Big 12 Outdoor Quotes - Men's Team Champion

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Colorado Head Coach Mark Wetmore

 

On The Possibility Of Exceeding Expectations

“I try to avoid expectations, but definitely aspirations (were) exceeded.”

 

On What It Means To Win A Track Title After All Of The Cross Country Titles

“We had a few guys step up across the board, James Begley in the throws, Jeremy (Dodson) in the sprints?too many people to name.  Before the meet I said our only chance is if we have a complete team coming here.  We knew we would get a lot of distance points, but we wouldn’t have won without the distance points.  Also, before the meet I asked the team to just do what you did get here, you don’t need to run, jump or throw out of your heads.  But they over ruled me and they run, jumped and threw right over their heads.”

 

On Hosting The Big 12 Championships

“Honestly, this wasn’t our year (to host) this was Kansas’ year.  We put a bid in for it when it came up, so I guess it looks like we loaded it up to do great at home, but we didn’t even know we had it until two years ago.  It was happenstance that all of these kids came together like they did today.  But there was no master plan.”

 

On How Things Came Together

“I’m afraid I’ve used up my luck for the rest of my life.  Not only did the team do everything they possibly could, everything turned out here so well.  So many people contributed...people that I can’t even name?I would come here and look at something and say ?where did that come from?’ and it was somebody that I don’t even know. My opponents have come up to me and said how welcomed they felt and how enthusiastic the crowd was, it was really an electric, special time.”

 

On His Performance In The Finals

“James Begley threw better than he ever has before to score in two different events (discuss and shot put), I think Jeremy Dodson ran PRs in the 100m and the 200m.  The relay, I think the 4x100m broke the school record and the 4x400m?kept saying ?is it (the meet) over, is it over? Do we have to run?’ and I said ?Oh, I don’t know’ because I thought they could still qualify for regionals and they ended up getting sixth and qualifying.  Just think of the work in Dodson’s legs over the weekend.  And then the people who didn’t score but had personal bests, all across the weekend was really magical.”

 

On The Status of Jenny Barringer

“Jenny is fine, first of all that is the nation’s leader in the steeplechase.  Jenny has had a couple of little interruptions, but nothing much.  She is okay, she’s 88 percent?we have three weeks to get her to 100 percent.  She is completely healthy, she just needs to catch up on a little bit of training.”

 

On How Much Pain Brent Vaughn Can Tolerate

“One hundred percent tolerance of pain is required to be a distance runner at Colorado.  He has the same as all of the other guys.”

 

On What He Told Brent Vaughn After He Missed Qualifying For The Finals In The 1500m

“I told him that he made some tactical mistakes, that he didn’t execute the plan that he discussed ahead of time?that it wasn’t a tragedy, we had a good day.  We knew he was going to contribute the next day (Sunday).  I patted him on the back, I’m not a big hugger, I’m not a big yeller, I just give them the facts and stick to business.  He actually went a little fast in the 5000m, he pulled it out a little harder than we planned for him.  I think he wanted to be a champion at home, and he really wanted to win this team thing.  He would give up his right hand to win the team (championship).

 

On What He Will Do To Celebrate

“I will go home and have a piece of key lime pie.”

 

On His Performance In The Finals

“Of course it’s unique; it has never happened before?but something that makes it even more special is the team-wide contribution.  We’re known as a cross country team, we’re known as a distance power house, but it is really critical that the team knows and the community knows that we would not have done this is we came in with just distance runners.  A track team is really quite fragmented until they come together at this meet.