A Sea Of Red

When we are competing against Oregon for distance runners, you know the McDougals have helped raise the profile of the program.

Hall to become an Oregon Duck

By BRIAN CHARLES

Wednesday, April 25, 2007 5:02 PM PDT

Big Bear High School runner Chad Hall thinks he looks good in green. Hall has decided to continue his education in the classroom and on the track at University of Oregon. Hall will switch from Big Bear red and black to Oregon green and yellow. Hall is attending the University of Oregon on a track and field scholarship.

Chad also considered attending the University of Colorado, Liberty University and the University of California-Riverside. He said his trip to Oregon and meeting the team made the difference. On his trip to Colorado, Chad missed the chance to meet the varsity runners, who were away at a meet.

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When we are competing against Oregon for distance runners, you know the McDougals have helped raise the profile of the program.

Absolutely. Tolsma has built up this program to be top-notch.

The McDougals have certainly gotten the LU Track name out in the public more. No matter what school you are, it is going to be difficult to compete with the mythic nature that surrounds the Oregon Track Team. (If you are not a runner or are not well versed in running lore, this will mean less to you.)


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It is nice to see LU listed next to those other schools as being on that guy's radar; Wetmore at CU has a great program up there. Hopefully, LUXC and Track will get some great recruits for this fall and get the word on them soon.

The facilities at Oregon are absolutely stunning... very hard to beat... if we were in the 'running' at all... Tolsma should be very proud.... hopefully we'll snag another one soon.

You know even before the McDougals - Tolsma was already successful. When I was in school we were constatly in the top 10 in the country for track. Hands down the best coach at Liberty.

Ehh, consistently in the top ten, I dunno about that one. I know our "dual meet power ranking" was #14 in 1997, but aside from that, national rankings have eluded the LU harriers.

Of course, that doesn't count that year spidey and I were tearing it up...we were ranked REALLY high then.

We're #24 now.

01LUGrad wrote:Ehh, consistently in the top ten, I dunno about that one. I know our "dual meet power ranking" was #14 in 1997, but aside from that, national rankings have eluded the LU harriers.

Of course, that doesn't count that year spidey and I were tearing it up...we were ranked REALLY high then.

Ranked so high, they didn't even notice we weren't on the bus.


I was going to post something similar when I read the superlative, but figured you would take the charge on that one, LU01. While the track team has made great strides, that #24 ranking is largely due to the solo performance of McDougal and maybe one or two others, I think...now should they be able to spin McDougals accomplishments into depth on the team with increasingly stellar recruits and qualify as a team for nationals, then consistent top 10 rankings would not be out of the question. It is definitely feasible; Having coaches on staff such as Jimmerson's caliber bodes well for the next evolution of the Track program's success...

I will talk to Tolsma and see if he can give me his achieves. In 1995 we were 3rd at one point behind Tennessee and UCLA. At that time we had some of the best decathletes in the country.

I'm ot trying to deminish what McDougal is doing at all, I'm just saying the Track Team has always been good and they came, partly because the success of the program in the past. He is hands down the best runner to compete at LU, but I wouldn't even say this is team is top ten in Tolsma's history as a whole.

1997 IC4A Champions...that was probably the best team in LU history. By the way, the IC4A is made up of about 100 schools in the East.