Hog calls

McDonnell way works for Hogs again

Arkansas coach Lance Harter (center) is presented with the National Championship trophy Saturday, March 14, 2015, after the Arkansas women's team won the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championship at the Randal Tyson Track Center in Fayetteville.
Arkansas coach Lance Harter (center) is presented with the National Championship trophy Saturday, March 14, 2015, after the Arkansas women's team won the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championship at the Randal Tyson Track Center in Fayetteville.

FAYETTEVILLE -- A track coach can receive no greater compliment than a national championship "won the McDonnell way."

"Won the McDonnell way" described the NCAA Men's Indoor Track Championship that Coach Chris Bucknam's Razorbacks won for Arkansas in 2013. The phrase also describes the first national championship in the history of the school's women's athletic department that Coach Lance Harter's Razorbacks won Friday and Saturday night at the NCAA Women's Indoor Championships at the Randal Tyson Track Center.

With 40 national championships for cross country, indoor and outdoor track, John McDonnell's Razorbacks men won track titles about every conceivable way: sometimes mainly from distances, sometimes mainly jumps or sprints.

Mostly, McDonnell's teams scored from every facet, first and seconds from their stars but also lower top eight scoring All-American finishes from other athletes.

Last weekend Harter's SEC Indoor champion Razorbacks did it all nationally, top to bottom.

They won with stars, including pole vault champion Sandi Morris and 3,000-meter champion/distance medley relay anchor Dominique Scott, and sprinter Taylor-Ellis Watson, who was the 400-meter dash runner-up and the anchor of Arkansas' runner-up 4 x 400 relay. And they netted points from the lower-ranked pentathletes Alex Gochenour and Taliyah Brooks, 5,000-meter runner Diane Robison and long jumper-triple jumper Tamara Myers, who all finished in the top eight. The sum of all scoring parts totaled 63 points, surpassing the 46.5 for runner-up Oregon, the 2014 NCAA Women's Indoor champion and repeat winner of the NCAA Men's Indoor last weekend with Bucknam's men finishing third.

"Every event we entered, we had a scoring position," Harter said. "That's unheard of. We came from all angles. When you talk about a team effort, that's the definition of a team."

It was truly a team effort but also an effort the team geared to one, the head coach. Since his arrival in Arkansas in 1990 after 14 Division II national championships at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, Harter has pursued a Division I national championship like Captain Ahab pursuing Moby Dick. Now after 24 conference championships, four NCAA Cross Country runner-ups and three times nationally third in track, Harter harpooned his whale on the tusks of his Hogs.

"To be able to have this team this year in this building, what a perfect point of history," Harter said. "And to be able to be the first women's championship, that's truly special."

It took special chemistry that Harter has developed with longtime field events coach Bryan Compton, the nation's best women's collegiate pole vault coach, and fourth-year sprints coach Chris Johnson, said Bucknam.

Bucknam knows coaching chemistry firsthand. At Northern Iowa he won conference championships with assistants Doug Case and Travis Geopfert, whom he reunited at Arkansas to win SEC titles by the bushel and constantly challenge for national championships and win one.

"He lets his coaches coach and gives them the chance to be successful," Bucknam said. "I am really happy for Lance, a national championship well deserved. Hats off to the women."

Sports on 03/16/2015

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