Spring Sports Media Day | Track & Field
Feb. 8, 2016
University Park, Pa. (Bryce Jordan Center)
John Gondak, Penn State head coach
Opening statement:
We're off to a great start this indoor season, we just had our Sykes & Sabock Challenge Cup meet at the Ashenfelter III indoor track where it was our first scored meet of the year. We finished on top, both the men's and women's teams, it's the second year in a row that we've swept that competition so I'm excited about that. When you look at the performances that we've been this year as a program so far I'm very pleased our programs are rounding out well with all event areas, sprinters, jumpers, throwers, middle distance runners, and distance runners all having a phenomenal season so far, so I'm excited for the Big Ten indoor championships here in two weeks and then moving on into the outdoor season after that.
Q: Coach you've had several school records broken this year can you talk a little about a few of those?
A: (Coach Gondak) We started things off right away with an outstanding Xavier Smith who last year as a freshman did some great things but then came back this year on a mission and set our 60-meter school record and then broke it again the next weekend so really adding some depth in the sprints for us. He's got the No. 1 time in the Big Ten right now for the 60-meter dash. Malik Moffett came back and just missed out 200-meter school record by .04, running 21.02, the top time in the Big Ten right now. One of the exciting events that we've been having this year so far is our women's pole vaulters. Lexi Masterson has broken the school record twice now this year. Last weekend Hannah Mulhern beat her at a bar and was the school record holder for about five minutes until Lexi came back at that bar and matched her, then Lexi went on to go ahead and get our school record in that event. We've had some other outstanding performances this year; Brannon Kidder set the collegiate record in the 1000-meter run which is an event that Penn State has had a lot of tradition in. Robby Creese was the American collegiate record holder in that event, it was taken away from him so to speak by Rich Peters from Boston University a few years back so Brannon brought that overall record back home for us and I'm excited about that for us. Like I said, just really pleased with the depth we have with our program so far and everything that been going on.
Q: Coach this year you added two new track coaches, can you talk a little about who they are and what they bring to the program?
A: (Coach Gondak) Erin Tucker has joined us as our Associate Head Coach, he came to us from the University of Florida, and the University of Kentucky prior to that, so he brings a great deal of knowledge of the sprinting events. He was an All-American hurdler himself and has really done a good job with our sprint crew this year and have them performing at a level that is above where they were last year so I'm very pleased with that and the progress that they're making and having Erin on staff; he did a great job recruiting this fall as well.
Angela Reckart came to us from North Carolina and brings a great knowledge of recruiting and middle distance and distance running. You could tell she was a great help right away with our women, winning the Big Ten Championships in the fall in cross country. So, two great additions to our staff that im pleased to have here at Penn State.
Q: (For Lauren Kenney and Wade Endress) In terms of competing in front of such great crowds what that been like this past month of the indoor season, can you talk about what that support has been like with the number of people who have been able to catch meets?
A: (Wade Endress) For me it's home, I'm from Altoona, so 35-40 minutes away; I've been competing at this indoor track for my entire track career, and being here, the amount of alumni that come back to support is amazing. They always sit together, our guys and girls and their families usually sit together. So even when the clerk is signaling you to go around to line up to start, just that slow jog to walk over to the starting line is pretty humbling because you have the entire crowd there cheering you on and yelling your name and our guys line the track and they stick their hands up and hi-five and all so it's really nice and we're very fortunate to run at home because a lot of our performances come early and we can get them out of the way.
(Lauren Kenney) Same thing for me, I don't necessarily compete indoors but just being from State College and being around the indoor meets just seeing all the people coming in from the community coming in and showing support for Penn State and for the local kids on the team is awesome to see.
(Coach Gondak) That was a little hard of a question for Lauren, she's a javelin thrower for our program, a multiple time all-American in that event coming back for a fifth-year this year, wade is obviously a middle-distance and distance runner and back for his fifth-year as well so he has a little more experience on the indoor track than Lauren has; Both are captains for the program, I think its really neat to see district-6 here - our local high school district - producing outstanding talent. We have a handful of athletes in our program that are from the local area that are just doing a phenomenal job with our team and I think its neat to see local products are coming here to Penn State and doing a great job.
Q: Coach could you talk about some of your key freshman this year?
