Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines: NCAA Championships

This is one of my favorite meets every year. Tons of team energy on the track. And it's starting an insane few months for me; NCAAs, Outdoor Nationals, World Championships. 

Where to begin? Maybe in SeaTac's Delta Sky Lounge for breakfast before my flight. 

Fly to Bend, see my mom, then jump in the car and head to Eugene.

First stop: swag pick up. Then a nice dinner at Beppe’s. Then to the hotel, where my officiating roommate is already asleep. Ever try to unpack in the dark? Thank goodness for iPhone flashlights.

Because the meet starts on Wednesday, I have to continue my 5:30 AM meetings with Copenhagen. So I’m the first one in the lobby near the breakfast bar every morning. Today my coffee buddy is Vin Lananna, the former head coach at Oregon, now running the Virginia program. He’s also the one who was instrumental in bringing the Olympic trials to Eugene as well as the World Championships that will be held in July. I guess I should buy him a cup.

But the hotel lobby has intermittent WiFi, so I find an office with a better signal. 

Wednesday and Thursday are preliminaries before the Friday and Saturday finals. Getting ready...

Two of us umpires evidently shop at the same store...

The men’s 10,000 was professional wrestling: bodies flying everywhere! The eventual winner took a tumble into the infield, then got up and stole the race. Meanwhile a Stanford kid emerged from the pack with blood all over his face and jersey. No malfeasance; guessing the kid has a chronic bloody nose. I figured nothing bad happened when he finished the race and started joking with his coach at the finish line.

Georgia track stud Matt Boling, 2nd in the 200m final. 

I see a familiar name in the women’s poll vault: Tommi Hintnaus. Has to be the progeny of Tom Hintnaus, who has two claims to fame. One is that he was a world-class pole vaulter back in the 80s. Secondly, he was a fairly famous model for Calvin Klein back in the day as well.

My first visit to world famous track town Pizza did not disappoint.

I was treated to a world class mansplain during the women’s 100 m semis. A guy was in the stands behind me, next to a university of Kentucky female team administrator. Kentucky’s Abby Steiner is one of the best sprinters in college today, but the guy in the stands felt it necessary to tell me and the Kentucky administrator that Abby‘s arm swing is improper and needs to be fixed. I believe the administrator and I both rolled her eyes at the same time in perfect unison. Abby went on to take third place in the hundred final, and she won the 200 in an NCAA record time, and also the worlds best time in 2022. Her arm swing looked just fine to me.

Found out more about the Stanford kid with the bloody nose: he actually blew a snot rocket voluntarily, and he caused the eruption that way! Yikes.

World class dinner: carbonara and lamb risotto leftovers. 

In the men’s 4 x 100 final, Florida’s Joseph Fahnbulleh (Fan Boy)  starts the anchor leg probably 6 yards down, and barely misses out on the win. The man has some wheels. Later he wins the open 100m, and just before the 200m his coach yells out, “just like the 100, baby boy!” Yep, same result. 

With only one event to go, Princeton is ahead of North Carolina A&T, proving an imbalance in the universe.

In the women’s 5000, a Florida runner is threatening to steal the race. Florida won the men’s title yesterday, the team is doing very well in the women’s competition,  they specialize in the shorter events, and now they have a distance runner about to score high as well? This is unfair.

One of the starters mentioned that a women’s high hurdler seemed to be cheating with her lead leg outside the boundary of her lane. She ended up finishing seventh or eighth, prompting the starter to say, “God always gets the bad guys.” I couldn’t stop laughing.

Florida's Anna Hall places a whuppin' on the heptathlon field. She also runs the 400 hurdles in between, scoring about 95 points by herself. 

Video replay is pretty cool...a protest costs $100, and the camera don't lie. 

My man Chuck, who had great wheels back in the day...now, he runs an OR like a boss. And his kids are track studs, too. 

ESPN anchor and MC John Anderson

This is a pretty good idea...

Down the hall in the hotel....Nilla Wafers? I wanna party with you, Cowboy. 

Great vantage point before the final day starts...

My good deed for the meet...daughter of a friend is a budding discus star in high school, so I find Olympic Gold Medalist Valarie Allman who records this little diddy....

Evidently Sophie welled up with tears. Who wouldn't?

Back In Bend, I see my lovely and accomplished daughter, who is now managing the company store. A much older employee is overheard saying to her, "well, I'm not sure, but since you're in charge..." Makes a dad's heart swell. 

My yard is more green, after some unexpected rain stuff (Bend has 300 sunny days a year...not to mention the only remaining Blockbuster on Earth). 

College buddy Ken is on a serious road trip from Charlotte. I met this guy on our second day at Annapolis in July 1983. His van is a work of art. 

Hot tub prep is so important...

And a nice lox sandwich before the flight home. 

Great trip....hopefully, a precursor of things to come. Someone please let me know if the TV is catching my good side, because I have a bunch more air time coming from Eugene in the next month.  

Onward!