How seriously have the Oregon track and field teams taken the 2009 indoor season? Consider Ashton Eaton’s holiday shopping as an example.
“For Christmas, I got my mom a plane ticket to indoor nationals,” the junior from Bend said, “so she gets to watch. I’m excited for that.”
The NCAA Indoor National Championships begin today and end Saturday at Texas A&M University in College Station, Tex. The Duck men enter the meet ranked No. 1 in the nation, while the women come in at No. 4. Historically, the indoor track season has not been a point of focus for Oregon; the men’s team has never finished higher than sixth at NCAAs (2005 and 2006) and the women’s team has never finished higher than 15th (2003).
But make no mistake: Oregon is in it to win it.
“Mentally, we don’t want to act like we’re gonna win it. It’s all about competing,” said Eaton, the top seed in the heptathlon and the holder of the second-best collegiate indoor heptathlon mark ever.
“This is the strongest team we’ve ever had going into an indoor championships,” said Dan Steele, associate director of track and field. “There’s nothing easy about this meet. We’re going against teams that have a lot of experience running indoors. We’re excited to be able to compete well with them.”
Oregon is sending 19 individuals and three relay teams to College Station, with eight individual competitors and the distance medley relay appearing for the men, and 11 individuals, the distance medley relay and the 4x400m relay for the women. The men have four of the top seeds in their events, while the highest women’s seed is senior Lindsey Scherf (third, women’s 5,000m).
Steele projected that the men would be in contention for the indoor team title with Arkansas and Florida State, while the women are expected to finish close to their current national ranking. Again, though, the coaches want the pressure off the athletes.
“It’s something that’s just really fun for us,” senior Galen Rupp said. “Outdoors, there’s maybe a little more pressure on us. This is a great opportunity for us to just help the program get bigger (and) build the Oregon name.”
Rupp’s indoor season has included the American indoor record in the 5,000m (13:18.12) and the American collegiate indoor record in the 3,000m (7:44.69) while breaking the four-minute barrier in the mile (in a school-record 3:57.86) for the first time in his career. He also set a personal best at the 800m and automatically qualified for the NCAAs in the 3,000m, 5,000m and the mile. Rupp has opted to compete in the first two; he is the top seed in both events.
“I’m just trying to score as many points (as I can),” Rupp said of his NCAA indoor goals. “Doubling, I’m gonna try and make it as easy on myself as possible.”
Steele believes that the Oregon coaching staff has, mentally and physically, set the Ducks up for success as well as helped them understand the NCAA indoor championships’ place in the grand scheme of the track and field season.
“I hope that we’ve done a good job with our kids in that, one, we expect that they’re going to do well, but, two, you can’t pay attention to the press and newspaper clippings, because they don’t really mean much,” Steele said.
“Our guys and women are very well-prepared, and I think the coaches have done a good job of putting it all in perspective.”
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