4
Friday, April 20, 1979
University Daily Kansan
Athletic marriage ok couple has track vow
By TONY FITTS
Sports Writer
Grant and Claire Overstake are one of the married student couples who take advantage of the low rent and on-campus location to help them make locality through school.
The Overstakes spend a lot of time doing such day-to-day jobs as cleaning their apartment and studying, as do most student counies.
But they also spend a lot of time dressed in shorts and T-shirts. They are the only husband-wife combination on KU's track teams. Grant Overstake competes in the decathlon and Claire is an intermediate hurdler and sprinter.
"We don't think it is a real big deal—being married and being on the KU track teams."
WORKOUTS AND PRACTICE take up a lot of their time. Overtake he said about five hours a day running, lifting weights and practicing the skills necessary to succeed in the decathlon, a 10-event competition.
Mrs. Overstake's workouts are not as strenuous, so she spends time helping her build muscle.
"He runs too much distance for me," she said. "Some days, I take him out in the back yard to play soccer. I can keep track of his mileage, and if there are a lot of dogs chasing him, he can jump in."
She works hard on her own, though.
"Last spring, when we first moved here," Overstake said, "she worked at Halimark. If you know anything about working out there, it can be really menial. But she worked at that boring job and managed to run OD during her lunch hours."
"OD" IS over-distance training, a track training regimen that involves running over one's competitive distance to build endurance and discipline.
"The main thing we do together is encourage each other," Overstake said. "The motivation there is more than you can get from any coach."
The Overstakes were married in January 1978. They did not meet, as Overstake puts it, "on the track with cinders in our eyes," and they had symphonies at Wichita High School.
"She was a softball player when I first met her," he said. "She also played volleyball and backs, and she was a big fan of her to her." You might, you ought to try out for the track team."
Overstake already was on the track team.
HOWEVER, THE Suggestion wasn't entirely selfish. Mrs. Overstake ran on a high school 400-yard relay team that set a record. She was the same event with the KU women's squad
"I started the decimation in eight grade," he said. "Instead of little league baseball, I
ran little league track. I was exposed to all the events at an early age."
The world record in the decathlon is 8,168 points, set by Bruce Jenner in the 1976 Olympic Games. Tom Currier holds the KU record, with 6,054 points, scored in 1878 at Field Federation championships in Wichita. Overtake's record is 6,318 points.
One of Overstater's goals in track is to score 7,000 points in the decathlon. Another is to get his name in Track and Field News. He is expected to break Curtier's K1K record, at the Relays.
"I'm looking forward to breaking that record," he said. "But I can't tell you how hard it is to predict what you are going to do in the decathlon.
"THEERE ARE SO many variables-you have to be 10 different people with the 10 different events. Sometimes late at night I can't get to sleep worrying about it, it's a big burden."
It could be especially tough this spring for Overstretch. he is coming off a knee injury
"It was a hyperextended knee with the separation of the tibia and fibula." he said. "We went to see a doctor, and everybody else was doing the deed intersus; I was hobbling along watching and working."
"The knee is strong. It's just a matter now of getting caught up."
Overstake's future in track concerns both him and his wife.
"I MOT LIKE Bruce Jenner. His wife made all the money and he did his war. We've talked about it, but I don't know," Overstake said.
"I think I have the size, strength and speed to be world class—but I do want an IT specialist."
Overstake is attending KU on a journalism scholarship. He has been writing since high school and will be working in Wichita this summer as an intern reporter.
His journalistic background could be a problem with the track team, Overstake
"At athletes aren't supposed to be concerned with the day-to-day events of the world. Coach Timmons talks to me about worrying too much.
"EVERY DAY I stay in track, I get a greater insight into the motivation of an athlete. I couldn't do it without Claire's constant support."
Maybe someday the couple will compete in similar track events.
"She's toyed with the pentathlon." Overtake said, "but that would just be too hard."
For now, they said, they'll stick to their separate events on the field, and share their
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"I REALLY ENJOY that," he says. "I'll jump a barbed wire fence and head out over a pasture. I'll come up to a pond and stop—just looking and thinking. It does something for me. It makes me think and helps my attitude."
