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Husker Men Win Mark Colligan Memorial
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By Randy York
The last time Michigan's women's distance coach stepped inside the Devaney indoor track facility, he was coaching at Kansas and the Huskers were hosting the Big Eight Conference Championships. That was 22 years ago. Saturday, Mike McGuire stepped into the time tunnel and reaffirmed what he already knew ... Nebraska's hydraulic track is one of the nations' best and fully capable of hosting the Big Ten Conference Championships Feb. 24-25.
That's a big deal because that Friday/Saturday weekend will be the first time in Big Ten history that one school will host both the men's and women's indoor conference championships simultaneously. "You want a facility where it's a fair presentation for everyone, and in my opinion, this certainly is," McGuire said Saturday. "When it comes down to what's best for the athletes, this (the Devaney Center) is as good as I've seen."
That opinion didn't come just from a coach who's been to Lincoln before and knows how well Nebraska takes care of its Big House on the Prairie, which, by the way, is considered to be one of the five best indoor track and field facilities in the country. Penn State is the only other Big Ten school with a hydraulic track. Shortly after Michigan's Taylor Pougue won the 5,000 meters Saturday, she told McGuire "how the track had a great rhythm to it," he said. "For her, every stride kind of feels the same. We've run on a couple of other indoor tracks this season where you don't get that same experience."
Jeremy Rasmussen, the distance coach for the Illinois women's team, offered similar kudos for the Devaney facility. "This is the first time I've been here," he said. "It's a very nice facility and definitely capable of hosting the Big Ten Championships. Having all of these volunteers in here is another advantage. We've had a long-standing tradition of hosting separate meets, so it'll be a different experience for our league with a combined meet next month. We're slowly moving towards having a combined program, and this (Lincoln) makes sense to me."
Nebraska became an instant solution for the Big Ten's reluctance to host a combined meet. McGuire said some have thought Michigan was opposed to competing in a combined meet because the Wolverines have single-gender programs. "We've never been against having a combined meet," McGuire said. "Our objection of combining it was based on not having a facility that could host both meets together."
Once Big Ten officials toured NU's "Big House" and approved the historic combined meet, one innovative move was followed by another. "We're going together with Michigan State and chartering a 160-passenger plane to fly out here in February for the two-day meet," McGuire said. "That'll help us leave right after the meet's over."
David Harris, Nebraska's first-year distance coach for the Huskers' men's and women's track teams, hopes now that Big Ten programs are experiencing the Devaney Center, they'll find a way to come back. "Minnesota was here a couple weeks ago and now Illinois and Michigan," Harris said. "For them, this is like instant replay. They've come in here and seen why this facility can work for everybody, and when they come back, it won't be new to them anymore." The 2013 Big Ten indoor meet will move to a new facility in Geneva, Ohio, near Cleveland, and Husker officials will compare notes. "So far," Harris said, "everyone seems to be happy we're in the conference and happy with our facilities."
The only objection McGuire sees? Some might view NU's hosting the meet as a competitive advantage and therefore prefer a neutral site instead. Husker coaches remind recruits that Nebraska's facility is helping the Big Ten make history next month. And while that could be construed as a bit of a recruiting edge, if the Big House on the Prairie continues to be seen as the best facility to host a conference meet, isn't a performance-enhancing indoor track an equal advantage to everyone?
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