Taylor Hobson had a great meet. The UCLA sophomore set personal bests in the high jump (7 feet, 1 inch; first place), long jump (25-2.5; second place) and triple jump (48-10.75; second place), and his long and high jump marks rank among the top 10 nationally. He couldn’t help but smile.
Even though Oregon’s Ashton Eaton bested him in the long jump with a 25-foot, eight-inch leap a couple minutes after his lifetime best. Even though his Bruins, considered favorites entering their dual meet with the men of Oregon, lost the meet in the final event of the night, 84-79.
“I love it. I hope we can come back again next year,” Hobson said. “I know they have a two-year contract, but hopefully they can do it. It’s just a whole different atmosphere. I love it.”
The Hayward crowd was at its Saturday best for the dual meet; loud, supportive and unwavering. The UCLA athletes felt more than welcome.
“I knew the crowd was going to be on both sides, but for them to be that into it for both teams, it just felt great,” Hobson said. “That actually did surprise me a lot.”
The crowd for the UCLA dual meet was electric. From Bowerman’s Pack to the season-ticket holders, everyone was on the edge of their seats for a meet that turned into a true thriller: Tie score, one event remaining, a 4x400m relay for all the marbles.
“The crowd was terrific coming down to the last event – that’s what you’d like to see in this meet,” associate director of track and field Dan Steele said. And he was right. After a timer malfunction led to a re-start, fans and Bruin athletes and supporters were digging into each other with chants, seriously upping the ante. When the Bruins dropped the baton, an audible gasp filled the stands and summed everything up perfectly.
And, of course, as Chad Barlow made his way around the Bowerman Curve and into the home stretch, the cheers picked up once again, this time for a Duck win.
It was enough to even make UCLA head coach Arturo Venegas smile. Both he and Oregon assistant athletic director Vin Lananna are looking to renew an agreement that brought the dual meet back for two years, resulting in two Oregon wins (the Ducks are 6-11 overall). The reason is simple: The 5,093 fans in attendance saw an amazing overall effort, and the athletes themselves took to the strict scoring format (163 total points up for grabs) very well.
“Art and I talked pretty extensively last night about it,” Lananna said after the meet. “We have to work out the logistics and see if we can make it work. We haven’t finalized it but I think they like coming here.
“We hope to have it finalized before the (Pacific-10 Conference Championships). We’ve already decided that both parties want it. It’s just a matter of figuring it out.”
Of course, that requires a lot of effort on both sides, from logistics to fine-tuning the athletes’ training schedules as need be. But I applaud Lananna and I urge him to keep working on the agreement. This meet or a variation of it could become a staple event for the Oregon track and field teams, just as the Pepsi Team Invitational, the Oregon Relays and the Oregon Twilight have become.
I would, however, like to see a tweak in the agreement: I would like to see Lananna arrange for a road meet, in Los Angeles, against the Bruins.
Lananna is an aggressive and brand-conscious promoter of Oregon track and field, and he certainly knows what he has in this dual meet. I feel as though it would serve Oregon’s interests if the Ducks made the trek down to Los Angeles for the first head-to-head meet against UCLA since 1976. Specifically, it would showcase the respect and history associated with the Oregon brand of track and field; in southern California, overflowing with athletic talent, Oregon would do well making an appearance as a big ticket in town.
Lananna cited the understandable economic concerns in his post-meet interview: Does this meet, he asked rhetorically, make sense for UCLA to come up here every year? I believe so. And I believe it makes just as much sense for Oregon to go on the road and compete as the Hayward Field crowd knows they can.
[email protected]