‘Til Summer Do Us Part: Cougs Begin Track Merger

From the perspective of coach Rick Sloan, Washington State University dropped its men’s and women’s track and field programs after last season.

And replaced them with what Sloan calls, simply, “Cougar track”.

By combining the programs and consolidating the staffs, most gender barriers have been hurdled.

Duties are assigned by expertise, not chromosomes. The person coaching a particular event will school both men and women in that discipline.

The marriage appears to be working.

“It’s going great,” Sloan said of the conjoined programs. “I’ve really enjoyed it, but it’s been considerably more work.”

That’s mostly because all of the paperwork involving NCAA compliance and athletic eligibility has been doubled.

“We’ve got almost football (squad size) numbers,” Sloan said. “We’ve got 75 on the team now and at a point earlier in the year, we had 84. Within a year or two I expect us to get up to 90.”

The division of responsibilities goes like this: associate coach Lissa Olson (jumps), Li Li (distances), Debra Lombardi (throws), Mark Macdonald (hurdles) and Kienan Slate (sprints).

Sloan takes charge of the vaulters and multi-event performers.

“I’ve always felt that what I do best is teach on the field,” Sloan said. “In taking the (combined) position, I didn’t want to lose that ability and I haven’t.

“My event areas are the pole vault and multi (event) athletes, but I try to get over and work in every area at one point during the week and spend time with the coaches in those areas.

“I still have my stamp on the program and I still have my hand in everything. What I’m really pleased about is the coaches’ philosophies tend to be mine, too.”

They not only share Sloan’s approach, but also his initiative.

“The one thing that’s keeping me a happy camper with this double program is the staff - they’re making my job a lot easier,” Sloan said. “When the work starts to pile up, they’re all ready to work, and they’re all excellent teachers and coaches, as well.”

Aside from some impressive women individuals over the years, the tradition of success in WSU track has been on the men’s side.

Sloan isn’t certain if the joining of the programs will cause that legacy to positively influence women’s track at WSU.

“I’m not sure that will carry over, but I hope so,” Sloan said. “What is selling our program is the quality of people we have in it, starting with Rick Dickson, our athletic director. Time and again, parents have complimented us after their visits that there’s a real feeling of family in our program.

“As that word spreads and we get quality people in here like Ian Waltz and Francesca Green - real top-notch recruits - that makes the program more visible.”

Making tracks: Cougar Leo Slack (7,544 points in the decathlon) came within six points of the NCAA automatic qualifying mark at last week’s meet in Tri-Cities.

Slack put up PRs in four of the 10 events.

While Heidi Schultz won the heptathlon with 4,859 points, rookie Green made a big impression while taking second.

Green, who scored more points in Washington AAA girls state meets than anyone in history while at Kamiakin High in Kennewick, leaped 20 feet, 1 inches in the long jump. The mark, in her first outdoor meet as a Cougar, was the fourth-best in WSU history.

Defending Pacific-10 Conference 800-meter champ Eric Anderson is still not ready to resume competition for the Cougars.

Anderson will miss this weekend’s meet at Stanford while continuing to heal a ligament strain in his foot.

Eastern Washington’s Seville Broussard, a gifted athlete whose freshman season was cut short by knee surgery, is back on the track.

Broussard, who high jumped 5-11-1/4 last year before her injury, cleared a cautious 5-2 at the Tri-Cities meet.

Eastern’s Les Timm, having redshirted last year and having not competed since 1994, opened the outdoor season in a big way, breaking the school’s hammer record with a 200-5 toss.

That’s an NCAA provisional qualifying mark.

Idaho’s Oscar Duncan is another who came back from injury in an impressive manner.

The sophomore javelin thrower redshirted with a knee injury last year, but came back last week to break the Vandals record by 7-1/2 feet with a heave of 238-6.

, DataTimes