Bucknell: April’s Magic Carpet

Alert readers of this not-so-fancy blog know that I have often referred to the Boston University indoor track as the “Magic Carpet.” That venue, and the meets held there, has generated countless career-best times, IC4A/ECAC qualifying marks and the majority of our indoor track school records. Well. Fast-forward a few months to the Bison Outdoor Classic, our one and only foray to Lewisburg, PA, for the awesome meet at Bucknell University. While the scope is limited – one meet per year as opposed to three or four meets at BU during the winter – the yield of outstanding results is quite astounding. It’s no secret that I love going to Bucknell; it’s a beautiful campus, the weather is almost always favorable (hard to believe, during the volatile month of April, in an area that has almost identical climactic conditions to the mid-Hudson Valley), and the place is seeping with baseball history as it is where the legendary Christy Mathewson went to college.

And oh yeah: When it’s time to start playing track, our athletes have produced some epic performances on the blue and orange oval at Christy Mathewson Memorial Stadium. The school records and IC4A/ECAC marks aside, embedded deeply in the results were some fantastic breakthrough performances by several of our athletes. There’s something about that place that we cannot put our finger on, but it almost always winds up being a great meet for us. Kevin Donner, the head coach at Bucknell, takes great pride in his meet and has been known to call it “Mt. SAC East,” for its penchant of producing national-caliber performances close to home. The meet is well-organized, low-key (there’s not even the ubiquitous “team packet,” which is usually filled with useless information anyway) and easy for our athletes to navigate. Check in about an hour before your race; get your hip number and lane assignment; stay loose; get on the track and rock. Just like Boston in the wintertime. Dear Bucknell: Thanks for another great meet. See you next April, and remember to have sunny skies and light winds once again.