April 8, 2010
Meet: The Oregon Pepsi Challenge
When: Saturday, April 10; 12:30 p.m. (CT)
Where: Eugene, Ore.
Television: Comcast Sports
Live Results/Blog: MUTigers.com
Complete Release in PDF Format 
| Live Blog | Live Results
What You Need to Know
• This season will mark the second time since 2005 that Mizzou has competed in the Oregon Pepsi Challenge. In 2005, the Tiger women topped the Ducks by a half point as a solid middle-distance and distance corps helped the Tigers to a huge win over the national power.
• Senior Nick Adcock will once again compete against Oregon's Ashton Eaton. The two are arguably the top combined event athletes currently competing at the collegiate level. The pair also posted the top two heptathlon scores in the nation during the indoor season with Eaton at No. 1 and Adcock at No. 2 nationally.
• Hayward Field, the site of the 2010 Pepsi Invitational, is also the same site as the 2010 NCAA Outdoor Championships, which are scheduled for June 9-12. This weekend will serve as a preview for each of the Tiger athletes that could qualify for the National Championships.
This Weekend
The Mizzou track and field program will head to Track Town USA this weekend to participate in the Pepsi Invitational, hosted by the University of Oregon at Hayward Field. Mizzou will square off against teams from Oregon, Texas A&M, Illinois and Washington at the meet, which starts at 12:30 p.m. (CT) on Saturday. Beginning at 2:30 p.m. (CT) the meet will air live on Comcast Sports. Check the local listings to see if it will air in your area.
About the Meet
The 2010 season will mark the 21st year that Oregon will host the Pepsi Invitational, which is an annual scored meet that has featured many of the top track and field programs throughout the years. Mizzou last competed in the meet back in 2005 and its women's team, led by a talented group of distance runners, claimed the event title with 170.5 total points, just ahead of Oregon, Washington and Indiana. The men finished in a tie for third that season.
This year, Mizzou will compete with one of the most competitive fields that it has faced all season long. On the women's side, Texas A&M comes into the meet with the overall No. 1 ranking in the USTFCCCA national polls while Oregon sits juts behind the Aggies in second. Washington boasts the No. 12 ranking nationally, making this a very talented women's field. On the men's side, Texas A&M comes in ranked second nationally while Oregon is once again just behind the Aggies in third place.
Last Time Out
Mizzou had a fine performance at the 14th annual Tom Botts Invitational as both its men's and women's teams brought home the event title. Senior decathlete Nick Adcock (Kansas City, Mo.) was named the Most Outstanding Performer on the men's side after scoring 35 points in the team competition. Adcock also ran a split of 47.64 in the 4x400m relay, after competing in five events on the day already. He won the 110m hurdles with a time of 14.29, a mark that ranks him 10th in the Big 12 in the event.
Lana Mims (Tulsa, Okla.) was the women's Most Outstanding Performer after she claimed the 200m, 400m and long jump titles at the meet. She also ran as a member of the 4x400m relay and scored 33 individual points for the Tigers in the scored meet.
A Double-Dose of Decathletes
Fans will be able to get a look at arguably the nation's top two collegiate decathletes this weekend as Mizzou's Nick Adcock (Kansas City, Mo.) and Oregon's Ashton Eaton will both be on hand at the meet. Although there is no formal decathlon, both will likely compete in multiple events, setting up what should be an exciting dual between the pair all day long. The two finished the indoor season ranked 1-2 in the national rankings. Eaton won the heptathlon at the 2010 Indoor National Championships with a world-record point total while Adcock placed fourth. In 2007, Adcock bested Eaton in the decathlon at the USATF Junior National Championships.
Serving as a Preview?
Hayward Field, the home of Oregon track and field and one of the greatest track and field facilities in the nation, will play host to the NCAA Outdoor National Championships this season. That means that this weekend will serve as a tune-up for Mizzou athletes with aspirations of qualifying for the NCAA Championships. Several Tigers are familiar with the setting as Hayward Field has been the site of numerous USATF Championships over the past several years. Several current Tigers traveled to Eugene for last year's USATF National and Junior National Championships, including Leslie Farmer (Jefferson City, Mo.), Nick Adcock (Kansas City, Mo.) and Blake Irwin (Bettendorf, Iowa).
Recapping the Indoor Season
After a successful regular season, three Tigers - Nick Adcock (Kansas City, Mo.), Lars Rise (Trondheim, Norway) and Shannon Leinert (Eureka, Mo.) - all qualified for the NCAA Indoor Championships. Adcock and Rise both finished as All-Americans in the heptathlon with fourth and fifth place finishes, respectively. Leinert just missed out on All-American honors, but still finished the indoor season with the nation's fourth-best 800m time at 2:04.32, which she clocked while winning the race at the Meyo Invitational. Leinert also finished as the Big 12 runner-up at 800m by just three hundredths of a second.
Also at the Big 12 Championships, Adcock had what was arguably his top meet as a Tiger as he claimed the Big 12 Heptathlon Championship with a meet and school record point total of 5,938, a mark that ranked him second in the nation. That point total also helped him earn USTFCCCA Midwest Regional Field Athlete of the Year, marking the second-straight season that a Tiger has taken home that award - thrower Chris Rohr did so in 2009.
Adcock was not the only Tiger to claim a Big 12 title as junior middle-distance runner Layne Moore (Emporia, Kan.) earned the 1,000m run title. Moore made up four spots on the final lap to claim her first-ever conference championship. In all, 19 Mizzou student-athletes earned a spot on the All-Big 12 team during the indoor season.
