Track and field/cross country - 2023-2024

2023 Schedule
Fri Sept 1 - McMurry University Big Country Festival - ABILENE TX
Fri Sept 15 - Texas A&M Invite - College Station TX
Fri Sept 29 - Chile Pepper Invite - Fayetteville AR
Fri Oct 13 - ACU Naimadu Classic - ABILENE TX
Fri Oct 27 - WAC Conference Championships - ABILENETX
Fri Nov 10 - South Central Region Championship - Fayetteville AR

That's 3 dates in our hometown, including the WAC Championship Nice

There was an article on ACUsports.com about the passing of James Segrest. Coach Segrest was on those relays that made ACC a household name in the entire sporting world -- the first 440 relay to break the 40 second barrier and relays that broke the WORLD record 5 times in the 440 and 880 relays. The relays had James Segrest, Bill Woodhouse, Waymond Griggs and Olympic champ Bobby Morrow. James was the last one of the 4 to die.

Coach Segrest also had another unique place in Texas HS lore -- he was the first person to win a TX high school T&F championship all by himself. Thus, leading to the rather colorful nickname of "The One Man Gang from Bangs" -- Bangs is a small town near Brownwood for those of you not familiar with Texas geography. Segrest won the 100, 220, and 440 and placed 4th in the long jump for 34 points.

Coach Segrest would go on to coach a state-winning T&F team at Monahans, then moved over to Odessa and Odessa College became the dominant college T&F team in the U.S. He is in just about every T&F Hall of Fame in the country.

Wes Kittley is certainly one of the more recent bright lights in the ACU T&F pantheon. I read this morning that Wes has gotten a really nice extension on his contract as T&F HC at Tech -- 7 years for $3.77 million. That averages out to $538k a year until he is 71 years old. He still is not getting paid nearly as much as his TTU OC son, Zach Kittley, but I imagine Wes will be able to get by. And, that does not count his bonuses -- Wes made an additional $50k (or more) for winning the Big 12 indoor and outdoor men's titles last year.

Bad news for ACU T&F -- sprint coach Kristian Dillard is leaving ACU to go to Liberty University as the sprint coach. The HC at Liberty is Lance Bingham, the former ACU HC who hired KD in the first place. Coach Bingham told me if his sprint coach ever left Liberty that he would pursue KD. Just 2 months ago, Liberty's sprint coach got the HC job at James Madison University and Coach Bingham reached out immediately to KD. I know that when Coach Bingham left ACU for Liberty his salary was doubled and I suspect that KD quite possibly will see his salary doubled as well. I know that there truly is a goal of seeing the salaries for non-revenue sports become more competitive, but reality is that salaries for T&F are almost exactly what we paid as D-2 institution.

KD did an incredible job with the sprinters (and in this case sprinters are defined as runners all the way up to the 800). He did an outstanding job in developing Jack Marshall and Taylor Tolen, among others. He was beloved by members of the team. That had to do a great deal with his connection with FCA -- including the fact that his wife, Aleeah, was on the staff for FCA and was also a volunteer coach for ACU soccer for the past several years. KD also had an impact on ACU athletes on other teams. KD was a major mentor for Kade Parmelly -- if you were at Kade's memorial service or watched it on TV, you saw what a terrific job KD did in describing Kade's impact at ACU.

This is never a "good time" to lose a coach, but this might well be the worst time imaginable. Classes are starting in the next 2 weeks for colleges across the country. I hope that ACU can get someone who can have an impact on the team as positive as KD - both as a coach and a mentor.

Maybe Kittley can use some of his influence and send someone good our way.

I have been waiting until the XC team arrived to do a preview for this year. ACU XC has a new coach this year, Nathan Meuuwenberg, who came to ACU from Edinboro U in PA. Coach M had several runners at the D2 championship last May -- looking at the background of his runners at nationals, I see that he has developed all of them from okay HS runners to good collegiate runners, showing an ability to develop talent well. Coach M will need that this year! Coach Jelen left ACU to take the HC at Jamestown U in North Dakota the week after the indoor season closed, so there was no one to recruit distance runners from March to June -- important because many of the Texas HS athletes sign right after the state track meet in late April.

