As a proud Minnesotan and someone who enjoys all seasons, this winter storm has pushed me to the edge. I can handle the lack of snow impacting my skiing as long as it means we have an early start to outdoor track meets.
With the winter storm last week, I told my Coaching Methods class to make informed decisions if you decide to coach after college. Don’t simply choose the sport you love or the one you saw the most success. My advice was to choose a sport with a short season (track has the longest competitive season of any sport) and to choose based on weather. Ideally, choose a fall sport as weather disruptions happen less often. Better yet, choose an indoor sport in the fall: you rarely need to change travel plans due to weather and never have to worry about rain or snow during the matches. As a result, I will be transitioning to volleyball very soon!
Our first home meet of the year, named the Optimistic Invitational, was scheduled for March 28th. The meet was officially canceled after the snow. Over the last three years, we have canceled four of the last five outdoor meets we planned to host. I guess this is simply averaging out our home meets from 2021 when we needed to host nearly every weekend due to covid restrictions. That year, we hosted four indoor meets and four outdoor meets.
Hopefully our next home meet will be safe. We are hosting on April 20th and are encouraging alumni to attend that meet. As always, any alumni are welcome to compete.
Jeremy
BTW: I didn’t have a chance to write an update after the National Division III Championships. Kevin finished 15th in the 60 meter dash and earned 2nd Team All-American status. While Kevin was disappointed with his Nationals performance, he had a great indoor season with tremendous improvement to qualify for the Championship meet.