http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_sports?id=161274721(Count how mnay 16th place, 11th place and 12th place finishes you can find - at these BS meets!)
Coach Ashwin Creed brought this up to me last year and I brushed it off and didn't pay much attention to it, but after reading this tonight it struck me again....Indoor NCAAs are about a month away, and we have one maybe 2 athletes TOTAL in US schools who are running decent times.
An article like this one in the Express shows an almost total, across the board failure of the US system to develop any of our talent....how many athletes factored into outdoor NCAAs last year? ONE! Rhonda Watkins who won NCAAs - in the long jump! No TNT athlete was any real threat to win anything on the track last year.....NOT ONE!
and if you think that is pure opinion, consider recent history -
Kelly-Ann Baptiste, who has stagnated/regressed at LSU, or the 3 we had at Auburn (3 of our best young talents, ever!) Brown, Burns and Fana Ashby who did not develop as expected, Brown eventually having to leave, Ashby ending up in the scrap heap, Burns is now close to being only a lane-filler.
Something is happening to our talent that is not happening to other countries' and no-one, myself included, is able to figure it out...A Bahamian basketballer with zero experience walked on to a college team for the high jump and in 2 years is now world champion - Jamaica as usual churns them out every year winning the NCAA mens 400, womens 200 and a lot in between .....Jamaica even got silver in the decathlon last year at worlds!
Are our athletes getting too comfortable under their nice fat scholarships? are they not being coached properly? Are they being over-worked/over raced as has been suggested - if so why does Jamaica and other islands seem to be doing so much better....is it because the Jamaicans are used to meets every week, so the US system isn't quite that much of a step up in output? Or is that just because they have more athletes in the system, that it seems that way....
THE question becomes - do we need to set up a system ala Asafa Powell where a talented TRACK athlete does not have to leave TNT and can stay at home and train at a HIGH PERFORMANCE centre locally, compete regionally and be sponsored by the corporate community/gov't
Will that even work? What if that is put in place and under-used, or does not work?? Then what?
Really want some insightful feedback from you all please, maybe I am too close to it or too emotionally involved to see properly...
P.S if u think is joke read this part of the article again and tell me if you notice anything about these results, 'cuz I did...
Trinidad and Tobago's Sheron Mark was twice in winners' row at the Syracuse Invitational, in New York, USA, on the weekend. The Syracuse University student won the women's triple jump with a 12.57 metres effort and the long jump with a 5.94m leap.
At the Titan Open, in Illinois, Lindenwood University's Kevin Huggins cleared the bar at 2.06m to top the men's high jump field. Huggins also competed in the long jump, finishing 11th with a 5.80m effort.