Q&A With Women's Track Coach Matt Munson
May 13, 2003 | Women's Track and Field
GREENVILLE, N.C. -- East Carolina University's women's head track coach Matt Munson sat down with ECUpirates.com on Tuesday as his women's team prepares for the Conference USA Outdoor Championships. The Lady Pirates, along with ECU's men's team, will compete this Thursday through Saturday in Charlotte, N.C.
ECUpirates.com: Do you think the girls are prepared for this weekend's meet?
Munson: Absolutely, this is something that we have geared them for the whole year and I think because of the things that arose during the indoor conference meet, they are probably more excited about this one than ever. During indoors, we had some things go wrong, some injuries and illness, and it just really kind of put the flames out on our energy level. Since we have gotten outdoors and the weather has gotten nice, the kids have really picked it up and the intensity is much better at practice and everybody is really geared up for this conference meet. We have some individuals that I think will do really well and we are excited about that.
ECUpirates.com: How have you helped the girls train to improve from the indoor season?
Munson: You just keep building on what you are doing. Eventually you get to a point where the main thing that they need, right now going into the meet, is just rest. The kids are coming off finals and really all the training that they need for this meet has been done. It has been done a couple of weeks ago and now we are just trying to keep them sharp and get them mentally prepared -- let their bodies recover a bit from travel and finals and papers and tests that all are due right at the last week of school. So that is what is great about this week is there is nothing else for them to do but look forward to this meet. So they shouldn't have any reason to be tired and should get caught up on their sleep and I think that helps a lot going into this week.
ECUpirates.com: Do you feel the outdoor season has been more of a success than the indoor season?
Munson: Absolutely. With the way indoors went, it's not that it went poorly, but I just never really thought that we got prepared as well as we need to get prepared. I think a lot of that was due to the weather, just because it was so much colder than ever before since I have been here. The kids really didn't get as high intensity in their speed development and some of the technical things they needed to do, whether on the sprint end or field events end, and those are the kids that probably suffered more than anybody else. With outdoors, it got nice pretty early and we were able to get some good work done and I think that showed. Once we started to take the reins off the girls. we started to get big performances, we started to get regional qualifying marks, we got a Penn Relay Championship and things really came together. That stuff just snowballs -- bad stuff snowballs and good stuff snowballs -- and the kids really pick up on that and things go from there.
ECUpirates.com: What has been the biggest surprise during the outdoor season?
Munson: It is hard to pinpoint any one kid because there have been so many kids that have really stepped up. I think Tammie Mentzel qualifying for regionals was not a surprise maybe, but was just one of the biggest pleasures. We have known for a while ability-wise she was able to do it, but to actually get it done is a nice surprise. Winning the Penn Relays 4x100 ECAC was really nice, but we knew that's why we were there, to win and nothing else. That they put it together and blew everybody's doors off, that was a nice surprise. Kay Livick being the PCS Scholar Outstanding Athlete was a nice surprise. Little things like that -- sometimes it's not even in marks and performances, just seeing the overall development of a student athlete and watching them really come together. Most of it is less surprise now with this team and how old they are; it is expectation that we are going to be successful on and off the track. We are going to expect to qualify for regionals, we are going to expect to set school records, we are going to expect to win major competitions and maybe in watching those kids start to set the expectations instead of just us always talking about it. As coaches that is the best surprise of all -- watching them set the bar for themselves.
ECUpirates.com: Since you do have an older squad and will be losing some outstanding athletes, how are you looking to rebuild for next season?
Munson: We pretty much have our recruiting class nailed down. We have some terrific young kids coming in next year, kids that are nationally ranked in their events, even in the top 10. For the last four years we have always signed somebody that was in the top 20 in their event. This is the first year that we had somebody who was in the top 10 or better and this is the first year that we have had more than one kid do it. We have rebuilt our field events area because we let that go to address some depth issues in other areas. So we will have more field event kids coming in -- pole-vaulters, throwers, jumpers -- and that has kind of been the focus of our recruiting efforts. I think next year you will see a young team. We are preparing the schedule so it will be competitive for them and let them develop as student-athletes. We have a couple of kids who will redshirt next year and help us in the development of them as individuals. It will be a rebuilding season and we anticipate two years down the road we will be back to the power that we expect to be in C-USA.
