For the first time since 1985, the Oregon men’s track and field team will be hosting a dual meet on Saturday at Hayward Field against UCLA. The two teams have met 14 times since 1966, with the Bruins winning 10 meets.
However, the dual meet has become a lost art of competition that some are hoping makes its way back into the collegiate atmosphere.
Oregon Track and Field Director Vin Lananna and UCLA head coach Art Venegas discussed the idea of the idea of their program competing in Eugene during last year’s Pacific-10 Conference Championships, cherishing the days when schools competed one-on-one and the point of the meet was to defeat the opposing school, rather than setting individual qualifying marks.
“(Venegas) was lamenting about the lack of interest in track and field in Los Angeles and I said, ‘Track and field is alive and well here in Eugene, Oregon,’” Lananna said.
The meet is hoping to garner more fan interest by quickening the pace of the meet and allowing spectators to have an easier time figuring out what’s going on. The heated atmosphere, where only two schools battle each other, hopes to draw fan interest.
“There’s just something about head-to-head competition that’s exciting for spectators and the athletes,” Oregon associate head coach Dan Steele said. “This is what made collegiate track and field great many years ago.”
The scoring system, too, will make the competition more dramatic. Only the top three finishers score points for their team. Five points will be awarded to first place, while second and third will receive three points and one, respectively. In the relays, the winner will be awarded five points and the loser nothing.
“A dual meet is a lot harder when it comes to scoring,” senior sprinter Phil Alexander said.
It makes everyone’s performance that much more important. Steele said the difference in the meet will come down to which school is getting those third-place finishes, though both he and Lananna expect the meet’s winner to be determined in the 4×400 meter relay, the last event of the day.
Steele said it will be a fun environment for the athletes, who will load up on events trying to score points like they did in their high school meets.
“A guy like (decathlete) Ashton Eaton – we’d like to run him in eight or nine events,” Steele joked. “But really, he has the potential to do five events in a meet like this. But because (the time between events is) so tight, you really don’t want to kill the kid. He’ll probably do four events. It’ll be a light day for him.”
There won’t be pressure put on Oregon’s athletes to set personal records, but to beat the guy in the lane next to them. Lananna hopes that these kind of meets will have universal appeal to spectators who don’t typically focus on track meets.
“Anyone can appreciate one against one,” Lananna said.
As dual meets are trying to re-enter the college landscape, rivalries between track programs may have cooled a bit but that doesn’t mean any Oregon athlete is looking at this like any other meet they’ve been in. They want to experience the type of atmosphere that’s associated with nearly every other sport.
“We’ve got a friendly rivalry… but we still want Art to go home crying,” Steele said.
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