A week after finishing third and fourth in the NCAA Indoor Championships, the LSU track and field teams will open their outdoor season for the Louisiana Classics in Lafayette. But they will be without some familiar faces.
None of the athletes who traveled to College Station, Texas, last weekend to compete in the national meet will travel with the team this weekend.
“We won’t be taking them primarily because we gave them a couple of days off when they got back from the championship,” said LSU coach Dennis Shaver. “We’ll be taking the majority of the athletes on our roster that didn’t go to the national indoor meet.”
Shaver said LSU will travel with a little more than 50 athletes to the meet in Lafayette, while those who don’t travel will stay back to focus on schoolwork.
“We wanted to give them the weekend to get caught up academically because of the number of classes that they’ve had to miss this indoor season,” Shaver said. “There are several of them that want to compete, but I told them I think it’s best that they focus on school right now.”
The meet is the first outdoor competition of the season, so several athletes are competing for the first time this year in events unique to outdoor track and field.
The javelin and discus throwers only compete outside, and the sprinters will get their first attempt at the 100-meter dash.
“Realistically, it’s the first outdoor meet. We just want to go see people compete and give their best effort,” Shaver said.
Though the outdoor season starts today for LSU, Shaver understands his team doesn’t have a lot of time to get accustomed to the new season. The last regular-season meet is the last weekend of April — only six weeks away.
“It’s a slow transition from the indoor championship to the opening of our outdoor season,” Shaver said. “It gives us an opportunity to get some people started a week earlier than some of our NCAA-caliber people.”