The Bowerman Preseason Watch List for Men Announced

Courtesy: Tom Lewis, USTFCCCA

NEW ORLEANS – The Bowerman, an award bestowed to collegiate track & field’s best athlete of the year, was awarded to Florida State’s Ngoni Makusha and Texas A&M’s Jessica Beard less than a month ago, but it’s time to look forward to 2012 with the award’s preseason watch list. The men’s list of ten, announced by The Bowerman Watch List Committee, has three semifinalists from the 2011 season.

The three finalists from 2011 – Makusha, Washington State’s Jeshua Anderson, and Florida’s Christian Taylor – are no longer collegians.

Virginia’s Robby Andrews, Iona’s Leonard Korir, and Florida State’s Maurice Mitchell rejoins the watch list after being named semifinalists in 2011. Florida’s Jeff Demps was a semifinalist for the award in 2010. BYU’s Miles Batty and Texas’ Marquise Goodwin had time on the watch list in 2011. Duke’s Curtis Beach, Arizona’s Lawi Lalang, Florida’s Tony McQuay, and Illinois’ Andrew Riley are first time members of the watch list.
 

NAME	YEAR	SCHOOL	EVENTS	HOMETOWN
Robby Andrews	SO/JR	Virginia	Distance	Englishtown, N.J.
Miles Batty	SR	BYU	Distance	Sandy, Utah
Curtis Beach	JR	Duke	Combined Events	Albuquerque, N.M.
Jeff Demps	JR/SR	Florida	Sprints	Winter Garden, Fla.
Marquise Goodwin	JR	Texas	Jumps/Sprints	Garland, Texas
Leonard Korir	JR	Iona	Distance	Iten, Kenya
Lawi Lalang	SO	Arizona	Distance	Eldoret, Kenya
Tony McQuay	JR	Florida	Sprints	Riviera Beach, Fla.
Maurice Mitchell	SR	Florida State	Sprints	Kansas City, Mo.
Andrew Riley	SR	Illinois	Sprints/Hurdles	Kingston, Jamaica

 

QUICKLY – The Watch List

Robby Andrews, Virginia – In 2011, won first NCAA outdoor 800-meter title with a memorable, come-from-behind 200-meter sprint to the finish. Sitting in last place at the 600-meter mark, Andrews used a 26.44-second final close to pass the entire field to grab the tape from UC Irvine’s Charles Jock by only four hundredths of a second. Final time at the NCAA meet of 1:44.71 equaled the best collegiate mark of the year (Cory Primm, UCLA). 

Miles Batty, BYU – In 2011, Batty spurred BYU’s run to the podium for a third-place team finish at the NCAA Indoor Championships with national titles in the mile and as anchor of the squad’s DMR team. Batty was one of two to finish the national mile final in sub-four fashion as he topped Tulsa’s Chris O’Hare for the national crown with a 3:59.49 clocking. Batty, the day previous, led the Cougars to their first national crown in the DMR since 1978, holding off fast closing Indiana and Minnesota, with a 3:56.14, 1600-meter anchor split. Outdoors, Batty was seventh at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in the mile.

Curtis Beach, Duke – An up-and-comer in the combined events, Beach placed runner-up at the 2011 NCAA Outdoor Championships in the decathlon with 8,084 points. Beach was only the second person in the world born in the 1990s to score over 8,000 points last year (Thomas van der Plaetsen, Belgium).

Jeff Demps, Florida – In 2011, Demps claimed his second-straight NCAA indoor 60-meter title with a personal-best run in the finals of 6.53 seconds. Demps became the first back-to-back NCAA indoor short-sprint champ since DaBryan Blanton of Oklahoma in 2004 and 2005. Outdoors, Demps qualified for the final site of the NCAA Championship in the 100 meters and 4×100 relay. He was a member of the SEC champion 4×100 team outdoors as well.

Marquise Goodwin, Texas – The junior won the NCAA outdoor long jump title as a freshman in 2010. In 2011, he swept Big 12 long jump titles and leaped to a personal best 26-9¾ (8.17m).

Leonard Korir, Iona – Indoor 5000-meter and outdoor 10,000-meter NCAA champion in 2011. Split a 56.18 final lap to claim the outdoor national title. Also finished third outdoors nationally in the 5000 and sixth indoors at 3000 meters. In clocking 27:29.40 in the 10k at Stanford’s Payton Jordan Invitational in May, he moved to second all-time in collegiate history in the event (Sam Chelanga, 27:08.39, 2010)

Lawi Lalang, Arizona – Had one of the most dominant cross country seasons in NCAA history in 2011. As a freshman, Lalang had a perfect season, going six-for-six in races. He won the NCAA cross country crown by 13 seconds and would win every race by an average of 20.5 seconds which included the Pac-12 title and NCAA West regional crown. [NOTE: But, remember, cross country not considered in determining the award winner]. On the track in 2011, Lalang was the national runner-up in the 5000 meters.

Tony McQuay, Florida – McQuay was the NCAA’s runner-up in the 400 meters at last year’s national outdoor championships. Indoors, McQuay was a national qualifier in both the 200 and 400 meters, and scored a seventh-place spot in the 400 despite injuring himself in the 200-meter preliminaries the previous day. Most impressive was his gold-medal performance at the USATF Championships in the 400 where he fought off a bevy of pros, including 2004 Olympic gold medalist Jeremy Wariner, to take national title in 44.68.

Maurice Mitchell, Florida State – In 2011, Mitchell was the NCAA outdoor 200-meter champion in a wind-aided 19.99 and third-leg of Florida State’s national champion 4×100-meter relay team. He was national runner-up indoors in the 200 and was only bested by Oklahoma’s Mookie Salaam who took the title by two thousandths of a second in a different section. Placed third at the NCAA meet indoors in the 60 and outdoors in the 100 meters. And, he did not lose a 200-meter race in 13 tries during the indoor and outdoor seasons.

Andrew Riley, Illinois – Riley owns NCAA high-hurdle championship titles both indoors and outdoors. In 2011, Riley was the indoor 60-meter hurdle champ which added to his 2010 outdoor 110-hurdle crown. Outside the collegiate season, Riley won the Jamaican national title in the 110 hurdles and placed 14th overall in the World Championships. Overall, Riley is a six-time Big Ten Champion.
 

ALSO RECEIVING MENTION

NAME	YEAR	SCHOOL	EVENTS	HOMETOWN
Derek Drouin	SR/JR	Indiana	Jumps	Corunna, Ontario
German Fernandez	SR/JR	Oklahoma State	Distance	Riverbank, Calif.
Mason Finley	JR	Kansas	Throws	Salida, Colo.
Tim Glover	JR	Illinois State	Javelin	Normal, Ill.
Ryan Loughney	SR	Ashland	Throws	Grahamsville, N.Y.
Ben Sathre	SR	St. Thomas (Minn.)	Distance	Chaska, Minn.
Maston Wallace	JR	Texas	Pole Vault	Houston, Texas