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Valpo track team members who are charged with under-age drinking have to miss one meet.  Don't ask me how I know this....

Younstown's QB is a graduate of a neighboring high school and a really good guy.  Here's a link to an article about him http://www.cleveland.com/pluto/index.ssf/2017/01/youngstown_state_football_play_1.html

From Valpo.edu:  "All University operated residences close for Winter Break on Saturday, December 17, 2016, at noon and will reopen after Winter Break on Sunday, January 8, 2017 at noon."

I confirmed with my son who was at the meet working/cheering - Liz (Bloy) Owen is healthy and did run the meet.   

Not sure if Liz ran or not, but her new name is Owen (married decathlete Elijah Owen '16 over the summer).  Perhaps you missed her because of the name change, or were you at the meet?

Agibson thank you for sharing the faculty perspective.  As the mother of a competing athlete I too worried about the timing of the meet.  I talked about it with Coach Overbo and he mentioned that a few of the athletes weren't able to attend practice right before the meet due to studying for finals.  He commented that it might have been easier if the meet had been away - then the athletes could have focused on the meet and wouldn't have been running back to their dorms to study, or feeling like they were torn between competing, supporting their teammates, and exams - not to mention packing to leave for the summer.  I also vaguely remember a conversation with Coach Moore when he said that one of the other schools had asked for the dates to be changed to what they were but don't hold me to that - perhaps it conflicted with their graduation?  I know that Youngstown was already done with classes - not sure about the others.

I can speak as a spectator:
- it would be nice to have more convenient bathroom facilities.  There were port-a-potties, and then you had to go into the ARC.
- it would be nice to have bleachers, or some sort of seating available for some of the field events so that you could be closer to the action.  We took our lawn chairs and ended up using them to watch pole vault as well as high jump, both of which occur at the "end zones" of the field.  The only seating provided was the home and guest bleachers.
- it would be a HUGE improvement to have the throwing events located at the same venue as the rest.  They were held at Eastgate which was a big inconvenience for fans, coaches, athletes, you name it. I assume they had to shuttle the decathlon and pentathlon athletes - their throwing events were intermingled so they were at the track, then Eastgate, then track, then Eastgate....
- it was great to be able to switch the orientation of the pole vault, long jump and high jump events to maximize the wind direction.
- we ran into fans from all of the participating schools, and I know from first hand experience that the local hotels were full.

Turns out that 3 of the 4 Valpo vaulters are blond this year - the picture is of Zach Topper, not Alex.  I sat next to his mother at the meet and we agreed that the resemblance is very strong.  Thank goodness Alex wears white shoes and Zach wears black 

Thanks - it's always fun to see your son doing something he loves.   Valpo vaulting has a bright future.  Go Valpo!

There's my boy!  (shameless Mom). 

Brilliant!    Any chance that could happen?   Granted it will only be the third meet Valpo will have ever hosted.   How much does HL help and how much is the hosting school's responsibility?   Last years Crusader Open wasn't a fair measure of how well we put together a meet since the weather was god awful so you couldn't tell what went well and what didn't. 

The reason I ask is I'd hate to bring in lots of potential recruits only to show that we're still figuring it all out.

Thanks for the update - I had looked this morning and it wasn't there. 

I've seen comments in other threads discussing the lack of recruiting for track.  Our experience was a bit better than yours in that our son received a post card, but from that point on it really was us coordinating any relationship.  I remember mentioning the lack of communication on our visit (we had to reach out multiple times saying our son was interested before we got any response) and Moore and Overbo  explained that they were transitioning the recruiting responsibilities and that we must have gotten lost in the transition. 

If I were a potential Crusader and wanted to know where the team competes I'd only look once at the website and then move on to another school. 

Good luck to your daughter VULB #62 I hope she finds a great fit for her.

Thank you for validating my expectations.  I don't know when you were on the track team but would be curious to know if things were different then.   And also, do you know of this is a "known issue" or is it something recent.  My son is a sophomore so I'm still new to the environment - and of course I don't want to ruffle any feathers.

Thanks for commiserating VU2624.  FWIW, the team pictures on the roster pages was added in the last few days.  BTW, those pictures were taken in the fall - coach Moore shared them on his facebook page in October.

Today is 12/8/15 and the track team had their first meet on 12/4.  If you look at valpoathletics.com you will not see any roster information, any schedule, or ANYTHING other than a recap of the meet with a picture of Sarah Peters vaulting last season.  The schedule given to the track athletes didn't even have the 12/4 meet on it - it showed a different meet for 12/5 that doesn't exist.

My question/frustration/statement is this - if we are a D1 program, why don't we act like one?  Why can't we publish a schedule?  Why doesn't the track team have the nice posters that are published for the other teams? (Golf just came out today.)  Why can't we update the website with athlete information?  If you look at any of the other Horizon League track team websites they all have their schedules and rosters updated.  Why not Valpo?

I am not sure where the responsibility for these sorts of things resides - I emailed an admin for the Athletic Department (found her by digging around in the directory on valpo.edu) and it took 2 follow ups from me before I got a response that the website was to be updated that day (12/1).  That didn't happen. 

Is it Coach Moore who does the scheduling?  What about the website updates?  Does anyone know that these things aren't happening?

ok, I'm done with my rant, but honestly, this stuff isn't hard and it would certainly help improve the stature of the program.

We attended this last spring and it was great!  If anyone is on campus it's worth watching.

Title IX strikes again.

We attended  the meet on Saturday and were commenting the same thing on our drive back to Ohio.  Valpo is strong in the jumps and throws, and now with a track to draw the runners, the future looks good for Valpo Track.   Some info on Mens pole vault - Justin Zozzo won, qualifying for regionals with a new PR and school record of 16' 3".  Our son Alex placed 2nd clearing 15' 1", and a big thumbs up to Nick Stack who placed 6th, but did it clearing 14' with a hamstring injury that limited him to only taking 8 steps for his approach.  To compare, Justin takes 14 and Alex takes 16.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/sports/ct-ptb-valparaiso-notes-st-0417-20150416-story.html

Hope to see lots of Valpo fans on Saturday 4/25 at the Crusader Open!

Keeping with the conversation that the program is getting stronger and competing in the HL, here's some tidbits from @ValpoSpeed on twitter:
- The 2015 Indoor season resulted in 20 Top-5 All Time marks & 5 school records for Men and Women!
- On the Men's side, 52 of the 59 points scored at the Conference meet will be returning next year!
- 36 of the Men's 59 points were scored by underclassmen (Fr./So.), which is 61% of the points!
- Of the 36 points scored by the Women, 50% (18) of the points will be returning next year!

I know I'm a newbie to the Valpo track program, but these stats are encouraging.

The facility is WONDERFUL complete with a 300 meter track.  Youngstown has the only indoor track in the league which is why they host the indoor championships every  year.  They host many high school meets also so being from Ohio we'd been there many times.   http://ysusports.com/information/facilities/watts

I'm sure folks saw that the men finished in 4th place, which is what the coaching staff was hoping for.  We were in 3rd by 1 point heading into the final event (4x400).  As was mentioned above, there were lots of great performances including Valpo program records broken.  As a track team the guys were very excited and proud, and eager for the outdoor season.

I too am sorry your son didn't receive any mailings from Valpo.  Ironically that is what put Valpo in my son's sights - a mailing regarding competing in track.  Without that mailing we would have never considered Valpo living in Ohio. 

I can speak to the age of the team a bit - my son is a freshman pole vaulter, and he said that when they had their first team meeting in the fall about half of the room was freshmen.  I'm not sure if that speaks to a growing team, or that many athletes drop off of the team somewhere between their freshman and senior years.