K-State Track

[Sandstone Outcropping]

10th for the men and 11th for the women.

Time for Rovelto to step aside...

https://x.com/KStateTFXC/status/1790415865084625380

[sonofdaxjones]

He did a good job, put a few trophies of significance, but it was losing momentum quickly.

Overall budget aside, K-State has a nice suite of facilities and they're fundraising for an addition on the new indoor track for all new offices and dressing rooms.  Obviously NIL now supersedes facilities, but facilities are still in play.  Once that new addition is on, the suite of Olympic training center/sports med, refurbished outdoor, new indoor is a very good one.

[Sandstone Outcropping]

Great article about Rovelto from today's KSSE. He has had a lot of success:

The Journey of a Coaching Legend
May 20, 2024 | Track & Field, Sports Extra

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By: D. Scott Fritchen

He never planned to get into coaching. Cliff Rovelto, the Kansas State legend, and one of the most remarkable track and field coaches in the world, attended the University of Kansas as a political science major thinking he'd go to law school, and he took the LSAT, but ended up getting a degree in education in 1978. He taught history and civics. His favorite sport? Basketball. He served as assistant basketball coach at McLouth High School in Kansas, and they needed someone to coach track and field. And so began an unparalleled marriage between Rovelto and track and field, and cross country.

In two years, Rovelto coached six state champions, five state record-holders and one high school All-American.

What a journey it's been.

"It's hard," Rovelto says, taking off his glasses and wiping his eyes. "Sorry (pause). It's hard (pausing to wipe his eyes again). When you're at a place as long as I've been here (pause), and have had the relationships I've had with administrators and people you work with, athletes and coaches, it's really hard."

Last Tuesday, Rovelto announced plans to retire at the end of the 2024 outdoor track and field season after 32 seasons as K-State's director of cross country and track and field. He is the second-most tenured coach in K-State history, just behind the 34 years by Hall of Fame track coach Ward Haylett. He started his career in Manhattan in 1988 as an assistant coach, became head coach in 1992, and has been at K-State a total of 36 years. He orchestrated and built one of the top track and field and cross-country programs in college athletics with 17 NCAA Champions, and another 46 top-three finishes. There has been a total of 312 individual All-American honors and 186 conference champions.
Rovelto - 24 SE

So dominant is K-State in the men's and women's high jump that K-State has been regarded as "High Jump U," as the Wildcats have combined to capture 12 individual NCAA titles in the event during the indoor and outdoor seasons.

"The relationships, for sure, is the most important thing," Rovelto says. "I think there's been some pretty remarkable accomplishments that groups of athletes have accomplished, that teams have accomplished, and athletes over time. There are some things when you really look back at it it's pretty remarkable.

"Those things are all secondary to the relationships that you develop over time."

Rovelto has maintained relationships across the world. He has coached 17 individuals who've represented their countries at the Olympic Games 22 times, including gold medalist Erik Kynard (2012) and silver medalists Austra Skujyte (2004) and Matt Hemingway (2004). He has coached 23 individuals who've competed in 35 Outdoor World Championships, including three world indoor medalists and three world outdoor medalists, while coaching 42 USA National Champions.
Austra - 24 SE

One time, he and wife Karol stuck pins into countries and states that they've visited. He had visited more than 50 countries.

What a journey it's been.

When Rovelto officially announced his retirement in a news release last Tuesday at 11 a.m., his cellphone blew up.

"Within an hour I heard from probably 80 people," he says. "It was pretty — it was pretty overwhelming. Pretty emotional."

Rovelto stands inside the Vanier Family Football Complex, struggling to put his career and relationships into words.

"Thirty-six years," he says. "It's hard."

Education was always a big deal to Rovelto. He says that when he became head coach at K-State, the men's cumulative GPA was a 2.2. As of 2022, the men were at a 3.2 and the women were at above a 3.5. That was a big deal to him. He calls the assistance of the athletic department "phenomenal" and says, "I talk about education before anything athletically."
Rovelto-Kynard - 24 SE

Four Wildcats have been named Big 12 Scholar-Athletes of the Year since 2013 while the men's and women's teams have combined for more than 400 Academic All-Big 12 First-Team honors in the last 20 years.

Just as K-State made strides academically during Rovelto's tenure, it recently constructed an athletic crown jewel with its new indoor track and field complex that transitioned the original football indoor building into a new facility for track and field. K-State partnered with Mondo to provide the new indoor track surface. The 200-meter, six-lane oval, permanent banked track features Mondo's Super X 720 surface, which provides the optimal blend of energy return, comfort, safety and durability. The complex also features an eight-lane sprint straightaway, a pole vault lane, two long jump/triple jump lanes, throw areas, a four-lane warm-up straightaway and non-competition areas around the track.

