OSU Opens Outdoor Season With Historic Dual
Track & field history will be made again at Oregon State this Saturday when the Beavers host Utah in their first home dual since an April 9, 1988, matchup with Washington.
“For the people who really love this sport and who have a passion for it, there is nothing like a dual meet, head-to-head competition,” OSU coach Kelly Sullivan said.
“That’s what I’m excited for. We will be as prepared as we possibly can to put our best foot forward, and so will Utah.”
Admission is free. Competition starts at noon with the javelin; the first running event is the 2,000-meter steeplechase at 1 p.m. The field events conclude with the discus at 2:30 p.m.; the final track event is the 4x400 relay at 3:30 p.m.
Points will be awarded on a 5-3-1 basis in the individual events and a 5-0 basis in the relays.
Sullivan said the meet is also important for OSU’s track & field alums, many of whom worked to kept the re-instatement dream alive during the program’s 18-year hiatus, and then contributed their time and money to help make the new Whyte Track & Field Center a reality when the sport was reinstated on a limited basis for the 2004-05 school year.
“We expect many alums to return and we’ll have more than 100 volunteers,” Sullivan said. “We don’t need that many, but the reason we have that many is because they all want to be a part of this event. It’s a really big deal.”
The Beavers haven’t competed since concluding a successful four-meet indoor season at the Feb.27-28 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation championships. They set or re-set 18 school records and had 57 OSU all-time top-10 performances in those meets, all at the Dempsey Indoor Center in at the University of Washington.
“We just want to continue to build the momentum we have coming off the indoor season,” Sullivan said. “It will be fun for our staff to see how the outdoor season starts out after having a fully-competitive indoor season.
“The past nine years the outdoor season has just been months of training,” for that fall’s cross country meets, “and very little competing in track. To think that in 10 years we’ve built the first phase of a world-class track facility and we have expanded to all the event areas and are capable of hosting a Pac-12 program like Utah is a tremendous accomplishment.”
Coach Kyle Kepler is equally excited for the Utes, as it’s believed Saturday will be their first dual as well. They hosted some meets against other full teams in the 1980s, but individual entries were welcomed as well so they were not true duals.
“Being a women’s-only dual meet also makes it very rare event, particularly in today’s collegiate track and field landscape,” Kepler said. “At its core, athletics are about winning and losing.
“While marks are important for personal achievement, in the end it’s about competing and beating people. I think that is where our sport has become lost to some degree.
“Kelly and I simply wanted to find a way for our student-athletes to better understand this premise while allowing the track and field community to see and experience something that has disappeared for a while.
“We believe it will be a great learning experience for our student-athletes and a very enjoyable event for the spectators.”
OSU Olympic gold-medalist Dick Fosbury, whose “Fosbury Flop” technique invented during his days at OSU revolutionized the high jump, said he could not be more excited to see dual-meet competition return to Corvallis.
“This is a dream come true for alums,” Fosbury said. “This is extra-special, because it’s the first dual for Utah as well. It’s just nice to have a historic meet on campus again.”
One of the most involved track & field alums, Fosbury is being inducted into the SHAPE (Society of Health and Physical Educators) America Hall of Fame this weekend in Seattle and thus can’t attend. However, he remembers how important duals were in his undergrad days and hopes the teams can have a similarly-memorable experience.
“When I was at Oregon State our meets at Bell Field were epic,” Fosbury said. “I spoke at an alumni gathering last week and I was so pleased to be able to brag about this meet.
“I wish good luck and good health to both teams and know they will have a great competition.”