Cromwell's attitude doesn't need much help. He says he's selling tractors to learn about sales and running a small business so that when he retires from football he'll have something to do for a career.
This hobby is probably more enjoyable now for Cromwell, who turned 24 in October and will compete on KU's varsity track squad. Cromwell says he gets up early in the morning at his country home, dons his running clothes and leaves out cross-country training.
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He is satisfied for now with his salary because he does not start for the Rams. But he wants to renegotiate his professional contract next year after he accomplishes one of his goals—starting in the Rams' lineup.
"I loved track ever since I first ran him," he says in his sales office here, a town of fewer than 400 residents. "It's so quiet." He says I treat it a no-bleadow, no more - a boy no longer.
"I WANT to start and prove myself at being a good pro football player," he says. "I also want to get things organized so I can show off. I'll have some business experience."
IN JANUARY, he went pessant hunting with his father out west in snowy Logan. Already this spring he has been catfishing. He drives a jeep instead of a sports car and he still likes to run—not just play or for his football career but for enjoyment.
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"I had a couple of different ways I went in collegiate athletics, "he says, "track or football. I chose football but it hurt me track-wise. Coach Timmus recruited me for the decathlon, but it required a swimming and I couldn't find time to perfect the tests for it. I think could have made it in the decathlon if I just went out for the trak."
"I loved playing football in college. Now, football is a game to me but it's a livelihood with me. I approach it more as a teacher. Track remains a hobby, though."
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"So I went on a football scholarship. I didn't really have to do track, but I did. Whenever you do something you don't have to do, you enjoy it more. There was no pressure on me to have to do it and I enjoyed it more."
"I accomplished everything and more at Kansas," he says. "I had no idea I would need to be a basketball player without had no idea I would be classified as one of the better intermediate hurdles and go for it."
His 400-meter intermediate hurdle performance in the 1978 Kuala Lumpur International Stock Record and the distinction of being named the outstanding performer at the 1978 World Track.
Today Cromwell, the free-safety tractor salesman, has a few hobbies, including track. His other hobbies are quite different from most NFL performers who frequent discs and choose to swing in the off season for entertainment.
BUT CROWELL WAS successful in track as well as football. He still holds KU variety records in the 404-yard intermediate hurdles -set in 1975 at the Big Eight meet and -in the 404-meter intermediate hurdles -set in 1978 at the Big Eight meet.
THERE'S NO PRESSURE now on Cromwell to run as much as he does, but he enjoys doing it. In fact, he has been trying to find some hurdles to buy, so that he can set them up and start running the race, and so many ways that will help his muscles for football.
Associate Sports Editor
What he doesn't say is that running the hurdles in a Kansas passtime will spark some memories of competing in football, but now it's packed to the top with screening football but instead with a moderately sized Relays crowd, still cheering him on. Cromwell cherishes his KU track as much as his football memories.
something he says he really enjoys doing, hasn't changed since he was in college.
"I had some good races at the Relays," he says, smiling, with a thoughtful, recollecting look in his eyes. It's the type of look that compels those around him to feel they, too, are back on the track at the Relays.
Cromwell says goodbye to smogy Southern California when the National Park opens. He returns home to Kansas for the office year, since February, he's been living in a house in the flat country south of Chicago where he works at a local gardenractor dealership.
Cromwell still a Kansan at heart
STANLEY—How do you keep him in the big city once he's been down on the farm?
And saying that, Nolan Cromwell leaves the sales office. His work boots carry him a little differently than most salesmen, to on the display floor where he can watch his customers invest in a tractor. Today, Cromwell is going to succeed at being a tractor salesman. Soon, he'll be seeking the continued success of a professional football player, similar to the success he achieved as a collegiate two-sport athlete.
"I like to look of track as individual because everything is on an individual basis, even in the Relays. In football, 11 people work together to get it going. But in track, if something goes wrong, it's not easy. But there are no failures—succeed." It's yours and nobody else's."
When Cromwell was a star quarterback at KU, the Jayhawks went to the Sun Bowl. They also beat Oklahoma that year, a feat still discussed. KU did all this with the help of the skills of Cromwell, the Ransom Ram伯里。他 was an elite fastening quarterback and he won all Big Eight conference quarterback honors.