"That was one of the reasons I stuck around," Rovelto says. "I wanted to make sure that (indoor complex) was done and was done right. I think it is. I think it's a phenomenal facility. It's a great meet facility. We have some really quality marks this year. From a training perspective, it's really, really good. You literally can have athletes training at every single field event at the same time and that's unheard of in an indoor facility. That's going to have a huge impact on the kids being able to train the way you should train going forward."
Indoor Track - 24 SE

Rovelto plans to move forward with his career in a slightly different capacity.

"I'll still be involved with the sport," he says. "I'll probably get more involved with coaching education programs and do some consulting. I'm sure I'll still be working with athletics to some degree going forward. I don't think I could ever get away from that."

It all comes back to the undergraduate from KU who never thought he'd be a coach. As an undergraduate, he was a part of the Kansas Relays student committee. He aided legendary track and field coach Bob Timmons, did his practicum in coaching with the track and field team, which at that time was rare (previously, education majors did their practicums with junior highs and high schools). He taught history at a junior high at Ft. Leavenworth. While he was there, he helped out with cross country. Just so happened they started girls cross country that year. Toward the end of the season, the head coach became ill, so Rovelto coached the entire team. The boys placed high in the state and the women placed second in the state the first year of the program.

"Even though I never had plans to do the sport," Rovelto said in 2022, "things happened and with the people who were around, I understood why it happened, if that makes sense."

Thus began a legendary career.

What a journey it's been.

[Kid In the Hall]

Would have been nice for Fritch to get some commentary from some of the athletes Rovelto coached over the years...

Regarding the new hire, I'm hoping we see something better from Mean Gene than we've seen with some of the other Olympic sports (baseball being the worst example). I'd love to see him go for a top assistant at one of the premier programs. With the potential for elimination of partial scholarship sports in the next few years, there's a huge opportunity for programs around the country to become true players in track/XC.

[Sandstone Outcropping]

Would have been nice for Fritch to get some commentary from some of the athletes Rovelto coached over the years...

Regarding the new hire, I'm hoping we see something better from Mean Gene than we've seen with some of the other Olympic sports (baseball being the worst example). I'd love to see him go for a top assistant at one of the premier programs. With the potential for elimination of partial scholarship sports in the next few years, there's a huge opportunity for programs around the country to become true players in track/XC.

Is there an assistant somewhere with connections to Jamaica? They could lure elite talent here and turn KSU into a cradle of sprinters.

[Kid In the Hall]

Would have been nice for Fritch to get some commentary from some of the athletes Rovelto coached over the years...

Regarding the new hire, I'm hoping we see something better from Mean Gene than we've seen with some of the other Olympic sports (baseball being the worst example). I'd love to see him go for a top assistant at one of the premier programs. With the potential for elimination of partial scholarship sports in the next few years, there's a huge opportunity for programs around the country to become true players in track/XC.

Is there an assistant somewhere with connections to Jamaica? They could lure elite talent here and turn KSU into a cradle of sprinters.

I'm not sure we have the climate for that...

If it were me, I'd hire the best throws coach at a premiere school and go all-in on throws and multi-events with a lighter emphasis on middle distance/distance.

We may be "High Jump U" right now (though, frankly, we haven't really been for a while), but that all goes out the window when Rovelto leaves. And, hitching your wagon to athletes who, for the most part, only score points in one event isn't typically a recipe for success at the conference/national level (as it relates to competing for team titles).

[Sandstone Outcropping]

Would have been nice for Fritch to get some commentary from some of the athletes Rovelto coached over the years...

Regarding the new hire, I'm hoping we see something better from Mean Gene than we've seen with some of the other Olympic sports (baseball being the worst example). I'd love to see him go for a top assistant at one of the premier programs. With the potential for elimination of partial scholarship sports in the next few years, there's a huge opportunity for programs around the country to become true players in track/XC.

Is there an assistant somewhere with connections to Jamaica? They could lure elite talent here and turn KSU into a cradle of sprinters.

I'm not sure we have the climate for that...

If it were me, I'd hire the best throws coach at a premiere school and go all-in on throws and multi-events with a lighter emphasis on middle distance/distance.

We may be "High Jump U" right now (though, frankly, we haven't really been for a while), but that all goes out the window when Rovelto leaves. And, hitching your wagon to athletes who, for the most part, only score points in one event isn't typically a recipe for success at the conference/national level (as it relates to competing for team titles).

Your strategy sounds better than mine. I need to get to MHK to watch an event in the new indoor Octagon of Track next season.