Auburn, Ala.—The Auburn track and field team will be in action this weekend at four different meets this weekend, splitting up the squad to optimize the team's best opportunities to compete across the country. The Tigers will have athletes competing at the Florida Relays in Gainesville, Fla., the Ole Miss Challenge in Oxford, Miss., the Texas Relays in Austin, Texas, and the Stanford Invitational in Palo Alto, Calif.
FLORIDA RELAYS
When: Saturday
Where: Percy Beard Track, Gainesville, Fla.
Events begin: Friday: Field, 9 a.m. CT; Running 8:30 a.m. CT; Saturday: Field, 10 a.m. CT, Running, 8 a.m. CT
Auburn Athletes competing: Anthony Schwartz, Shaun Shivers, Marrel Parker, Jason Reese, Mark Rubalcaba
OLE MISS CLASSIC
When: Saturday
Where: Ole Miss Track and Field Complex, Oxford, Miss
Events begin: Saturday: Field, 9 a.m. CT; Running, 1 p.m. CT
Auburn Athletes competing: Majority of Auburn squad
44th STANFORD INVITATIONAL
When: Friday and Saturday
Where: Cobb Track and Angell Field, Stanford, Calif.
Events begin: Friday: Field, Noon CT; Running, 2 p.m. CT; Saturday: Field, 11 a.m. CT; Running, 1 p.m. CT
Auburn Athletes competing: Distance runners
92nd CLYDE LITTLEFIELD TEXAS RELAYS
When: Wednesday thru Saturday
Where: Mike A. Myers Stadium, Austin, Texas
Auburn Athletes competing: Chris Stone
QUOTING AUBURN HEAD COACH RALPH SPRY
Competing in four different meets:
"That's something that is common in track and field because you want to put your people in the best place to get the best races. Sometimes one venue might be good in certain events, but not good in other events. So you have to put your student-athletes in the best environment to have the best quality performance they can have to prepare them for the NCAA preliminaries. That's why I'm late to your show today, because of an extra-long staff meeting, but that's the case. We're going three different places this week."
On what will be going on this week…
"Well the biggest one right now is the Florida Relays. I'm getting Shaun Shivers and Anthony Schwartz back to their home state where they're legendary. That's going to be huge—just them running for Auburn there and for recruiting. Having the two top kids out of the state of Florida, having Auburn on their chest, will say a lot. Anthony is going to open up the 100m at the Florida relays. He'll run on Friday. Shaun Shivers will run the 200m there on Friday. Then on Saturday, we'll run the 4x1 relay. The main body is going to take off to Oxford, at Ole Miss, and we got a pretty good competition there. My old stomping grounds. We're sending three of our distance runners out to the west coast at Stanford which is traditionally a very fast facility. They have the best distance runners in the country showing up there, so it's always a great qualifying time."
Reflecting on the beginning of outdoor season…
"We really did. It doesn't change. Indoors and outdoors, even though they're back-to-back seasons, they're two totally different seasons. You have to prepare differently for each one. Again, my message to the team was that it was the first one, make sure you don't put too much pressure on yourselves, get out there and compete and see where we are. We did that. I think we got off to a great start. Kylee Carter threw a 188.7 which is a personal best and a number two throw in the nation. That went well. We had Shaun Shivers win the 200 men's meters off of a personal best. We had a lot of other marks, even though the kids didn't win, they were really solid marks. Ivana Muzaric in the distance—she had a personal best. Tori McKinley did very well. Madi Malone picked up right where she left off with indoors. Across the board, I was pretty pleased with how we preformed. I thought we had highlights in almost every area. I like the way we look. We're off to a good start."
On how he staffs three different meets…
"It's pretty tough because I have to make sure I have the right coaches in the right places. I will go to Florida relays along with Coach Stringer because we'll send a couple of jumpers there as well. I'll send Coach Richardson, Coach Ebel and Coach Gillon to Ole Miss. Then Coach Barnett will go with his distance runners to the west coast, so we got it all covered. We got enough training staff to cover that. It is a lot of putting things together, but again track is a unique sport. It's not always that one venue has all the best events, so we have to break it up. Then we'll come back to a home meet. We'll be full throttle there and full throttle going to Tennessee. I missed one person there though. We're sending our decathlete, Chris Stone, to Texas Relays this weekend, so that's four. Coach Richardson will go out there and get back in time to go to the Ole Miss meet. We got a whole lot going on. You hope when you do that that you can get the best results that support that type of break-up squad. I think we will."
On what kind of competition he expects from Anthony Schwartz and Shaun Shivers…
"They've been looking really great the last couple of weeks in practice, and Shaun Shivers ran well this past weekend. I'm trying to find a way to fit some fitness in while they're doing some speed work because coming off the football field, you have a smaller window. Anthony [Schwartz] has been looking and feeling really good. I think he'll have a solid opener. I'm looking forward to it. Getting this one under his belt will give him a lot of confidence to run again."