National academic honors

Very proud of our program, which was honored nationally for a high team GPA. Men's track had the fifth highest in the COUNTRY among eligible D1 teams. Pretty snazzy. Nicely done to our athletes, who always -- ALWAYS -- keep the "student" first in student-athlete. See this link for details. Neat!

Pre preseason at Minnewaska

Thanks to captain Bianca Luparello for sharing this group selfie from Sunday's run at Minnewaska with her teammates Bryn Gorberg and Kerri Flynn. We'll be back there with the complete team in just a few weeks, as the beginning of preseason is a little more than three weeks from now. Neat!

Team BBQ: A few group shots

Team BBQ: The grillmaster

Organizing a team BBQ on the day we returned from family vacation was a bit challenging. Fortunately, our upperclassmen pitched in to help with the organization. In addition! I enlisted Team Dad Bob Morton (Stefan's father) to man the grill, which he did with much energy and enthusiasm. He was the "Tom Brady" of the grill ... nicely done! He received an assist from Bob Edsall (Brian's dad) midway through the BBQ. Very much appreciated. OK!

Team BBQ: Sprint team photo

Great to see this small but loyal group from our sprint/jump team. Gotta love that view!

Team BBQ: Welcoming back the Prodigal Son

Our annual summer team barbecue was Saturday afternoon down by the Hudson River. As usual, it was very hot – although there was a nice breeze along the river to keep us cooler. As usual, it was great to see everyone. We had one special guest, former Fox Nick Salamone. Nick ran for us for one year before transferring to the University of Vermont, where he has successfully continued his academic and athletic career. There were no hard feelings as Nick moved north, and we have remained in touch, and he remains a part of our Marist Track family, even though the color of his running laundry has changed.

There is always a sense of nostalgia when returning Foxes come back to the river. We felt it during the Walkway race, when the alums returned. There’s something about the Hudson that really touches our Marist students, and when they come back, they appreciate the majesty and beauty of the riverfront. Makes me think of the lyrics to a Grateful Dead song called “Brokedown Palace” … I’m sure Nick will appreciate it:

Goin home, goin home
by the waterside I will rest my bones
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
to rock my soul

We wish Nick the best of luck in his final year at UVM. 

Unplugging

I probably do the same post every year around Lake George vacation time – which, this year, was a few weeks later than it has been for us in the past. Where we stayed this year, there was Wifi and cell service available. But “available” was a fuzzy term, as the only places we could find passable service or signal was near the swing set (sometimes) and way out on a dock down by the lake. After a day or two of trying to connect, we adopted a “why bother” mentality and just unplugged. The laptop on which I typing? It stayed dormant in my backpack for seven days. My cell phone, which stated “no service” on the top of its screen, stayed in the cabin for hours at a time. Hey, we all need to unplug for a while, and our Lake George week allows this to happen. The other 51 weeks of the year? We are all definitely plugged in. There were a few moments, when I drove into town with strong cell service, where my phone hopped to life – piled up voicemails and texts and emails came flooding in, reminding me that life drones on each and every day in the fully connected and plugged in world. The cord is back in the outlet. We are plugged in again. Until next summer in Lake George, where hopefully we can unplug again, for at least a few days.

Pokemon. Yeah. OK. Now, get outta the street, will ya?

Yesterday, I was driving through campus, around the area of the chapel, when I happened upon a group of people in the road. I thought it was a tour, and I politely stopped. It wasn’t a tour. These people weren’t moving. And then, I saw Mark Valentino, who was in the group. What a TREAT! Tino is here for the week, along with others, to complete some graduate school work. He came up to my car. “Coach!” he said, ever excited as always. “We’re playing Pokemon. Have you heard of it?” Well. Yeah. Sorta. But, why were all you schmoes out on the ROAD?

I would find out further details later, when I loaded the minivan with my son Joey and his FDR cross country teammates for the New Paltz Summer XC Series at Minnewaska. I call this the “punk brigade,’’ because they are all high school juniors and seniors, and they are boys. Great kids, all of them; high achieving students, hard-working runners. Just like the men I coach at Marist. But, they are boys, and as a result, the conversations are usually steer toward, let’s just say, less mature topics. My usual strategy is to put on XM Channel 23, mellow out, and half tune them out. My ears still catch bits and pieces of the boyish banter. Among last night’s topics: Pokemon. Several of the boys are currently obsessed about it. As I was shuttling them home late at night, on a curvy, dark, back road in Hyde Park, I saw three individuals darting dangerously across the road. Pokemon. Really? GET INSIDE ALREADY, PEOPLE!

This morning, on NPR, I heard a full report on the latest Pokemon craze. Basically, it’s like a virtual scavenger hunt, utilizing an App on your smart phone. That’s about all I got for you, in the way of an explanation. If I continue further, I will sound like the uninformed idiot that I am on this topic. Anyway! It’s among the best-selling Apps of late. Everyone’s into it. Purportedly, it’s good! It gets lazy kids off the couch and outside. Sounds all well and good. Until you wander in front of an 18-wheeler in search of … whatever it is you are searching for. I think Joey (front seat in the punk brigade) summed it up best when he said this app was a fad in the same mold at Trivia Crack (remember THAT?). Perhaps he is correct. In the meantime? Please. Have your Pokemon fun, if you must. But stay the heck out of the road, and out of harm’s way. Thank you.

