Collegiate Indoor Athletes of the Year

The US Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association released their choices for Collegiate Indoor Athletes of the Year. Their choices:

Men Track	Miles Batty	Mile	BYU
Men Field	Derek Drouin	High Jump	Indiana
Women Track	Jordan Hasay	Mile/3000	Oregon
Women Field	Brianne Theisen	Pentathlon	Oregon

All had outstanding Indoor seasons, but it seems to me that the voting was weighted heavily on the results of the National Championship meet – where all won titles. With no disrespect to the choices of the USTFCCCA, I would like to add a few names to this list – names that I think had seasons/championship performances that I would have hoped put them in the running for the aforementioned awards.

Will Claye – High Jump – Florida

Perhaps the best performance by a field event performer at the NCAA Championships was put on by Claye. Claye took 2nd in the long jump at Nationals at 26’ 4.5”, then came back to win the triple jump at 56’ 10” – #4 all time collegian indoors.

Jessica Beard – 400 Meters – Texas A&M

Beard won the NCAA title at 50.79 – the #2 performer and performance all time indoors by a collegian – winning by a country mile in 1.51 seconds. She then returned to anchor her 4x4 squad to victory – coming from last place to get the win!

Kirani James – 400 Meters – Alabama

James fell during the final of the 400 meters in Texas – after coming in as a huge favorite. His position as favorite was secured – and his mention here – by his victory at the SEC championships where he set a WJR of 44.80. Arguably the best performance by any collegian this indoor season.

Lakya Brookins – 60 Meters – South Carolina

I know that the USTFCCCA list has one each in the field and track, but I’m adding another trackster here for the women. Primarily because in the field events for women Theissen was head and shoulders above the rest – and the field events were a tad weak outside of Theissen. The other reason is that there has to be room for a woman that simply dominated 60 meters the way Brookins did in Texas. Her 7.09 tied the collegiate record, was the fastest time in the world for 2011, AND was .08 ahead of the runner up. THAT is a country mile in a 60 meter dash!

Those are my additions to the list. Congrats to all of this years collegiate athletes. They provided a lot of excitement to the indoor season, and definitely closed it with a bang!