February 10, 1999
Columbia, Mo. - Coming up on Saturday, the Missouri Track & Field team will host the 1999 All-Comers meet at the Hearnes Fieldhouse. The meet is open to all who feel they can participate and admission to the event to free, there is a $5 registration fee for those participating. Open registration begins at 8 am Saturday morning in the Hearnes Fieldhouse. Registration for the 5000m, 55m Hurdles, 55m Dash must be completed by 8:30am and registration for the mile run, 400m Dash, 800m Run, 200m Dash, 3000m Run, and 4x400m Relay must be completed by 11:00am.
The Missouri team is coming off a strong showing at the very competetive Cyclone Invitational held last Friday and Saturday in Ames, Iowa. MU runners Derrick Peterson and Ashley Wysong provisionally qualified for the NCAA Championships in the men's and women's 800m race at the event, as did the men's 4x400m relay team of Peterson, Kristian Fagerland, Thomas Woods, and Chad Shade.
This Saturday's meet will also be the final home event for the Tiger's during the indoor season. Following this weekend's action Missouri's athletes will take part in the Big 12 Championships in Manhattan, Kansas February 19-20 at Ahearn Fieldhosue on the campus of Kansas State University.
Party of Five
With Derrick Peterson, Ashley Wysong and the men's 4x400 relay team posting provisional qualifying times on Saturday at the Cyclone Invitational, Missouri now boasts five events where provisional times have been reached. In the season's first meet, senior Adam Ford cleared 7-2 in the high jump passing the provisioanl mark of 7-1 1/4. The next week Carlos Posey, running in his first track meet since high school, raced to a 6.26 time in the 55m Dash, under the 6.28 provisional standard. At the Cyclone, Peterson qualified for his second NCAA Indoor meet with a 1:48.37 time in the 800m. Last year as a sophomore, Derrick was the national runner-up in the event in Indianpolis. Also provisionally qualifying for the second time in her young MU career was Ashley Wysong. The sophomore finished the women's 800m at the Cyclone in 2:08.76 nearly a second under the provisional standard of 2:09.50. The men's 4x400m relay team made it two years in a row as provisional qualifiers as well. The team of Kristian Fagerland, Thomas Woods, Chad Shade, and Peterson registered a 3:10.91 at Cyclone nearly three seconds under the 3:13.50 time set for provisional qualification.
Tigers Continue to Improve
As the regular season comes to an end, the Missouri Tiger track and field team has continued to improve. Last weekend, 25 Tigers bettered their previous best mark for the season, meaning 25 Missouri athletes are literally hitting their stride as MU gets ready for the Big 12 Championships in two weeks. Aside from Peterson, Wysong, and the men's 4x400m relay, who all provisionally qualified for the NCAA Championships, several Tigers were on the verge of qualification. Both Thomas Woods and Martez Young were less than one quarter of one second from the 200m's magic time and Carlos Posey nearly provisionally qualified for his second event running a 6.79 60m dash just five one hundreths off the provisional standard of 6.74. Also running right to the edge of NCAA qualification was Chad Shade who ran a 47.89 400m race nearly good enough to reach the 47.75 goal in the event.
Hopson Honored as NationsBank Community Champion
Missouri junior long jumper William Hopson has been named one of 36 NationsBank Community Champions from the Big 12 Conference. Each Big 12 school nominates their athletes for three spots to represent the school as Community Champions. Hopson joins women's basketball forward Julie Helm and football quarterback Corby Jones as MU's representatives. Along with being an all-Big 12 selection last year indoors on the track, Hopson is one of MU's most active student-athletes off the track making appreances as a guest speaker throughout the Columbia and Central Missouri area. NationsBank will now select one athlete of the 36 Community Champions as the Community Champion fo the Year.
MISSOURI COACHING STAFF
Head coach Rick McGuire is in his 16th season at Mizzou. He came to Columbia in 1983 as the women's coach and assumed the men's team responsibilities as well in 1988. While at Mizzou, McGuire has coached come 47 All-Americans, two NCAA individual champions and 47 conference individual and relay champions. Assistant coach Jeff Pigg is in his nineth year at Missouri, coaching the distance runners and cross country teams. This past fall he led both the men's and women's cross country teams to the NCAA Championships for the first time in school history. Pigg is a three-time NCAA Midwest Region Cross Country Coach of the Year. Assistant Coach Natasha Brown is now in her sixth year as a full-time assistant coaching the Tiger sprinters. As a Mizzou athlete, Natasha was a six-time All-American and a five-time Big 8 champion. She also brings her experience from international competition as a silver mealist at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and as a World Champion as amember of the 1,600m relay team at the 1993 World Championships. Assistant coach Brett Halter coaches MU's throwers for the second season as a full-time assistant, his sixth with the Missouri program. In just the last three years, Mizzou's throwers have established eight school records, have earned two conference championships and earned All-American honors three times.
HEARNES FIELDHOUSE RENNOVATED
In late 1998, the Hearnes Building Fieldhouse received a major facelift for track seasons to come. It now features a Martin ISS-2000 enscapulated, polyurethane surface for a six lane, 200 meter track. The resurfacing and updating of the facility has escalated it into a top-notch indoor track environment. Now along with the Audrey J. Walton Track and Soccer Complex, Missouri Tiger track has two teriffic homes for its program.