Mizzou also topped Kansas on both the men's and women's side in the annual MU-KU Border Showdown inside the Hearnes Center Fieldhouse, adding an exclamation point to a very successful indoor campaign.
Welcome to Division I
Chris Holly (Topeka, Kan.) will be a Tiger to keep an eye on during the outdoor season. Holly is a junior college transfer from Neosho Community College after not being heavily recruited coming out of high school. Many felt that he didn't translate into a great thrower at the Division I level. But Holly chose to pursue his passion at the junior college ranks and all he did was win the NJCAA Hammer Throw National Championship and become an All-American in the discus. So after a strong junior college career, the Tigers took a shot on Holly and he was an All-Big 12 performer in the weight throw during the indoor season.
So far this season, Holly owns the team's top weight throw mark at 59.73m (195-11), a mark that ranks him third in the Big 12 this season. That mark is a personal-best, topping the mark that won him the NJCAA title.
McGuire's Swan Song
After 27 years as the Head Track and Field Coach at the University of Missouri, Dr. Rick McGuire announced his intention to retire from that position following the completion of the 2010 outdoor season, with his final day in the role scheduled for July 30th.
To date, Coach McGuire has led Missouri athletes to 137 All-American honors, 106 individual conference championships, seven NCAA individual or relay titles and eight NCAA Regional Championships. Beyond the NCAA season, McGuire has coached 46 Olympic Trials qualifiers and 27 USA National Team berths, even coaching four athletes to the pinnacle of athletic competition: the Olympic Games. Both Natasha Kaiser-Brown and Christian Cantwell went on to win Olympic silver medals. Cantwell has also won three world championships.
A hallmark of McGuire's program has been an emphasis on academic achievement, as evidenced by his team's long-standing presence on the USTFCCCA All-Academic list. The women's team has earned this status for 44 consecutive seasons, starting at the inception of the award in 1994. The men are now at 22 consecutive seasons. Individually, hundreds of his athletes have earned All-Academic honors. Under McGuire, Missouri track and field student-athletes have been awarded 22 NCAA Post Graduate scholarships at the conclusion of their undergraduate studies.
McGuire is recognized as a significant leader in the world of track and field, both at the collegiate level and beyond. He recently finished serving a three-year term as president of the NCAA Division I Track and Field Coaches Association, and prior to that served for four years on the NCAA Track and Field Committee. He was chosen as a member of the United States Olympic Team staff for both the 1992 and 1996 Olympic Games. He founded and for 28 years has served as the chair of the USATF Sport Psychology program. He has been honored by his peers with his induction into the Drake Relays Hall of Fame and the Missouri Track and Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
Dr. McGuire has also served for 25 years as a Graduate Professor of Sport Psychology in the University's nationally prominent Department of Educational, School and Counseling Psychology. He began both the Master's and Doctoral programs in Sport Psychology. Today Missouri's graduate program in Applied Sport Psychology is considered one of the leading programs in the nation. It is McGuire's intention to continue in his academic and teaching role, as well as contributing sport psychology support for the athletes, teams, coaches and staff in Missouri's Athletic Department.
Longtime assistant and current associate head coach Brett Halter has been named interim head coach and will work closely with Coach McGuire in this transition. Coach Halter has earned the distinction as one of the world's finest coaches of throws. His athletes are consistently among the NCAA and Big 12 Conference leaders. He is the coach of former Tiger Christian Cantwell, the reigning World Champion and Olympic Silver Medalist in the shot put.
Tiger Academic Success
The Mizzou track and field/cross country program was honored by the US Track and Field/Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) for its academic success over the past calendar year. Both the men's and women's cross country teams were honored as All-Academic teams as fall grades have been announced. The women's cross country team earned a term grade-point-average of 3.467, earning the 44th-straight All-Academic honor for the Mizzou track and field/cross country program, doing so in every semester since the inception of the award 16 seasons ago. Mizzou is the only program in the nation to have accomplished that feat. The Tiger men's cross country team finished the fall semester with a term GPA of 3.06, earning the All-Academic award as well.
Two members of the women's cross country team - Shannon Leinert and Kaitie Vanatta - earned a perfect 4.00 GPA during the fall 2009 semester, while Phillip King brought home a perfect GPA for the men's team.
The success during the fall semester for the program did not stop with the cross country student-athletes. In all, the women's track and field team compiled a cumulative GPA of 3.289 and four others - Cortni Ervin, Leslie Farmer, Laura Greenfield and Katie Vanarsdall - all joined Leinert and Vanatta with perfect GPAs. The term GPA of 3.289 means that the women's program will garner its 45th-straight All-Academic team honor from the USTFCCCA when those are announced after the outdoor track and field season.
In all, 18 of the 40 women's track and field team members finished with a GPA better than 3.50 and 30 of the 40 women's track and field student-athletes finished with a GPA better than 3.00.
Follow Mizzou Track & Field's Blog!
The 2010 Mizzou track and field season will not only offer some of the most exciting competition, but it will also provide some of the best ways for fans to follow their team. MUTigers.com has developed a blog in order to keep fans in the loop about everything regarding Mizzou athletics. Each sport will have its own official blog so fans can stay current with each program. The track and field blog can be found here: http://www.mutigers.com/blog/track-field/.
The live blog will be back this weekend in hopes of providing event-by-event results and a interactive experience for any fans that cannot be in attendance at the meet.
Next Up
The Tigers will head west on I-70 to take part in the Kansas Relays. The meet will begin on April 14 and run through the 17th. For all the latest on Mizzou track and field, stay tuned to MUTigers.com.