Will/Britt wedding

Alumni weddings are always special affairs, but last Friday in the 1,000 Islands Region of New York was an extra special night. Will Griffin and Brittany Burns become husband and wife, thus uniting several school records and two of the greatest runners in school history – but more importantly, two of the nicest and most wonderful people this program has ever known. It was a marvelous two days, as I roadtripped there and back with Coach Emeritus Phil Kelly, enabling us to catch up on a variety of topics. That alone was worth it. 

As if all that weren’t enough? Officiating the wedding was Marist Running Alum Matt Janczyk (the Rev. Brother Jacob Bertrand Janczyk, actually, who is on target to be ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in the Dominican order within the next year). Matt did a wonderful job; this, of course, is a biased opinion, but it is one that was shared by many wedding attendees who did not know him. He has a great future as a priest, and we are thrilled for Will and Britt, who have a great future as a married couple. Nicely done!

Twitter handle

Sorry, I have been away from the blog for awhile and I saw several comments from my social media post of last week. The program's official Twitter handle is @MaristXCTF. Don't expect much action from there during the summer, but we'll be Tweeting away once the season begins.

Boilermaker results

Solid results from Utica’s famous Boilermaker 15km race (9.3 miles), where the weather was not too hot for a change in this event on Sunday in Central New York.

--Rising sophomore Emily Burns was third of 279 in the 15-19 division in 1:03:43 (6:51 pace). She is clearly recovered from the Junior Nationals trip and well on her way to a great summer and 2016-2017.

--Rising sophomore Dan Hillman was eighth of 331 in the 15-19 division in 54:45 (5:53 pace), with progressively faster 5km splits of 18:26, 18:20, 18:00. Love that!

--Rising senior Taylor Mueller was 54^th of 654 in the 20-24 division in 1:13:17 (7:52 pace).

--Adelphi alum (and friend of the program) Nick Filippazzo was fifth American in the race, blitzing the course in 46:41 (5:01 pace).

Nicely done to one and all. OK!

Olympic Trials: Hakim in Jamaica

While the United States Olympic Trials for track and field are taking place in Oregon, the Jamaican trials were just completed, and our program was represented by multiple school record holder Hakim Cunningham. Hakim placed second in the second heat of the trials with a personal-best time of 14.49 seconds for the 110-meter hurdles. In the finals, he placed seventh with a time of 14.56 seconds. Nicely done, Hakim!

Yo! This was a great promotion

When the New York Mets' promotional schedule was released way back in the winter, our youngest son James had circled the date of Sunday, July 3 as one he would like to attend. It was Yoenis Cespedes arm sleeve day -- as you can see! A unique and interesting promotional giveaway, to be sure.

We had to hold off on purchasing tickets because James made the Hyde Park 9-10 All-Star team (he was the starting third baseman), and we weren't sure if and when their All-Star run would end. Well, it ended with a thud last Wednesday night (the final score was football-esque ... at least for the winning team, which was NOT from Hyde Park), and so we were able to get tickets to Sunday's game. We got some really good seats near the leftfield foul pole for a very reasonable price, and James is seen here in his Lucas Duda shirt and his two arm sleeves (he's wearing mine). We picked a great game -- good weather, and a blowout of the Cubs to finish a 4-game sweep.

Let's Go Mets.

Social media

During our recently completed trip out to the Fresno area for USATF Juniors, I became unusually proficient at Twitter. I was Tweeting from my laptop, from my phone, posting photos, posting videos, and otherwise "going HAM" (Marist sports info terminology) out there, to the delight of those sports info guys. Being an older guy, such things don't come easily to me. And as usual, it has led to the soul searching of whether this very blog is a bit outdated in the 140-character world of Twitter and other short-form Social Media platforms. The number of views per post has dwindled of late, especially the CA posts -- most of which were preceded and/or complemented by Tweets. I will continue to post here, but with the knowledge that we need to continue to expand our Social Media skill set in order to spread the word about our fine athletes in this program.

Bicentennial minute

Happy Fourth of July to one and all. Sorry for the lack of posts. It's that time of year. Not much going on about which to post, but I'll try to keep it going through the next 1.5 months, before things start to get busy again with the beginning of preseason XC camp. This weekend, my favorite radio station has been doing sets of 1976 music (Spirit of 76) in honor of the Independence Day holiday. It just dawned on me today that the Bicentennial Year of 1976 was 40 (FORTY!) years ago. Although I was just a kid back then, I remember that summer like it was last year. The buildup to that big July 4, 1976, was huge. I remember watching the "Bicentennial Minute" on TV during the year leading up to the big day. My brothers taped them on little cassette players. How quaint, huh? Fun fact! Some Founding Fathers thought this holiday should have been celebrated on July 2, but it wasn't to be. Besides! The Second of July just doesn't sound right. Anyway! I hope you had a great day and you were able to celebrate what was a beautiful weather day here in the Northeast.