A few leftover from Wednesday's Penn Relays press conference that didn't make it into yesterday's Daily News or today's Inquirer...
For recreational purposes only, watch out for Florida State's 4x100m team. Walter Dix, who won the 100m and 200m NCAA championships for the Seminoles two years ago as a freshman, was originally scheduled to run the 100m sprint with some teammates, but now they'll run the relay instead. The full Seminoles squad took home the NCAA title last year.
Steve King's story in yesterday's Daily News highlighted something that I wanted to write about, so credit to him for getting to it first: the power of the Southeastern Conference.
The SEC has a consistent track record of putting its top runners into the U.S. Olympic team, including former Tennessee star Justin Gatlin, Louisiana State's Xavier Carter and Florida's Kerron Clement. Both have run at the Penn Relays a number of times, especially Gatlin. It will be quite something to not have Gatlin in attendance this time after his doping suspension last year.
"I think tradition -- it goes much farther than just recent," South Carolina coach Curtis Frye said. "You've got to go back to Willie Gault at Tennessee, Tyrone Kemp and Mark Everett at Florida, Anita Howard. They were all great athletes and all Olympians that attracted that atmosphere... In turn, that attracts kids from around the country who want to go where there are Olympians."
Gault is one of this year's inductees into the Penn Relays Wall of Fame, as Keith Pompey reports in this morning's Inquirer.
Frye also gets credit for the quote of the day, a response to a question about one of his star freshmen: Willingboro Township, N.J. native Crystal Canty.
"Eastern kids get to the Penn Relays and the animal comes out," Frye said. "Our team is full of kids from the east, and they always have great days at Penn Relays."
(And as an aside, yes, that's the same hometown as NBC track analyst Carol Lewis, who also competed at the Penn Relays for Willingboro High School. Which is a pretty good pedigree.)
In the USA vs. the World races, there will be some big stars. Penn Relays director Dave Johnson (whose job is endowed by the late former Inquirer columnist Frank Dolson) said he "presumes" the Dominican Republic's 4x400 team will likely feature 2004 400m gold medalist Félix Sánchez. Great Britain, which won the 4x100m gold in Athens, will be in that race this year at the Relays.
Johnson also said he has "seen reports" have stated that Jamaican superstar Asafa Powell (the guy in the picture), who is the current world record holder in the 100m sprint, will come to Franklin Field once again, but that he won't run the 100m sprint. He ran that race last year and the Jamaican fans just about blew the upper deck off the place. If he runs this year, you will want to be there because whatever he does will get the most attention of any race Saturday.
