QUOTES FROM THE PRESS CONFERENCE

Head Coach Mark Wetmore

ON BILLY NELSON’S CHANCES OF MAKING THE OLYMPIC TEAM GOING IN—“I would say that the odds on Billy (Nelson) making the team got better and better everyday as the trials approached.  He had an excellent outdoor season and every time he went to the line he seemed to be more ready than he was.  I don’t think I did anything differently this year, I just think he was highly motivated this year by having Big 12’s (conference championships) at home and having a chance to do very well at the NCAA Championships, to advance to the trials and to advance to the Olympics.  I think his level of motivation kept cranking up and the odds just kept getting better.”

ON HIS ABILITY TO RECRUIT FUTURE OLYMPIANS—“Recruiting for a collegiate track and field coach is a never ending process.  We’re still adding people who will be on our team this September but we’ve already begun the recruiting for the following September, in ’09.  It tends to overlap for six or seven weeks every year.  It never ends, sometimes it is oppressive but it is required if you want to have great athletes like Billy and Jenny (Barringer).”

ON HAVING MORE RECRUITING LEVERAGE NOW—“The top level distance (runners) recruits take our phone calls.  There are 300 and something Division-I school and you’re a girl who runs 4:50 or a guy who runs 4:10 you’re going to have to weed out the calls some how, but they take our calls.  They always have and now they will continue to for another couple of years.”

ON POSSIBLY GOING TO BEIJING—“I’m trying to, but the USOC and the USATF make it quite a task for what is known as a personal coach to go—maybe it is deliberate to weed out the weaklings.”

ON JENNY AND BILLY PEAKING—“Peaking is 20 percent science, 20 percent heart and 80 percent luck (laughing since the math doesn't add up), so at this time we just look at how their workouts are going and how their races are going and guestimate how they’re feeling.  They both look fresh and are continuing to improve in their workouts.  They are mostly happy to be there, so they’ll be ready and keep getting better.”

ON CASEY MALONE MAKING THE OLYMPIC TEAM—“Yeah Casey (Malone) made the team but I am not going to let him go, I need him here and there is a lot of paperwork to do in my absence when I’m in China so he can’t go. (laughing) It was a wonderful final day for us there, we had excitement after excitement.  Then all the runners were up in the stands relaxing and we were watching his preliminary throws and his final throws and we were crossing off the people who he was beating and the people without the ‘A’ standard so that was quite a drama for us.  I’m thrilled to have him going and he’ll be able to make up the work when he gets back by working double time (laughing at another joke).  He had a BIG responsibility with the Big 12 conference meet; he did way more of the nuts and bolts work along with his wife Lindsay.  Very few coaches are on the Olympic team, usually when you get into coaching your career is over.  He manages it some how and that is part of the reason we are so excited.”

ON CU ATHLETES IN THE FUTURE—“We have some talented people here, maybe our top returning distance male Kenyon Neuman would have been the next person invited in the 5k at the Olympic trials.  If he had ran the way he did at the NCAA Championships at the trials he would have made the finals.  So four years from now we are going to have more CU people in the Olympic trials and then these guys will be gone from CU but certainly the right age to be back there again.  Just keep on rolling I hope.”

ON THE POLLUTION—“I have never been Beijing, but I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about how bad it usually is.  I know that the government has taken every reasonable measure and maybe some unreasonable measures to get it cleaned up.  They are paying factories to shut down and paying cab drivers to not drive and paying smokers to not smoke so they are doing everything they can I think.  I’m sure it’ll be a lot better than it would have been on August 8, 2007.”

Billy Nelson

ON HIS GOALS FOR THE OLYMPICS—“It is kind of the same thing for me, since I’ve made the team I have been juggling the fact of ‘oh I made it’ and getting past that being the ultimate goal.  I’ve been looking at the past results to see what it takes to qualify for the finals.  I think that I can do it if the race unfolds perfectly, so making the final is the next step but like she (Jenny) said it is kind of juggling the fact that even though you’ve made the team now you still have a lot of work to do.”

ON HOW HE MADE THE TEAM—“It was kind of a nerve racking experience because I didn’t have the ‘A' standard and I kind of shut it down in the prelims because I didn’t know how fast we were running and I could have kicked a little harder at the end and when I finished I was a second and a half off so I was a little nervous because I thought I screwed up a little bit.  We had a few options for the final and one of them played out and I knew I could just concentrate on being in the top three.  I think that is one of the best things about Coach Wetmore is he peaked us at the right time and he knew that if I went to the trials I could do well at the finals.  We did well at the conference meet and at nationals but he knew we could do great things beyond the NCAA.  I owe him a lot for that and just for believing in me.  It was a crazy weekend, I had a lot of PRs.  It was about staying focused and we knew what I had to run to hit the A standard and every lap I looked up to make sure I was still on pace and paying attention to the clock and I knew I was under the A standard and I could still kick so I did it.”

ON BEING TOLD THAT HE WAS TO SHORT TO RUN THE STEEPLECHASE WHILE BEING RECRUITED BY OREGON—“That is something we joked about for a long time on the team, and now it’s national.  I was interested in Arkansas, Oregon and Colorado and I took my visit here and loved it and everything but I did go to Oregon and he asked what I wanted to run in college and I said the 5k and the steeplechase because we had that at some local invitationals and I enjoyed it and thought I could do well in it and he basically laughed at me and said I was too small.  He and an assistant coach there had a few jokes about it and I was kind of thinking ‘yeah, this is great I’m here on my recruiting visit here and you don’t believe in me’ so I told them that the world record holder is a shorter than I am, to try and fight back a little.  I don’t put anything against them, they didn’t think I could do it and that furthered my coming here so it worked out better.  I think I am a better athlete and a better person for coming here, and he ended up leaving there anyway so it wouldn’t have mattered.  I didn’t really do the steeplechase here until my redshirt sophomore year.  I have a loud mouth and I was talking to the seniors on the team and they again laughed at me and said I was too small so coach just told me to do it and he thought I was good at it so I kept doing it and here we are.”

