Idaho’s Track Win Costs Coach ‘Stache

Mike Keller under-estimated his Idaho men’s track team. It cost him a mustache.

No matter how hard Keller crunched the numbers, there was no way he could see that his young Vandals team could top Weber State for the Big Sky Conference track title at Boise. His athletes would have no part of that.

“They kept telling me, ‘We’re going to win this thing,”’ Keller said of a pre-meet dispute. “I said, look, add up the points - they’re going to get about 170 and we’ve got about 130. There’s no way we can make up that much.” Members of the UI sprint corps, making a statement while trimming a bit of wind resistance, shaved their heads.

“They said, if we win, you shave yours, too,” Keller said. “And like an idiot, I said, fine, if we win, it’s coming off.”

Well, the Vandals got the performances they expected of some, and also some great performances they had no reason to expect, while Weber lost the versatile Billy Schuffenhaur with a hamstring injury.

And by Saturday night, it wasn’t even a close shave as Idaho had topped the Wildcats 148-136 for the Vandals’ first outdoor title since 1983.

Before they could even pick up their trophy, though, the Vandals pulled out the sheers they had brought with them for just such an occasion.

“I begged ‘em, ‘You’re not going to hold me to that, are you? I’ve got to go out and recruit and do things and I can’t be looking like some donkey,”’ Keller said. “So they compromised, they took off my 20-year-old mustache.”

This doesn’t look like any hair-today, gone-tomorrow crew that Keller has, either, as he will lose only six points to graduation and has more talent coming in. Performances by Frank Bruder in a distance double and by Niels Kruller winning the long jump again were to be expected.

What jolted everyone, though, was the wins by Montrell Williams in the 100 and 200. Williams, a defensive back on the football team, had not run the 200 for the Vandals until the conference meet. Keller used one of two wild-card allotments to get him in the race.

Williams responded with a sizzling 20.83 time - an NCAA provisional qualifier.

“He’s a classic sprinter; when I first saw him, I could see it,” Keller said. “He ran 21.11 in the prelims and of our four sprinters, the slowest time was 21.17 - they were cookin’. But then he comes back and runs 20.83 and he was more shocked than anybody. He couldn’t believe it.”

Because Williams participated in spring football practice, “I got him only on Mondays and Wednesdays for two weeks,” Keller said. “So all we really worked with him on was relay exchanges. But this guy is so natural and so smooth, it’s amazing.”