6B SPORTS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TRACK & FIELD
FRIDAY, MAY 1, 2009
Jayhawks return to Arkansas, look to qualify for regionals
BY JASON BAKER jbaker@kansan.com
Today the Kansas track and field team will head back to the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Ark., for competition, a school that hurdler Keyen Porter almost attended. When the Blue Springs, Mo., freshman was looking at schools, he went down to Fayetteville for an official visit and the decision came down to Arkansas and Kansas.
"Arkansas didn't have a good hurdles coach that Kansas does." Porter said. "I'm excited to go back there, it looks like it will be fun to run out there."
Today the Jayhawks compete in the Arkansas Twilight in Fayetteville. It's the Jayhawks last regular season meet before competing at the Big 12 Conference Outdoor Championships.
"It's our last opportunity before the Big 12s to prepare ourselves for the Big 12s and we're looking forward to going there," coach Stanley Redwine said.
ARKANSASTWILIGHT
Today's meet is the second time this season that the team has competed at Arkansas, a place the
WHO: Kansas Track & Field
WHAT: Arkansas Twilight
WHEN: Today
WHERE: Fayetteville, Ark.
team has become familiar with.
Senior distance runner Patrick McGowan surmounts a hurdle midway through the men's steeplechase event at the Kansas Relays on April 17. McGowan will compete in the steeplechase at the Arkansas Twilight today.
"It's up there with some of the best facilities in track and field," junior pole-vaulter Ryan Hays said. Hays said the Arkansas Twilight was different from other meets because of its schedule of events.
“It's fun because it's a little bit later and you're not under the hot sun like we usually are.” Hays said.
For freshman Rebeka Stowe, who will compete in the steepechase today, getting a victory could lead to two things: regionally qualifying for the Midwest Regionals and possibly qualifying for the US Juniors Championships. Collegiate athletes have the opportunity of competing at the Juniors Championships if they are 19 or younger.
length of the Steeplechase has been enjoyable.
"It's been different," Stowe said. "I've enjoyed the challenges of the hurdles and it just adds another aspect to running, and that's good for me."
Like Stowe, senior Patrick McGowan will also compete in the steeplechase. But McGowan, a Springdale, Ark., native, is considering today a home meet because it's only 15 minutes from where he lived during high school.
For Stowe, taking on the chal
Ryan McGeeney/KANSAN
"I have a lot of family and friends coming to watch," McGowan said. "This weekend is my mom's birthday; hopefully I run well and give her an early birth present."
McGowan last competed in the steeplechase at the Kansas Relays, where he came in second, but said the race was positive and was ready to go out and run a good time at the next meet.
For Kansas' relay teams, the Arkansas Twilight is a chance to regionally qualify after coming up short at other meets.
"We've only been a tenth of a second off," sophomore Kendra Bradley said about their 4X400 relay performance. "We've changed our relay up and everyone's feeling
better so I think we can go out and get it this weekend."
This weekend will feature the debut of the men's 4X100 relay team, which will be made up of junior Reggie Carter, sophomore Alex Carey, freshmen Keyen
Porter and freshman Keith Hayes.
The Jayhawks currently have 11 athletes who have regionally qualified in 13 events. Redwine said he was eager for the opportunity to double that number at today's meet.
"It would be nice to triple that number," Redwine said with a smile.
- Edited by Grant Treaster
Rodriguez faces more accusations of steroid use
MLB
ASSOCIATED PRESS
New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez flies out during an extended spring training game, at the Yankees minor league complex in Tampa, Fla., on Thursday. Rodriguez is rehabilitating after hip surgery.
New book claims three-time MVP winner used in high school and with Yankees
BY RONALD BLUM Associated Press
NEW YORK - A new, unflattering biography of Alex Rodriguez reportedly says he may have used steroids as early as high school and as late as with the New York Yankees, charges the star wouldn't address Thursday
as he readied for a return to the major leagues.
Rodriguez admitted in February to using steroids while with the Texas
Rangers from 2001-03, but insisted he stopped before he was traded to the Yankees in February 2004. He brushed off a question Thursday about details from Sports Illustrated writer Selena Roberts' upcoming book "A-Rod" that cast doubt on his earlier statements.
won two games (in a row) up there and hopefully I can come back and help them win some more," he said.
"I'm not going there," he said after homering in an extended spring training intrasquad game in Tampa, Fla. Rodriguez has been rehabbing from hip surgery in March and hasn't played for the Yankees this season.
The Daily News reported in Thursday's edition that Roberts' book offers an portrait of the three-time AL MVP as a needy personality who wanted his ego stroked constantly and a player
"I'm just so excited about being back on the field and playing baseball. My team has
"I'm not going there."
ALEX RODRIGUEZ Yankees third baseman
who tipped opponents to pitches in blowout games, hoping the favor would get returned someday.
didn't say how it obtained a copy of the Harper Collins book, scheduled for release Monday.
A high school teammate of A-Rod's told Roberts that the future No. 1 draft pick was on steroids as a prep player and his coach knew it — an allegation the coach, Rich Hofman, denied.
Rodriguez said he wasn't worried that the steroids issue was being brought up again.
"No. Not really," he said. "I'm in a good place. I think more importantly physically I feel like I'm getting better everyday. We've had a great week here. We've worked extremely hard, and I'm just very anxious to do what God put me on this earth to do, to play baseball."
Rodriguez went 1 for 6 with two walks as a designated hitter in Thursday's extended spring game. He had a long homer to left-center in his sixth plate appearance.
The book also goes on to say that two anonymous Yankees said they believed A-Rod was using banned substances based on visual side effects, and that a
He was slated to play in another extended spring game Friday against Pirates minor leaguers at Pittsburgh's complex in Bradenton.
Rodriguez said he needs to run the bases at full speed and is still on target to return to the Yankees in May. Yankees manager Joe Girardi said he expects A-Rod will play third base on either Saturday or Monday.
"I think the last thing I'm going to do here before I leave is sliding," Rodriguez said. "I think sliding is probably the thing I have the most reservation about because you have to get on your hip and bounce on it a little bit. Everything else seems so far on schedule."
In the book, an unidentified major leaguer is quoted as saying A-Rod and former Yankees pitcher Kevin Brown, who was named in the Mitchell Report on performance-enhancing
clubhouse staff said management had a suspicion that that the third baseman may have been juicing.
drug use, were seen together with human growth hormones in 2004.
teammate of Rodriguez's with Texas in 2003, said he had never heard the pitch-tipping allegation. Los Angeles Angels manager Mike Scioscia said he had never been aware of a player letting opponents know what pitches were coming.
Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira, a
Girardi isn't dwelling on the steroids issue in Rodriguez's past and recommends A-Rod deal with it the same way.
Rodriguez could be on track to rejoin the Yankees when they are in Baltimore from May 8-10.
JOE GIRARDI
Yankees manager
"We're going to move on, and Alex has talked about how he's going to move on."
move on, and Alex has talked about how he's going to move on. And to me the focus about Alex Rodriguez is he had eight at-bats today."
"That's insane. That's not what we're not out on the field for. So if it is going on, it's obviously, you know, crosses a line of integrity that, you know, couldn't be breached," he said. "It's a tough thing to obviously document and prove and, you know, you don't give it much thought because, you know, you certainly work on the assumption — there's no reason why you wouldn't — that everybody on your team is out there trying to win."
"To me it seems like a lot of 'He said, she said' kind of stuff," Girardi said. "We've been down this road. We're going to
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