With the 2012-2013 school year coming to a close, the school athletic calendar is all but concluded.
However, there are a pair of athletes who are still competing, representing Pea Ridge high in this week’s AAA sanctioned Decathalon/Heptathalon State Championships.
Sophomores Mikhaela Cochran and Emma Pitts will be competing in a multi-event track and field competition known as a heptathalon.
Nearly 100 girls will competing together in seven events over a two-day period in Fayetteville. The meet will start with competition in a 100 hurdle event, followed by the long jump, discus and 200. The second day will see competition in the high jump, shot put and 800.
Cochran and Pitts have both seen action in nearly all the events, with Cochran having won ribbons in all the events save the 800. With her experience and success in cross country, a distance race won’t have the same negative effect on her performance that afflicts many athletes who excel in the sprints and jumps, but have trouble scoring in the long events.
Pitts has been very successful in sprinting and also scores in the jumps in regular meets. Also a member of the state runner-up cross country team, Pitts will also be credible in the distance event.
The heptathalon, more than any other athletic event involving women participants, is really a true test of athleticism. It is not by chance that the winner of the Olympic heptathalon is often referred to as “the world’s greatest athlete.”
The multi-event competition tests an athlete’s strength, agility, speed and endurance, as well as mental toughness. Multi-event athletes are usually successful in other sports as Cochran’s and Pitts’ early careers will attest.
Those cheating Eagles
Crossett High School won an amazingly lopsided victory in the girls 4A state track meet recently.
They were most dominating, having the meet essentially won before the first race was on the track, scoring monster points in the field events.
This reminds me of a coaching conference I attended in Little Rock a long time ago. Crossett has boatloads of state track trophies in their gym because they have dominated the sport in Arkansas for a very long time. The schools perennial success led the state track coaches association to ask then head coach Bobby Richardson to deliver an address to the assembled coaches.
Before bringing Richardson to the podium, the moderator was reciting all the championships won by Crossett when a voice in the back of the assembly remarked, “Yeah, they win all that stuff because they cheat down there.” Obviously stunned by the remark, the moderator then asked the person who made the statement what he meant by that.
The anonymous coach then said that the only reason that Crossett won so many honors was because “they teach ’em stuff down there.” That response elicited a lot of laughter as well as nods of agreement.
Crossett has a long tradition of excelling in the field events, hurdles and relays.
Having been a collegiate classmate of Leon White, who succeeded Richardson as head coach, I know that Crossett teams have always been well drilled and coached in every single event which, of course, leads to great success.
The Lady Eagles were 5A state champs last year and so were almost a lock to win the 4A this year.
There were several seniors this year on their team so maybe the rest of the state can come make a comeback in 2013.
The high price of failure
Money can’t buy happiness and it apparently can’t buy superstar success in baseball.
As I have mentioned in my column previously, the Los Angeles Angels, desperate for athletic success, broke the bank to get Albert Pujols to forsake the St. Louis Cardinalsand head out west for $25 million a year for 10 years beginning in 2012. Pujols ended his first season well below his lifetime average as hasn’t even one of the better players on the Angels roster.
Apparently learning a little but not enough, the Angels went after Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers. They are also paying him $25 million, but only for five years and not the 10 that Pujols got.
As of Sunday, the two once-upon-a-time superstars have a combined batting average of about .220. If they were rookies they would be sent to the minors.
The teams they abandoned? As of Sunday, the Hamilton-less Rangers have the best record of any team in the American League while the Pujolsless Cardinals have the best record in the National League.
The Angels are battling the Houston Astros to see who will be last in the American League West Division. They have split games against each other so far this season. Interestingly, Pujols’ salary is higher than the combined payroll of the Astros roster.
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Editor’s note: John McGee is an award-winning columnist and sports writer. He is the art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, coaches elementary track and writes a regular sports column for The Times. He can be contacted through The Times at [email protected].
Sports, Pages 13 on 05/15/2013