Column: Bearcats have unique opportunity
Skye Pournazari
Jon Dykstra Managing Editor The Maryville Forum
With Brandon Masters, Wick Cunningham and Nikki Segrest leading it, the Northwest Missouri State track and field program has quietly built a sustained winner with plenty of trips to nationals and an ever-growing list of All-Americans — and even national champions — over the last several years.
Cross country, indoor and outdoor track and field have all had their success, and I said ‘quietly’ earlier through no fault of the athletes or coaches, but the nature of the spring sports season — college track and field just doesn’t get the attention that other sports throughout the year get. Some of that has to do with being on the road the majority of the time and some of it is just the chaotic nature of the short spring season and everyone getting less coverage than they deserve.
That doesn’t change the impressive success that the Bearcats have achieved with tremendous facilities, but a not fully-funded program. Masters has been out-spoken in the past about what he thinks the program can become if it used all its scholarship allotment.
Pittsburg State is the standard in the MIAA and in Division-II with three-of-four national championships this year in men’s and women’s track and field in outdoor and indoor. Northwest has shown the ability to compete at that level with the Gorillas — winning the cross-country men’s MIAA championship this season over them.
One thing the limited budget does though is it has caused Northwest to focus on certain events and punt on others. The Bearcats have been great on the track and have competed well in jumps, but the throws are an area they’ve completely punted on until this season.
Down Highway 71, Missouri Western has faced similar challenges, but to a greater extreme. Western lacks the facilities that Northwest has for track and field, and appeared to have even greater scholarship limitations, forcing them to completely focus on throws and distance running.
Last Wednesday, Missouri Western Director of Athletics Andy Carter announced the university is discontinuing its track and field program. The Griffons will keep their cross country program with one of the premier courses in Division-II, but with track and field gone, that leaves some very talented throwers without a home.
Masters took steps to begin the rebuild of the Bearcat throwing program this year by hiring Tanner Berg, a national champion at Northern State and former coach at Kansas State, to begin that process.
That process has the opportunity to have gas thrown on the fire now. Among the athletes currently without a home are a pair of northwest Missouri kids who just happen be have also recently become All-Americans.
Central (St. Joseph) graduate Makenzie Garr finished her sophomore season at Missouri Western by taking fourth in the nation in the shot put and 11th in the discus.
“I’m so excited for Makenzie to finally get her first of hopefully many First Team All-American honors,” Griffon head coach Cody Ingold said in a MWSU’s press release. The ‘many First Team All-American honors’ would be great to see with a paw on her jersey.
Also, Smithville graduate Lucas Trotter finished his junior season by finishing ninth in the nation in the shot put.
The Griffons have young athletes on the roster who could also be fits for Northwest with the most asked about to me in the days since the announcement being Western signee Carson Sterling, who just medaled in the discus for the Spoofhounds less than two weeks ago.
Budgets in Division-II athletics are complicated and I don’t pretend to be an expert. You can’t always do everything you want to do — as evidenced by Western cutting a program they just recently started. But if Northwest is ever going to jump in with two feet in fully rounding out its track and field roster, this feels like the time to strike.
