M. Track is happy to get outside

After a disappointing indoor season, the Quakers kick off the outdoor season at home. The Penn men's track team has the opportunity to start with a clean slate Sunday as it begins the 1999 outdoor season. The Quakers will kick off the season at their very own Quaker Invitational this Sunday at Franklin Field. The athletes are eager to turn it around after a disappointing indoor campaign and prove to the rest of the Ivy League that they are still competitive. The Invite features some local teams, including Villanova and Temple, and a few teams from New York, such as Fordham. The overall caliber of competition will not be as tough as Penn has faced recently but it will provide the athletes with a chance to build some confidence and prepare for the more competitive meets later in the year. "I think everyone wants to get off on the right foot," Penn high jumper Bobby Barlett said. "The way you start off your season sometimes is an indicator of how the whole season's going to be." After a poor start to the indoor season that led to a seventh-place finish out of nine teams at Heptagonals, the Quakers want to move up to challenge perennial powerhouses Princeton and Navy. "We want to get back at the teams that beat us, who haven't beat us in 15, 20 years," Barlett said. "I don't think this program needs to be where we're dying to beat Columbia and Harvard. I still think this program's goal should be Navy and Princeton." Realistically, the Quakers should take third place in the Ancient Eight if they can maintain their health and focus. Some of the stand-out athletes who were injured for the majority of the indoor track season will return at full-force in the following weeks. "We're working on getting healthy," Penn sophomore sprinter Darryl Olczak said. "We're doing all of our lifting to prevent injuries. We're out of the heart of the indoor season, so our training's kind of backed off, and it's going to give us time to recover and heal up." Not only will Penn be closer to full-strength after injured athletes return but the majority of the athletes prefer competing outside rather than in the confines of dingy buildings like the rodent-infested Armory in Boston. "A lot of people are getting off of injuries -- a lot of people will be getting second winds," Penn sophomore thrower Kyle Turley said. "Now people will have to come to our house." Penn has no indoor track facilities so this Sunday's meet marks the first time the Quakers will have the opportunity to compete in front of a home crowd. Most of the members of the track team readily admit that they have better seasons during the spring, as they describe track as an "outdoor sport" and the outdoor season as "the only real season." Before competing at the collegiate level, many of the freshman had never competed indoors. "I'm not really a big fan of indoor," Olczak said. "It's always muggy, you always feel down and you don't really feel up and excited to compete. But when you're outdoors, you've got all of the fresh air and sun -- everyone can admit that on a nice day, you feel better than on a not-so-nice day." Not all of the competitors feel this way, however. "I think I prefer indoor, because when I grunt after a throw, I can get the entire arena to look at me," Turley said. "Other than that, I like the hammer better because it hurts less. The weight actually physically hurts to throw." Turley, a native of Nashua, N.H., is not the only member of the team that has to switch events with the arrival of the season. The outdoor season features more events and longer races. Penn should benefit from the addition of the intermediate hurdles, the javelin throw, the discus and some of the short sprints that are not run in the winter, including the 4x100-meter relay. "I'm excited for the 4x4 relay team, when Mike [Aguilar] and Steve [Faulk] are back," Olczak said. "I think we're going to run some fast times. We'll definitely have a good 4x1 team -- we've got eight fast guys who will all be on the 'A' team." If the first days of practice are any indication of what the Quakers can expect from the rest of the season, they will be an entirely different team from the one they were during indoor. "The last two weeks have already been a lot better," Olczak said. "The first day back, Monday, everyone was out here, [and] everyone was working hard. It looked like we were a team again."

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.