hahaha, well considering that I competed post collegiately for five yrs under Cliff, I'll set the "first dibs" comment straight. Cliff made it VERY clear to all of us that K-State is his place of employment and the team is his FIRST priority! We dont get any special treatment and if anything we are asked to provide leadership and set an example for the collegians. Cliff works harder than any coach on this campus hands down. He travels not only all over the country but the world recruiting athletes that are going to step in and score immediately at the conference and national level.
Its funny how there is talk about not scoring well at the conference level, but if you look historically at the results you will see a different trend. The administration wants the teams to go in a more "Nationals" direction and Cliff simply follows the admins wishes. When I was on the team, we finished third at the conference meet and 5th nationally in the "Power Rankings". The power rankings are based on the two best marks in each event and provide an overall assessment of the "roundedness" of a team. To build a team like this, scholarships are divided up more than with what you have with a "nationals" based team. Keep in mind that a mens team only has 12.6 scholarships! Thats also the reason the womens team historically does better than the men, they have 19 schollys! Makes it a little easier to recruit!
The DII level was/is no different (schollies are limited and split). I could've walked on at a D1 program and scrounged points here and there, but went to a DII program to contribute more and rec'd partial compensation.
The perception of a trackster from "outside" is that the focus/attention is on a handful athletes. From athletes I've talked to (granted one recently transferred to UT), the student-athletes train around the PC's schedule. I guess my 'beef' may be partial to why I chose a DII vs DI program, there's less emphasis on W-L record, not that we didn't want to win but coaches are allowed a longer leash. At least that seems to be the cased based on the banter on the FHSU message boards compared to the KSU ones.
HCCR is in a tough situation trying to balance student-athletes with PC athletes & is very similar to what Coach K is doing in bball -- the caveat is the seasons are concurrent in T&F while US bball is a summer thing and every 4 years (the NBA teams 'coach' them the other 3.8 yrs, while HCCR is with them continously). My frustration thus lies in the fact that while it's great watching KSU trained athletes doing well professionally, I want to watch the team of student-athletes do well.
I, too, was spoiled to know some of the great T&F KSU alums from the 70's-80's so that doesn't make it any easier seeing the team finish in the 2nd half of the conference.
