to accomplish.
Coach Jacobson