ON THE POLLUTION—“I come from the San Joaquin Valley and it is one of the most polluted valleys in America, I don’t think it compares to Beijing but like Jenny said I’m going to go in with the mindset that everyone has to deal with it, not just me.  It’s not like everyone is immune to it and I’m not, I don’t think it’s going to be a factor in my race.”

ON HOME TOWN REACTION—“Right now there are a few of the local companies that are trying to help with finances for my family.  They’ve always backed me, and I made the World Junior Cross team when I was in high school and they helped my dad with that too.  I think I am the first Olympian from my small town and high school and stuff so they are having a great time.  My mom called and talked to one of the guys who is big and well known in Taft, Calif. and they announced it at a big motocross event there and that was cool.  They have backed me for years, and whenever something happens they do what they can to rise to the occasion.”

ON THE OLYMPIC VILLAGE—“ Like Jenny said, being able to hang out with all the different athletes and people I’ve watched over the years too.”

ON JORGE TORRES—“I was actually a freshman when George (Jorge Torres) was a senior, because I’ve been here forever (Nelson was a sixth-year senior in May of 2008), but it was amazing to watch him run.  He was one of the people who called me when I was a senior and told me about CU and why I should come here.  Postcollegiate runners are huge here and that was important to me, and he told me that he realizes I want to do well in college but explained how Mark gets people to the next level.  It was great to get to see him make the team, I knew he could do it.  To be there to watch it and see how he did it, he ran a smart work and when they broke away we knew he’d do it.”

Jenny Barringer

ON HER GOALS FOR THE OLYMPICS—“I think that the most important thing for me is to not think that the task is over, that making the team was the end goal.  I really want to go into the games with the outlook of working to make the finals and then to do well in the final.  I think that sometimes athletes can get caught in the trap of thinking that making the team is the ultimate goal and I hope I can avoid that trap and do well once I get there.”

ON JUGGLING HER INTERNSHIP, CLASSES AND ATHLETICS—“Yeah, the office (that I work for) has been really excited and extremely supportive, they along with my professor here have gone above and beyond to help with my schedule and my needs.  Instead of just making it work, they have gone out of their way to make it easy on me and I really appreciate that from them.  They have gone above and beyond to help me.”

ON HER CURRENT ACADEMIC STANDING—“I’m not sure but I believe that I’m truly a senior and that credit-wise there is a possibility I could graduate with an undergraduate degree in December but I would really like to pursue a double major so I’d be pursuing that through the spring.”

ON ESTIMATING HER PERFORMANCE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE OLYMPICS—“Yeah, I have no past results to look at.  The steeplechase for women has really developed and taken great leaps over the last two years.  The first person that I go to in helping to educate me in my event is (CU assistant coach) Heather Burroughs she just has a great ability to look at results and remember them, compare them, cross reference them so she has done a great job of helping me to estimate the abilities of the other women that will be competing there.  Also, with her being one of my coaches she is very aware of my abilities and what I can shoot for.”

ON HER RECRUITMENT—“Yeah, I think that when I was being recruited one of the things that I was really looking at was the coaching staff.  I came from a high school program where I had an incredibly loyal and active coach who went on runs with me and traveled with me to all of my meets.  That kind of attention to detail and focus on the athlete is important to me so coming to CU I feel like I fit in really well and they had the best coaching staff to fit my needs and my style of training.  I had my doubts about the steeplechase and even after my first race I mentioned that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy it but the coaching-athlete relationship is built on having trust and I had that coming in and the success I’ve had in the steeplechase has just gotten better and better.”

ON THE POLLUTION—“Whenever an athlete faces any type of conditions I think the first thing we always say is that everybody has to deal with it.  That is the first mental state I go into; if I have to deal with it then so does everybody else.  If there is a disadvantage then we’ll all have to face it.  I’m not overly concerned though, there are a lot of places in the United States that are heavily polluted and we go there and we manage and there are other countries that deal with the same thing.  I would like to give Beijing the opportunity to put on the best Olympics possible and I’m going to go in giving them the opportunity to do that.”

ON HOME TOWN REACTION—“Yeah, there has been a lot of reaction.  Something that is really exciting is that my grandparents called me and they are the most adorable people, they’re my dad’s parents, they’re 80 and 81 and they were interviewed on their local radio station and they said it was the first time in their live that they’ve ever been interviewed for anything.  That being said, I have gotten in touch with so many people from Oviedo and Orlando because of this experience and I made the front page of our paper their and that was really exciting for me.  Knowing what I have accomplished and how I’m touching people has surprised me.  I don’t think you can prepare yourself for the ambush of phone calls and emails you get from everyone, it’s been really exciting.”

ON THE OLYMPIC VILLAGE—“Probably what I am most excited for is an opportunity to be in the village for a week, separated with all kinds of elite athletes.  I have been able to travel a bunch and have been blessed to be on some world teams, but you don’t always have the opportunity to sit down and have lunch with people and get to know people.  The Olympic Village is so unique because there are people from so many different sports from all over the world and that is what I’m most looking forward to.  Just being able to be there and interact, be able to go down and get breakfast in my pajamas and talk to people I watched four years ago.  Secondly, I was obviously thrilled to make the team but it got ten times better when Billy and Casey made the team, to be able to experience the village will be the highlight of it for me.  I’m a huge (Orlando) Magic fan so if I get to run into Dwight Howard I’ll be really excited.”