In the latest edition of Thompson Talks Track, Olympian and USF track alumni Kemel Thompson - who currently serves as the Director of the Bulls Varsity Club - breaks down the Bulls' performance throughout the 2008-09 season and what to expect from the team moving forward toward the 2009-10 season.
On the team's bright future:
Our track team is definitely improved. It's probably the strongest track team we've had in a while in terms of talent. Once we get past the freshmen blues here, I think we're going to be seeing some good performances.
I think the talent level has stepped up in terms of what we've recruited and what we had this year. Over the next couple of years, I fully expect to see several people from the school going to NCAA nationals. If they are high enough and they get into the All-America spots.
It's going to be impressive. The freshmen that we have, now they already have a year under their belt. The team's going to be rockin'. The new freshmen coming in that are already at BIG EAST point scoring levels - it could be a massive points swing next year in terms of the BIG EAST Championship. Massive.
On Glenn Fowler:
He had a magnificent season. He got a school record in the 110 hurdles, and he was the champion in the BIG EAST in the 400 hurdles. He just had a misfortune of hitting the hurdle in the wrong way, and that would have got us some big points in the men's 110. We are going to miss him in terms of points scoring.
On Casey Wagner:
She's had a solid performance season. I think Coach (Toby) Colyer's still going to be on her, because he thinks she can do a lot more. It's still amazing what she did this year.
On Jared Thomas:
He is going to be a force to contend with in the nation over the next couple years. He's a very gifted athlete in that event. We're going to see a big improvement from him over the next couple years.
On David Aristil:
I think David is a big talent. Last year he was kind of injured most of the season, so we didn't get to see the best from him, but even then he still ran a really good time in the 400 hurdles. I think he could be one to break the school record in the 400 hurdles next year. If you tidy him up a little bit, he could be somebody that could go to nationals and be an All-American. I'd be on the lookout for him.
On having Sean Young back:
Right then and there that's 10 points that we missed last year that we're getting back for the BIG EAST Championship next season. We really missed him there, and I think 10 points could have swung us up a little bit more in the men's ranking in the BIG EAST. So we'll be happy to have him back. He's a competitor.
On Greg Fontus:
He had a pretty good season. He'll improve next year as well just because he's got a solid year underneath him this year. I think he's a hard worker. He's got a good work ethic which rubs off on the other guys. I find him to be kind of a leader in a sense. He got a pretty good season with his times. He worked hard to get them, and that's what the kids kind of respond to. You see somebody who works hard and gets the rewards from their hard work. That's somebody you kind of have to look at as being a potential leader on the team.
On Dana Webb and Stephanie Duffy:
We've got two great pole vaulters, both of whom cleared 13 feet this year. They both went to regionals. You can't say enough about those two girls. They work hard, and they work very well together. For them to get to regionals as teammates and perform the way they did throughout the season as teammates together - when you have a teammate that can perform as good as you can or you guys are both at the same level, it just spurs you on to keep training hard, doing the right things and making sure you don't miss out on any part of the training, because you've always got somebody right there step-for-step with you. It's kind of good competition between them and that just makes them go higher.
On Errol Blackmon and Michael Kursteiner:
High jump was great this year with our two guys. I know Michael can jump seven feet and I think he's just got to tidy up his technique a little bit and he can get seven feet. That would really help in the BIG EAST Conference. He'll get over that seven-foot mark.
We're going to miss Errol. He jumped 7-1 and went to nationals. We're going to miss him in terms of points at BIG EAST as well. It just goes to show the improvements over the years. He didn't come in as the biggest talent, and right now on the team with the freshmen that we have, we've got some big talent. So it just goes to show that even though you may not come in with the big talent, over the years of working and chipping away and improving, you can make nationals. That's the pinnacle of what you can do in NCAA track and field, and he did it.
On Yvana Hepburn:
She was great. I think she was a leader on the team this year. The girls rallied around her. She's a very intelligent girl, a very smart girl. She ran well this year, but she's got some improvement that she can make to really break through. Her PR this year was 13.64 (100 hurdles). I could see her running faster than that. I could see her running 13.30, 13.20. I think this year was a breakthrough year for her. I think you'll see some more from her next year, just because I think she's got the hunger from this year and she'll train harder and work on her technique a little more. This year I would look to see her run 13.3 and qualify for nationals. I'd be on the lookout for that.
On Shaniel Chambers:
Last year she kind of had an up-and-down outdoor season, but she was really strong indoors. She is going to be the school record holder in the 800 meters at some point.
Right then and there we are already talking from the history of USF track and field, we're talking a couple athletes already that we have in place that are going to be breaking schools records, have broken school records and will continue to break school records.
On how the freshmen did:
We had a better season than we had in previous years, and we did it with a lot of freshmen on the team. That was really good. What we're really looking at is the growth that we are going to have over the next four years, and what it's going to be like with those freshmen really maturing and getting better in their events.
It's a big learning curve for freshmen when they come in. For example in distance, some kids run 20 miles a week or 30 miles a week in high school. But you come over to college and you have to put in 70 miles a week. It's a big jump. It's a big ask on the body, so it takes a season just to get used to those kind of distances and that kind of running. And that doesn't just go for cross country, that goes for all the events, because it's a bigger training volume, a bigger training load. So when you have a team of freshmen that can hang as well as they did in the BIG EAST with their first year, next year you should see some big improvements, because they'll already have that base.
On having freshmen go to junior nationals:
That just goes to show how young the team is and how good they are, that we had six people qualify for junior nationals, and four went. I don't think we've had four people go to junior nationals ever. It just goes to show the level that we've got in terms of recruits and freshmen right now is very high and what they can do. We've got people in place who are going to step up and be at NCAAs either next year or the year after.
On the improvement between indoor and outdoor:
We've always taken the philosophy here that you're still working on your background, so indoors, you kind of train through that phase and really focus on outdoors. Outdoors is a longer season and you can actually stretch that out into the summer if you are really performing well. With the freshmen, you haven't really run indoors unless you are on the AAU team. They don't really get that many races or cracks at indoors.
Indoors is a whole different beast, it's a whole different type of running. It actually takes a kind of technique to run properly indoors versus outdoors, because you really have to learn how to run on that surface. If you haven't run on it before, it takes you some time. That's why you kind of saw a big jump from indoors to outdoors, because indoors is such a difficult arena to perform in. Everybody's already done an outdoor season in high school or in college. Indoors is just a different surface, a different running technique, a different atmosphere.
On building depth:
The depth may not be there at the moment, but that's what we're improving on with our recruits that are coming in. Last year we didn't have the depth, but we had talent at the top end. This year we're working on getting the depth there. And that's what's going to bring us up in the BIG EAST.
Kemel Thompson, Director of the Bulls Varsity Club, is one of USF's most prolific track and field alumni. A native of Jamaica, Thompson was offered collegiate scholarships in both football and track and field before deciding to join the Bulls. A 400-meter hurdler, Thompson qualified for the 1996 NCAA Championships in the event and still holds the USF school record with a time of 50.50. Thompson competed in both the 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games for the Jamaican National Team - finishing 27th and ninth overall in the 400 hurdles, respectively. In 2003 he ascended to No. 2 in the world after a series of impressive runs.
The mission of the Varsity Club is to encourage past USF athletics members to be lifelong members of the USF Athletics family and to strengthen the bond between them, the University, and the department of intercollegiate athletics. The Bulls Varsity Club will strive to provide its members with the opportunity to foster and maintain relationships across different sports and generations thus promoting the interest and mission of the University of South Florida.