Coach M accepted the job in May, but wanted to take his distance runners to D2 nationals -- something I really respect. As soon as D2 nationals was over, I know that he pursued athletes who were entering the transfer portal in the May-June time period, but entering the recruiting fray late is tough. I think he was able to get a few additional walkons to commit, but we lost out several times on runners that could have made a difference, but who chose to go someplace for their COVID redshirt year somewhere they could contend for a title.

ACU WOMEN - the Wildcats were hit hard by graduation after they finished a very disappointing 6th at the WAC meet - scoring 167 points. Don't let the way that Irene Rono finished her ACU career (choosing to stay in Abilene for graduation instead of competing at the WAC outdoor meet) detract from her stellar career in XC at ACU. She placed 4th in the WAC XC meet and qualified for the national meet again in 2022 -- in fact, she was a 3-time national qualifier in XC. Prudence Kiyeng placed 35th last year -- a year of nagging injuries that impeded her senior year. As a junior, she placed 8th in the WAC meet and was also a national qualifier in XC. ACU also lost Renee Elliott, a walkon kid who finished as the #6 finisher for ACU last year, getting 88th in the overall standings.

Returnees: Peyton Bornstein - soph (41st in the WAC meet/#3 for ACU); Kate Williams - soph (50th in the WAC meet/#4 for ACU - she will be coming off an injury that caused her to take a medical redshirt outdoors); Isabella Evans - soph (55th in the WAC meet/#5 for ACU); Kate Hansen - soph (94th in the WAC meet/#7 for ACU), and Katelyn Coldicott - junior (97th in the WAC meet/#8 for ACU, but she finished 80th in the 2021 WAC XC meeet).

Redshirt: The key returnee - Tessa Holdermann - had to redshirt last year after an ankle surgery just before school. She worked hard and returned indoors, but you could see she was not still at 100% by the indoor championships. Then, at the Wes Kittley she sustained a terrible injury in the steeplechase (anyone who was Elmer Gray Stadium will remember that) and had to take a medical redshirt outdoors. When Tessa is healthy, she is very good. She placed 21st in the WAC XC meet in 2021 (4th best freshman in the field). If she is healthy, she will run #1 and she will lift all of the other returnees. Due to the redshirt year last year, Tessa is still a sophomore in XC.

Newcomers: ACU will have 3, possibly 4, incoming freshmen. None of them are scholarship kids, but there is some potential:

-Autumn Smith - Wink - went to 2A state meet in XC all 4 years of HS. Went to T&F state in both her soph and junior year. She was the dominant runner among 2A runners in west Texas, but this will be the first time she has been able to train with runners who will challenge her each day. She will be at a decided disadvantage because in Texas the 1A through 4A schools compete at the 3200 meter distance -- a big jump up to the 6K distance in college. Still, very interesting prospect who should run in the top-7 all year and could break into the top-5.

-Hadley Phillips - China Spring - she qualified for the 4A state XC meet three times -- the highest placed being 59th as a junior. She just missed going to state 2 years in a row -- getting 3rd in her regional meet in the 1600 as a junior and 3rd in her regional meet in the 3200 as a senior. Should compete for the top-7.

-Kyla Fuller - Montgomery - finished 12th in the District 12-5A XC meet. She also qualified for the Region III-5A XC meet as a junior. Running for a 5A school, she has the advantage of competing at the 5K distance in HS, which make a transition to the collegiate 6k distance easier.

-Isabelle Malo - San Antonio Health Careers - she is the uncertain one, since she has been fighting an injury from HS days and it is not certain if she will even try to run this year. She has not been able to run since her HS junior year due to injury. BUT, they are hoping that she might be able to start training early in the school year. Why is this important to get as many as possible on the roster as possible? I will address that in the men's preview.

