By Jared Fields, Editor in Chief
The goal for the Wildcats this weekend at the J. D. Martin Invitational in Norman, Okla., is simply to qualify more people.
Head coach Don Hood said he wants his men’s and women’s teams to fill holes in the automatic qualifiers list and start checking off athletes for a ticket to Mankato, Minn., for the NCAA Division II Indoor Championships.
“In the past we’ve been desperate to qualify in whatever we could,” Hood said.
Now, Hood said he feels his athletes can confidently enter a meet and qualify in the events they enter.
“The team has a higher level of confidence than any I’ve been around at any level,” Hood said. “The key is keeping healthy and not over training.”
That’s high praise considering Hood’s previous jobs at Texas Tech and Texas State where he coached eight total all-Americans and helped lead the Texas Tech men to a 2005 Big 12 outdoor team championship.
Hood hopes his teams’ talent and confidence will translate into early qualifying bids that will make health issues almost non-existent.
One example is the women’s 4×400-meter relay team. They qualified with a time more than four seconds better than the next team in the nation last weekend at the Texas Tech Invitational. Two other women – Keva Wilkins and Azraa Rounds – automatically qualified in the 400 meters. Hood said the pressure is off those qualifiers- and it’s what he wants
for the rest of his team.
“The training can be a little more intense,” Hood said.
Instead of continuing to work on qualifying indoors, the women can concentrate on getting in better shape for the long term.
“I think the other huge benefit is that it showed them that all the hard work is working,” Hood said. “It’s the most confident and aggressive women’s team I’ve been with ever.”
As for the men’s team, dreams of the elusive “triple crown” continue to motivate their season.
But for them, dreams of becoming the only other school in history besides Arkansas to accomplish the feat aren’t enough. The men’s team wears a purple wristband with the words, “Triple Crown” printed around it.
“Every guy on the team has one,” said Shawn Hughlet, who last weekend anchored the 4×400 meter relay. “Every time we look at it we want to work hard and we want to be the first team
in [Division II] to win.”