"THE IDEA OF competing on the "home court right in front of the people you know—that gives you a good sensation," he says. "At other places, you were kind of an outsider. But not at the Relays."
So Cromwell retains the sweetness of the run-jump-run-jump hurdle. It's a natural sweetness, with a personal flavor for him. It's realizing that not only was he a terrific quarterback, but he was also a terrific track man.
By JOHN P. THARP
Associate Science Editors
That's what members of the Los Angeles Rams will think about one of their top young players, Nolan Cromwell.
Nolan Cromwell
Staff photo by TRISH LEWIS
And his attitude about track.
here, selling riding lawnmowers and snowblowers. He likes his work both in the NFL and here.
Coaches eye blue chip prospects at Relays
By GENE MYERS Sports Writer
Survival in college track hinges on two
colors: Blue chip; that high school athlete or
 junior college transfer who is virtually
assured collegiate success.
And even though national letters-of-intent
cannot be signed until after the season,
college coaches are on their yearly safari to
the tropics.
Thus, at major meeta such as the Kansas telays, voting and losing isn't confined to the state.
"A lot of recruiting goes on," KU head
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track coach Bob Timmons said. "Almost all of the coaches are aware of who the best athlete is and are busy trying to determine if they have a shot at getting him.
"THIS ISN'T just major colleges but also the small colleges and the junior colleges. Everybody at each level is looking for the athlete who can help his program.
"If you're a major college you probably looking at the winners. If you're a smaller school you're looking at the good students you're facing at a lower level, where you have a ship."
Timmons, who also doubled as the meet director, said the Kansas Relays attracted recruiting interest because it drew high school athletes from the neighboring states of Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Colorado, besides those from Kansas.
THE LEGITIMATE methods of recruiting at the Relays vary slightly for men and women because they are governed by two organizations. The men's recruiting laws are handed down by the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the women's from the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women.
"We have qualifying standards in each event," he said, "and then we only take the best."
"Under the rules," Tummons said, "you can't talk to a high school athlete at the meet site. Hopefully, this doesn't go on because it's not legal. Most of the college coaches are watching and visiting with the high school coaches of the top athletes.
"The coaches are put in a bind a lot of times because the athletes may not know the rules. There's no rule that says a coach can be cordial and say 'hello', but it'd off-
The AIAW ALSO prohibits recruiting at a meet site, but there is one key exception.
ficult to be cordial when an athlete begins pressing you.
"On your home campus the AIAw you can talk to the athletes," KU women's track coach Teri Anderson said. "The Relays are very important for us because they are so positive for recruiting. They get to see the facilities and the great KU track tradition."
"This is when we get to talk to the athletes. The rest of the time we're like everyone else and have to just scout and watch."
Timmons and his staff don't have that added benefit. In fact, KU's 14-year mentor said he had limited use of the Relays as a scrutinizing tool.
"WE JUST DON'T have the time," he said. "Unfortunately, sometimes we get so busy that we don't have time to talk."
"Our major responsibility is to conduct the best possible meet and to take care of the KU team. That does not bring much time, so you may bring in a recruit or two to see the meet."
KU's men's team, however, has the same reputation for recruiting for track as UCLA does for basketball and Notre Dame for football, which means Timmons has his recruiting senses tuned for the other major meets.
"When we go there we'll definitely be watching then," he said. "We may make a contact, but we're not going to talk to an athlete at a meet site."
And if everything goes according to tradition, the weekend's recruiting safari opened at 8 yesterday morning, with the Kansas Relay's high school events.
New events mark Relays
The junior college division has been expanded to Haskell Indian Junior College, where most events took place yesterday. Many juco winners will get berths in university division finals. Most of the juco will still be held in Memorial Stadium.
Expansion is the key word in this year's Kansas Relays.
Also, separate divisions will be held this year for high school and college women.
Some events that had been part of pass relays return this year. The decathlon competition was held Wednesday and yesterday in Memorial Stadium.
Also, the hammer throw and two walk races have been added to the list of events. In all, there are 128 events in the 54th annual Relays.