Q&A with Texas head coach Bubba Thornton

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Men’s Track and Field Q&A with head coach Bubba Thornton



Bubba Thornton

The 2006-07 track and field season is finally here. After top-five team finishes at the 2006 NCAA Indoor and Outdoor Track and Field National Championships, 12th-year head coach Bubba Thornton has a strong group of returnees ready to continue that trend and fight for a place at the top of the nation’s elite track and field teams.

Thornton sat down with TexasSports.com to answer a few questions before the season opener meet – 2007 Gotham Cup -- on Friday, January 12, 2007 in New York City.

Coach Thornton, thanks for chatting with us today. Let’s start with the overall picture for Texas men’s track and field this year. What are your expectations from this group for both the indoor and outdoor seasons? I expect us to compete for the Big 12 Conference championships and to be in the top 10 or higher in the NCAA National Championships. Those are fair goals for this group. We certainly have an opportunity to do well nationally, but I don’t want to put that kind of expectation out there and add a little pressure because I think they understand what we are able to do.

This year, like the past, you have had an elite group of student-athletes with a strong chance to win individual national titles. Has that changed this year? Do you think that is a constant in the program? I think it is always a constant in this program, but we still we are heavy this year with senior leadership which is a good thing. Those young men know what is necessary and what it takes to win, but we still have to do it. We still have to give the other teams and athletes respect of their athleticism. When we get to the competition on any one day, there is always an event leader, and [giving that respect] is kind of what we have to do.

Looking at each specific area, you have a group of veterans who are the best combined events athletes in the country in Trey Hardee and Donovan Kilmartin on the national level. Add to that, newcomer Shawn Schmidt who is one of the top junior combined events athletes in the country. Do you think that area is a continuous cycle of top multi’s student-athletes? You hope you have a cycle in all of your events. As your seniors leave, you hope you can bring freshmen in and hope they can learn something from being around those guys. We are pleased that we have that experience with Trey and Donovan. To help Shawn Schmit, we also have Andrew Webb, who has stepped in there to be a player for us.

Turning to field events, the person who stands out the most is national champion high jumper Andre Manson. Do you anticipate seeing that from the younger student-athletes now that they have had some time? It wouldn’t surprise me to see three of our guys in the national meet in the high jump. Andre has won at the national level and Joel Hargrett and Raymond Harris are guys that have done the work. Joel made it to the national outdoor championships last year and came up a little short. That experience I hope can help him go over the top. When you go to the other field event, [combined events competitors] Donovan Kilmartin can come back in pole vault and Trey Hardee can come back in long jump. Then we have the two incoming student-athletes from Harvard, Lawrence Adjah and Samyr Laine, for the outdoor triple jump. So when you look and think that your depth is all gone, all of the sudden it comes up and gets you. Hopefully, we will have the depth to make the runs this year.

Looking at the distance group, they had a great cross country season. How do you expect that to translate to the track? When we look at out cross country team, it was a group of guys who really supported strong cross country runners Joe Thorne and Andrew Middleton. On the track, Andrew and Joe are going to come back and support them. Be it Leo Manzano, Eric Stanley, or Jacob Hernandez, who is one of the top 800-meter runners in the nation. You also have a All-American Jake Morse. Cross country season is part of the year where a lot of universities are done after nationals. For these guys, it is not because they are a close and talented group of runners.

The sprints group seems to have a balanced corps of runners. What is in the works for the Texas speedsters? I expect to be very competitive in the sprints. Jamaal Charles was an All-American and Trey Griffin was a scorer on our NCAA Midwest Champion 400m-relay. We had a great year in the sprints, we expect to continue our progress in those areas, and they will help us in our team’s goals of defending our conference and regional titles, and national top 10.