Maroon Sports Extra: Rest for the weary (and also the mildly injured)

In a perfect world, everything would fit into the newspaper.  In a perfect world, the newspaper would be able to print more than eight pages.  Until the world becomes perfect, Maroon City is going to try to make its sports coverage a little more perfect by filling you in on what should have gone in but didn’t.  Today, it’s Track & Field.

This feature may or may not work.  Since the blog has a much smaller staff than the newspaper (i.e. it’s pretty much me and Jordan), this feature will likely depend on what story the two of us are covering.  But, we’ll see how it works and what we can do to make it better.

Today’s Extra is a little bit weird because the entire story that should have gone into the paper didn’t, so really that whole thing could be in here.  But since I finished it with spacing concerns in mind and we posted that version on the Maroon website, we’ll just have to go with it.  You’ll probably want to check out that article before reading on.

Anywho, for today’s paper, I had some nice talks with second-year Moe Bahrani and third-year Arthur Baptist about the Chicago Duals and what’s going on with their roster.  Here are a couple of things that didn’t make it into the article but probably should have.

You know that old thing about not making excuses?  It started becoming a cliché hundreds of years ago, when King George reportedly didn’t make any excuses after losing the Revolutionary War.  But really, what isn’t a cliché these days?

Anyway, the men’s track team is doing its best to not make any excuses, and I thought Moe actually had a really good way of putting it: ”Every team has injuries. It’s not something where you can say, ‘Oh, we’re hurt.’ At the end of the day, no one cares.”

Pretty simple, but I thought that really captured the whole issue. When the Chicago Bears lost Brian Urlacher this year, the fans didn’t all of a sudden forgive them for being horrible.  That’s just the way it goes.

Fortunately, the men’s team is still ranked eighth in the country, and they’ve got a bunch of guys coming back.  Hopefully injury problems are a thing of the past come time for UAAs.

At the same time, though, it’s not necessarily injuries that are keeping these guys out right now.  Moe’s been keeping himself out because of a higher goal: He wants to dominate at the stacked Whitewater meet next weekend, so he’s pacing himself.  You should hear him talk about that race.

“I was the last guy out of nationals [for cross country], and so I went and talked to Coach Hall, and I told him I’m national caliber runner, and the only way I’m going make nationals is if I run the 5k at Whitewater…. So I sat down with Coach Hall and told him I really wanted to focus on that race because I think can hang with them, and he agreed.”

For Baptist, it’s more an issue of taking care of injuries to focus on performing well long-term (and maybe not with a single meet in mind).  He’s got outdoor nationals in mind, specifically, and it’s just tough to run at the level he wants to run at for two full seasons.  Last year that caught up with him, and he tore his hamstring, forcing him out of the outdoor season completely.  This year he’s easing into it to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

Another part of the story that I wish had gone into the article was Moe’s discussion of UAAs. That’s another thing where you can tell just by the tone of his voice how much he wants to avenge last year’s three-point loss.

“Last year with losing conference, it still bothers me. Last year we went into conference the heavy favorites; if we just did what we were supposed to do, we would have won easily…. I don’t know what everyone else’s mindset is, at least my mindset, the first thing I think of when I get to practice is we’ve got to win conference…. It should all come together. We’re not going to be the overwhelming favorites this year I don’t think, but that’s good for us. We need that motivation. We need to be the Emory of last year.”

The whole story got me thinking about why track (and cross country and probably swimming too) is a unique sport.  When you’re hurt, it doesn’t help the team to rush back or to compete injured.  You’re just not going to do as well as a healthy runner or thrower or swimmer.  In basketball, you can play through ankle injuries because quickness or lift aren’t the only parts of the game.  A jumpshot can make you valuable even if you’re slowed by injuries.  In running, that’s just not the case.  If you injure your ankle, you’re probably not going to win.  The sport doesn’t have much pity.

Was this interesting? Helpful? Worth the time?  Let us know your thoughts by commenting or emailing in at gomaroons@gmail.com.