Junior sprinter readies IU for Big Ten meet

For the men’s track and field team to win the Big Ten indoor championships this weekend, it will need more than talent and a home facility advantage. It will need leadership and motivation. Thankfully the team has been getting these two things in heavy doses all year from not only their coaches, but junior sprinter Doug Dayhoff.\nAt the beginning of the year, men’s head coach Wayne Pate named Dayhoff a captain of the men’s team. Since then, Dayhoff has been setting examples for younger athletes, not only with his feet, but with his work ethic and personality. \nAnd the other athletes are taking notice, sprinter’s coach George Freeman said. \n“Coach Pate elected the captains, but the team would have voted for Doug,” Freeman said. “It’s been a pleasure coaching him. He is very outgoing and responds well in practice and is a good leader.”\nDayhoff also embraces his role as a team leader. \n“It means I need to set a good example for the team (and) really set a high standard for the rest of the guys,” Dayhoff said.\nIU sprinters run what they call “ladders” in practices. This is where they start with a distance and then either increase or decrease the distance with each following run. Coach Freeman’s favorite ladder was called the “telephone number.”\nThe ladder started at 500-meters and after three of those worked, its down to 100-meters. These types of workouts need fellow athlete’s leadership to keep the team happy and working hard.\n“Doug would say, ‘OK, we will run this distance in this time,’ and then run the distance two seconds faster,” senior sprinter and relay partner of Dayhoff’s Trey Warfield said. “So of course the rest of the team sees this and tries to keep up.”\nDayhoff’s intensity in practice carries over into competitions. He has the fastest time on the team in the 400-meter dash at 47.76 seconds, making him fifth fastest in the Big Ten.\nBeing a captain on the team means that Dayhoff has to manage his team’s morale, something Freeman and Warfield agree that Dayhoff is very good at.\n“Doug is a great leader. Before we run races, when we are all warming up and are tense, he’ll come over and crack a joke and get us all to loosen up,” Warfield said.\nDayhoff and the rest of the men’s track and field team are excited about heading into this weekend’s Big Ten championship meet held in Bloomington.\n“This is the best part of the season because we have done all of the prep work, and now we can see it all pay off,” Dayhoff said. “We always have goals heading into meets. Personally, I just want to be on that podium after I run, score points for my team and to be able to see my team win.”\nThe excitement is so high that Pate said he saw some athletes with so much energy they were doing cartwheels, and that he just wanted them to save that energy for the weekend.\nFor many athletes, this weekend could be the culmination of a lot of hard work and training. \n“This is my last indoor Big Tens and all I want to do is get on that podium,” Warfield said, “it is just time to go out there and do what we have been trained to do.”