So, if you are doing your math, you see that the ACU roster will be 1 junior, 5 sophomores, and 3-or-4 freshmen. There are probably only 4 of these 9-to-10 who are on scholarship. This will be a year where Coach M gets to show off his developmental skills. Several of the sophs are capable of having breakout seasons -- top 15 at conference kind of years. The WAC is a tough XC conference -- CBU and UVU are elite XC teams -- both had runners score points at outdoor nationals in distance events. Southern Utah is very close to being an elite program. I think this year we will have to be content with ACU fighting hard to finish in the top-half of an 11-team conference.

ACU XC MEN - last year was terribly disappointing for the men as well, finishing in 9th, but only a few points out of 6th. A big problem last year was that both Kevin Kipkosgei and Denis Lagat ended up not running XC at all, due to nagging injuries. Then, they graduated at midterm and were no longer available for track season. That is a large portion of scholarship money that did not compete. I did some number crunching and if Kevin and Denis has run and placed 20th and 25th respectively -- something they should be capable of doing - ACU finishes 4th. The leader last year was undoubtedly Levi Chambers - who improved during his career to the point that he was All-Conference last year in XC (top 15 are all-conference and he was 15th). Unfortunately, he has completed his XC eligibility, although he still has an indoor and outdoor track season to compete.

Returnees: Maxwel Kiplagat - senior (38th at WAC, an improvement over from 52nd the previous year/#2 for ACU - Maxwel only has XC left, he will graduate at midterm); Neal Helgerson - junior (44th in WAC last year, up from 92nd in 2021/#3 for ACU); Jacob Russell- soph (58th at the WAC/#4 for ACU - started the year as a walkon redshirt, but had his redshirt removed due to injuries to Kevin and Denis -- Jacob did a very credible job); Kevin Castruita - junior (69th at WAC, an improvement from 82nd in 2021, when he ran for Chicago St/#5 for ACU -- Kevin improved dramatically on the track, getting 4th in the 10K and that should bode well for XC); Gabe Embree - senior (79th in 2022, after getting 60th in 2021/#6 for ACU); Samuel Lanham - soph (86th at WAC XC/#7 for ACU -- another walkon who started the year as a redshirt, but was pressed into action after injuries: O'Brien Verdin - senior (63rd in WAC in 2021, but injured early in the 2022 season and did not compete at conference); and Keaton Raney - sophomore (more of an 800 runner, DNC compete at WAC conference).

Redshirts - Garrison Shindler - RS sophomore (ran well on the track in 2022 in the 800, but had to take a medical redshirt all last year - XC, Indoor T&F and outdoor T&F - while he is more of a 800 guy, he has gotten much stronger in the past year and should be able to compete in XC as well); John (JP) Trook - RS freshman - saw big improvement on the track last year abd ran the 800 at the WAC outdoor meet; and Noah Jones -- RS freshman - a 400/800 guy in college, still trying to adjust to the 8k/10k in college XC.

Newcomer -- one new guy this year, Zach Martin from McKinney Boyd - solid distance runner, who placed 46th at the 6A XC meet. Ran a 15:33 last year in the 5K on the XC course (at the Dallas Jesuit meet) and that put him in the top-100 in Texas. Good prospect -- should run the year in the top-7 and possibly even the top-5.

So, this team returns #2-#7 from last year's - Kiplagat, Helgerson, Russell, Castuita, Embree, Lanham and 2 returnees who will fight for a top-7 spot (Verdin and Shindler), plus a solid freshman. Coach M will get a real chance with the men's team to show his developmental skills.

And, I referenced the numbers game when it comes to meeting Title IX roster sizes. Right now, ACU has 14 on the roster for the men and 9 (could expand to 10) for the women. The men's roster won't be any larger than the women's roster -- so you will see several (4?, 5?) on the men's roster that will be listed as redshirts -- redshirted not because of a desire to keep them at ACU for an extra year, but rather to meet the Title IX roster mandates. An interesting conundrum for coaches in all NCAA sports that have both a men's and women's team.