A: (Coach Gondak) one of the obviously outstanding freshmen that come in and made an impact on the men's side is Isaiah Harris. Isaiah is from Maine, we found out about his kind of reading a little bit. Maine doesn't have much of an outdoor track season just because of the weather. He was an individual who put up some outstanding performances on a shortened season he didn't really get a chance to train all year and I thought if we could get him in here into our system here and start training through the fall and into the winter he could do some great things. In his fourth meet last weekend he ran 1:47.31 for the 800-meters which is currently ranked fifth in the country so I'm very pleased with Isaiah and his development and coming in and contributing right away.
On the women's side, she's a little bit more of a redshirt-freshman but Tessa Barrett sat out all last year and this is her freshman season on the track and she's PR'd in the mile and PR'd in the 3000-meters was an All-American in cross country this past fall helping lead our team to a 16th-place finish. She's going to be a significant contributor freshman wise on the track. Along with many others, the one thing I struggle with on these media days is we have 115 kids on the team and you know you're going to forget somebody when it comes to talking about this but we have some really good freshman sprinters on the team, Keianna Albury is someone who comes in with some great performances and is going to be a big difference for us along with some other. I'm really excited about the depth we have now.
Q: Coach you talked about bringing in some local talent, a couple State College High grads will be coming in next fall, what's the relationship been like between the Penn State program and the state college program?
A: (Coach Gondak) I think it's been outstanding. We traditionally have two or three State College kids come to our program every year and they've come in and done a wonderful job. It's not just state college, its Altoona High School, Mifflin County, a lot of the local area, we have a young man in from down in Huntingdon who's a freshman. They've come in and maybe they don't have the competition that you might have in the Philadelphia area or the Pittsburgh area so their marks might not stand out like some of the other people from the east and west sides of the state but you can watch them compete and know they have the tool to be successful both academically and athletically here and once they get into the program and get a few years of development under their belt they take off and have outstanding careers. It's important to me not only to recruit in Pennsylvania but also to recruit our athletes from home here as well.
Q: Wade where do you think the team is heading into the final push here leading into the post-season of indoor?
A: (Wade Endress) I think we're in a fantastic spot moving forward having these home competitions its nice to be able to sleeping your own bed at night and get up and get the performances out of the way. Going down the Big Ten performance list its Penn State one after another, you can look at each individual event and we have people represented. We've had a lot of talented teams in the past, I know my sophomore year here we were third at the Big Ten indoor championships and came within three points of winning that title and this team is as talented as that team of not more. We just seem to be getting the job done on all levels and I'm very excited for the end of February.
Q: Coach where do you think, just on both sides men's and women's, where do you think you are in the process of getting to the point where you want to be heading into the post-season.
A: (Coach Gondak) I'm very pleased with the process. As Wade said it's very nice to be at home, you can kind of control the competitions and enter people and get them in where you believe they're ready to compete whereas when you get on the road sometimes you're at the mercy of their meet director and them putting the competition together. As Wade said, you look down the Big Ten performance list and across the board at events that we traditionally haven't had people represented in at a conference final we're out there with the top marks in this and the top marks in that and it's going to be a battle, on the men's side Nebraska and Michigan and Indiana look very good right now, and on the women's side it looks like itll be Michigan, Purdue and us. It'll be a three or four team race of who is ready to go when we compete at the spire center here in two weeks. That's been our theme of the indoor season, its about competition and making sure that you don't get so caught up with running a time, you have to learn to beat people. Because when it's a preliminary round and its top three advance to the final it doesn't matter how fast or how slow you've run you have to be in that top three and the team has been doing a wonderful job of doing that this year and I'm really excited about the next couple weeks and heading into outdoor we get to bring out javelin throwers back into the mix which is an event that we've traditionally done very very well with. We have a handful of fifth year seniors on the men's side that don't have indoor eligibility that have outdoor eligibility, people who have been at the national championships like Robby Creese and Brian Leap who when you put them into the mix out team just gets event that much stronger so I'm very excited, the plan so far has been working this season and in three weeks it'll be a lot of fun I think.
Q: Lauren what type of thing do you do during this time of year that help you to stay sharp?
A: (Lauren Kenney) This time of year mostly just a lot of strength training, a little bit of Javelin throwing, we try to get into Holuba Hall so that we can throw full throws and sort of see how they're going we do that about once a week. Occasionally we'll do some gymnastics or some swimming just to change things up and keep it interesting but this time of year we're getting kid of antsy to get outside and get competing.