Cat-Griz dual on a blustery and absurd day

[Gidal Kaiser]

http://bozeman-www2.bozemandailychronic ... og/?p=3428 Fun times

[Billings Cat]

Isn't any day spent watching track and field absurd? Spring is about baseball and softball, and not mindlessly running around in circles...flame away...

[mchammer]

I'll bite. What's absurd is the expectation that viewers here will flame in response.

Mike Carignan

[grizzh8r]

I'll bite. What's absurd is the expectation that viewers here will flame in response.

Mike Carignan

I found BC's comment a little on the snide side... Granted, I've never watched a track meet before - spring is just a really busy time of year. I'd like to be able to see one sometime, just never had the opportunity.

[Billings Cat]

I'll bite. What's absurd is the expectation that viewers here will flame in response.

Mike Carignan

I found BC's comment a little on the snide side... Granted, I've never watched a track meet before - spring is just a really busy time of year. I'd like to be able to see one sometime, just never had the opportunity.

Yes, it was snide, but also a bit tongue in cheek. I can appreciate the athleticsim on display, but I just don't find the lack of strategy in most events, with the exception of some of the long distance races, very compelling. And that's from the youth all the way up to the Olympic level. In the spring, give me baseball, softball, tennis, and golf all before track & field.

[rollo_tumasi]

What other sport do compete at 100% of your max at all times! Who can run the fastest, or jump the highest or furthest, or throw the furthest. Its the most pure athletic contest. The mental toughness it takes to compete one on one is not something you can find in many team sports, and I bet you will find some of the best "athletes" in the state of Montana in team sports have gained a lot of their toughness from the sport of Track & Field. I know of several very successful Team Sport coaches who enforce Track as an off season program over even their own open gyms or club teams.

[SonomaCat]

Isn't any day spent watching track and field absurd? Spring is about baseball and softball, and not mindlessly running around in circles...flame away...

The most entertaining sporting event I've ever attended was a track and field meet (U.S. Olympic Trials).

[whitetrashgriz]

What other sport do compete at 100% of your max at all times! Who can run the fastest, or jump the highest or furthest, or throw the furthest. Its the most pure athletic contest. The mental toughness it takes to compete one on one is not something you can find in many team sports, and I bet you will find some of the best "athletes" in the state of Montana in team sports have gained a lot of their toughness from the sport of Track & Field. I know of several very successful Team Sport coaches who enforce Track as an off season program over even their own open gyms or club teams.

to be fair, billingscat commented on WATCHING track and not competing in track. i think you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who can't appreciate the athleticism and endurance of track athletes. however, how many on this board regularly attend track meets? how 'bout even one a season? before we're quick to jump all over a guy for saying out lous what many of us think...let's slow down. i'd be willing to bet that near no one on this board attends track events. i'll go a step farther and say that i bet almost no one in bozeman even knew that the cats and griz were going head to head. unless you're an avid track supporter, and attend all the meets, i don't think anyone has much room to talk. i appreciate all of our athletes, but i am also one of those guys who have never been to a meet before. stumbled on an indoor meet once and stuck around for a little while but that's it. and it's not that i have anything against these athletes. it's just not my cup of tea, and their attendance as well as the participation on this board suggest that it's not many of yours either. there is a reason there is one board for track, golf, skiing, volleyball, tennis, and cross country.

[CPACAT]

One of the best contests between athletes I've ever seen was the Triple Jump at I believe that 1983 or 1984 Northern B divisional in Great Falls. Harry Clark from Cascade and Tim Schmidt from Shelby went back and forth breaking the divisional about 5 or 6 times that day. I will tell you that if you have the chance to spend the day in the sun watching a track meet with some superior athletes you will enjoy yourself. Way better than watching golf. In my opinion it can be as good or better than baseball depending on the athletes performing.

[mchammer]

So no flaming, and you won't get any from me either. I understand that we're all drawn to different sports for different reasons. It wasn't the roar of the crowd that drew me to track and field. To call a Bobcat sport "mindless" is going beyond tongue and cheek, and to say that track and field lacks strategy shows a lack of knowledge about the sport. It doesn't compare to football in that regard, but I wouldn't put it second to baseball. It's a different kind of strategy of course. For example, we could have entered Harry Clark in the decathlon and several individual events at conference in '89. That would have been a high risk strategy, dependent on his durability and the strength of the other teams in each of these events. But instead he was allowed to concentrate on his strongest events and team relays, avoid exhaustion and injury, and perform well at NCAA's in the decathlon. This worked well because we had another strong decathlete, and there were other factors involved in this one decision. There were several other decisions to be made for that championship that affected our final score. This scenario doesn't compare directly to anything in baseball or other sports because track and field is not like any other sport. Ellie Rudy would not have won NCAA's twice in the vault if she had used the wrong pole, entered at the lower heights, or made other choices that were inappropriately conservative or risky. Her coach applied the right strategy for her, given the competitive field. Pole choice alone is a head game. But if you don't know the sport you won't pick up on any of this. Without an object ball/goal/territorial struggle and 2 1/2 event duration track and field will never be a great fan sport. Our struggle is mostly about extending athletic ability. The calling is to participate, not spectate.