Each team sport has subgroups within each team. Football teams have linemen and skill players, baseball has pitchers and position players and track and field is no different.
The distinction between the diverse groups of athletes is obvious when present at a track meet. Sprinters hang out with sprinters. Distance runners associate with distance runners. Throwers mingle with other throwers.
“It’s a sharing of pain,” said LSU track and field head coach Pat Henry. “I wouldn’t call it cliquish, but it is an event-specific relationship they have with each other.”
Henry said the different body types and the different mentalities brought to the track combine to create the subgroups within a track and field team.
“Athletes who train together in their specific event become close friends, sometimes even life long friends,” Henry said. “When there are more than 100 athletes, you have to narrow the field down to small groups.”
Away from the track, players within their respective circle are around each other all the time. They go out to eat together. They go to parties together. They are best friends. Crossing over is considered a no-no.
Many of the players said it is not as if they do not like each other, but the amount of time spent with the same people creates solid bonds.
“It’s just a totally different training and mentality,” said former Tiger great and 400-meter champion Derrick Brew. “We hang around the people we train with, and we’re like a family. It all comes together in the end as a team effort. But it is small groups in track.”
According to Henry, distance runners are the most tightly-knit group.
“Their personalities are very much alike,” he said. “They always associate with each other, on and off the track.”
The top-ranked Lady Tigers and the third-ranked Tigers come together as a team again Friday at the LSU Twilight, beginning at 3 p.m. in the Carl Maddox Field House.
This is the last meet for the Tigers before the Southeastern Conference Indoor Championships next week.
After a productive outing last week at the Armory Invitational in New York, Henry said the goal this week is to give more experience to a few athletes. Many of the athletes who have qualified for nationals will rest.
“We’re going to keep the motors running for a few young ones so they can mature some,” Henry said. “Some people need rest, and that will be an individual decision come the time of the meet.”
Ten schools will compete at the Twilight meet, and Henry said most teams have the same mindset as the Tigers.
“This late in the season, most schools will be selective on their performances,” he said. “We’re not necessarily looking for vast improvement. We’re just looking for consistency of effort. If we maintain the same consistency of effort, the improvement will come.”