With its first meet over three weeks ago, the Illinois State track and field teams will be looking to get back into competition mode in 2003 as both the mens and womens teams travel to Muncie, Ind., to compete in the Ball State Open on Saturday, Jan. 11.
Eight teams will be competing in the meet including host Ball State, Butler, IPFW, Lindenwood, Louisville, Toledo and University of Indianapolis. As the second indoor meet of the season for the Birds, ISU will be looking to capitalize on its twenty first-place finishes accomplished at the Early Bird Invite on Dec. 6.
First year head coach Elvis Forde was surprised when his team returned to campus on Wednesday after the Christmas break, saying his athletes were in better condition than he expected.
I am excited about our kids returning to school and the nice thing about the whole process is they are back in better condition and shape then we expected, Forde said. That is a plus for our staff. We will now just try and pick up from where we left off at the end of the fall semester.
Our kids realize that in order to be successful, a lot of the responsibility falls on their shoulders in terms of taking care of themselves, staying active, healthy and fit, Forde continued. Not so much doing the technical stuff, just being fit enough to have something to work with after a break and not having to start at zero was a plus coming back and starting this year.
Forde knows the meet will be a challenge even though his team only got in six practices before returning to competition. But his goals for the weekend are not to win the whole meet, but to mold a competitive frame of mind into his athletes.
Our goals for the weekend are very simple, Forde said. We just want to bring back the frame of mind of competition and fend off the injury bug. They (student-athletes) may not be close to competition bests and we are not looking forward to that, but we are looking forward to seeing what they are willing to do to achieve the level of competition from them we want as we go through the year. It will be a slow process, but this weekend will be a good start to make evaluations and see things we need to work on to enhance the performance of our athletes.
Field competition starts at 10 a.m. Saturday while the running events begin at 1 p.m.
