LUT WILLIAMS BCSP Editor
The NC A&T men’s track and field team has to be hoping to send head coach Duane Ross out with a bang in his final hurrah leading the Aggies.
A&T enters this week’s NCAA Div. I Outdoor Track & Field championships in Eugene, Oregon trying to do just that. Ross will leave following the nationals to become the new director of track and field programs at Tennessee.
Before he goes, he and the Aggies are hoping they can take care of some unfinished business.
Looking for the victory cigar
Ross and his troops have come painfully close to bringing home a national title, an unprecedented feat for any HBCU in Div. I athletics. They finished second in the 2022 Div. I Indoor Championships in March. They faltered in the final event, the 4×400 relay. They entered the event trailing eventual national champion Texas by just two points, 37-35. An eighth-place finish in that event landed them as the national runners-up behind the Longhorns.
The door is open for a similar run at the outdoor title this week (June 8-11) at Oregon’s Hayward Field. A&T was third last year in the Outdoors, the highest finish ever for an HBCU.
The Aggies enter with two athletes who posted the best times in their events – 400 meters and de- fending national champion Randolph Ross Jr., the coach’s son, and women’s 100 meter hurdler Paula Salmon.
Additionally, the Aggies have threats for the top prizes in both the
men’s and women’s 100 and 200 meter races. Sophomore Javonte Harding and freshman Grace Nwochoka are both among the fa- vorites in those events.
Others expected to put points on the board for the Aggies are long jumper Brandon Hicklin and the squad’s 4×400 and 4×100 relay teams that feature Harding (4×100) and Ross (4×100 and 4×400).
Who’s in?
All told, the Aggies have 13 competitors in the field – nine men and four women. That’s as many as Arizona State, Colorado, Notre Dame and Princeton.
Texas has the most entrants in the competition with 33 athletes. They lead on both the men’s (15) and women’s (18) sides. A&T is tied with national powers Alabama, Arkansas, Oregon and Southern Cal for fifth with the nine men’s entrants.
The four women competing for A&T matches North Carolina, Purdue, Virginia Teach and Wisconsin.
Coppin State is the other HBCU with more than one entrant in the men’s field. Sprinter Joseph Manu qualified in both the 100 and 200 meters.
Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference champion Howard under former Olympian and world champion, head coach David Oliver, has three entrants. Jessica Wright is in the 400 meter hurdles field and Jessika Gbai will compete in the 200 meters. Gbai and Wright are on the 4×400 Bison quartet that made that field.
Tennessee State (R’Lazon Brumfield, men’s triple jump), Prairie View A&M (Nathan Crawford-Wallis, men’s triple jump) and Florida A&M (Rachel Robinson, women’s triple jump) all have one participant.
How the Aggies will fair?
One online magazine, Track & Field News, in a story by writer and former Olympic decathlete Dave Johnson, predicted this week that the Aggies will enter the final event, the 4×400 relay, with 34 points and in a tie with Texas for the top spot.
Johnson feels A&T will finish fifth in the 4×4 with national leader Florida winning the event. The fifth-place finish will land the Aggies in third for the championship with 38 points behind Texas and Florida.
That’s his forecast.
How and when they run
There will be three heats in all the semifinal running events on Wednesday (men) and Thursday (women). The top two finishers in each heat and the next three fastest times will advance to the finals on Friday (men) and Saturday (women).
One-hundred-seventy schools have at least one entry into the championships, whether that be a men’s or women’s entry. From those 170 schools, 117 schools have multiple entries into this year’s championships.
Relay entries are counted as one entry even though there are four athletes on a relay team. Athletes selected for multiple events are counted for each event (one person running in both the 100m and 200m equals two entries).
Where to watch?
The competition at famed Hayward Field will air on ESPN cable networks – ESPNU, ESPN2 and ESPN.
The men’s semifinals will air Wednesday beginning at 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPNU. The women’s semi- finals will be televised on ESPNU Thursday starting at 8:30 p.m. ET.
The men’s finals Friday begin at 9:00 p.m. ET on ESPN2. Sat- urday’s women’s finals will be on ESPN beginning at 5:30 p.m. ET.
Additional events not on the TV schedule (decathlon, heptathlon, men’s and women’s high jump, long jump, triple jump, pole vault, hammer, shot put, javelin, hammer, discus) and trophy presentations will be streamed live on ESPN3.
