Emmanuela Aliu
While on the topic of her I have always thought she has the greatest turnover and twitch of our short sprinters; just great speed but yet terrible block transition. Not technique but progression of getting out the block quickly and transitioning into her drive phase. I always thought that if she ever fixed that issue she would be a top SEC sprinter. I think her foot speed is comparable to the great ones but she was always behind the 8 ball in most races but never be pulled away from.
In general I have had concers in the past, which I have articulated before, that I personally felt we had great sprinters on campus 4 years ago but dropped the ball on the women's side. When we had the Florida girls on campus; Spalding and Sparling, Danyel White, and a few others I felt that during that time our girls did not progress according to their talent and I blamed it on not Vince Anderson nor Henry but on the weight training program.
Banks was over the program at that time. I think he is a good coach and his development plan was great for our long sprinters. In fact his work and Henry's development of our 400 groups has been astoundingoy effective and consistent in producing the lavish successes we have enjoyed from those groups and in our long relays. I however, was very concerned that we never turned the corner on those girls getting faster in outdoor season. I always noted the physical shape of the Oregon athletes and how well scultped they were but not too bulky. I compared their builds to ours and felt we underdeveloped our girls by putting too much weight on them and expecting them to run fast. We got away with that with the 400 group cause it was an assett but I felt it was the one crippling factor when LSU and Oregon began to take the preeiminence in the sprints.
We switched Banks with the new strenght and conditioning guy and I was eleated.for our program but then we lost Anderson and most recently Honn. I think we were improving greatly with marginal athletes since then but too many injuries and I think Anderson took the brunt of that blame and their underdevelopment. Historically our taller sprinters have done well in our hayday but athletes like Elizabeth Adeotti never finished their careers here with improving; she was an 11.4 sprinter out of HS and left here 11.8 her senior year and she was bulky as hell in a muscular way. I said back then she should not be that large; there is no way such a short girl can carry all that muscle mass and still run fast. She put on what looked like 10-15 lbs of mass. Banks was a football trainer before coming to us and the one size fits all was a detrmiment even if it wasnt intnetional.
Notice what a difference Fred Kerley had last year; he was noticably smaller and lost much of the bulk he had here. He was successful here because he was a 400 m specialist but he didn't blossom with speed until he dropped the muscle mass. The men's program has not endured as hard a hit as the women though as across the board we were to big for my taste. I certainly am no expert nor consultant on the matter. I did however run in HS and college as a long sprinter/long hurdler so I am familiar with how bulking up reduces your flexibility and hence twitch. My personal opinion was that A&M sprinters' were too big and the shorter sprinters took a hit.
When Sparling and Spalding came here from HS they were skinny lil critters and were quick as hell; both were top 4 in the nation in their resepctive events. Of course Sparling transferred after a year due to other but poor Spalding became huge and never ran faster than 11.5. She should've been much faster but it wasnt her fault. She was too short of a girl to carry that much of a weight differential and still improve her 100. danyel was a slim girl when she got here but she, i felt, was way too heavy. She had extraordinary speed her 1st year and never improved but only got slower and bulkier never breaking 23 flat again after her first year.
I am optimistic that the new strength coach, is progressing them well. A semblance of continuity in coaching is hopefully here now with young henry and no more drama so we should have coaching stability now. I am actually very excited to see what can happen now that all these detrimental factors are alleviated. this is only my personal opinion but things seem to be in place now for progress. I don't think Kurt will be allowed to mess it up as he will be on the same page with Pat and we shall see a blosomming of our short sprinters on the women's side. So here's to a great year and reestablishing our legacy.
