April 11, 2000
This Week
Arizona State men's and women's track teams will host the 21st annual Sun Angel Track Classic at Sun Angel Stadium this Sat., April 15. Field events begin at 3:30 p.m. with running events starting at 4:30 p.m. Selected squads will also represent the Sun Devils at the Mesa Classic and the Mt. SAC Relays in Walnut, Calif., on Fri., April 14.
Sun Angel Track Classic
Donovan Bailey, a former world record holder in the men's 100m dash and 1996 Olympic Champion in that event is scheduled to compete at the Sun Angel Track Classic along with the rest of the men's Canadian National 4x100m Team. That relay squad won Olympic gold in 1996. Other headliners include discus world champion Anthony Washington, American record holder in the pole vault Mel Mueller and ASU alum and pole vaulter Nike Hysong. The men's 4x100 relay and women's pole vault are scheduled for 5:30 p.m., while the men's discus and pole vaulting events will begin at 7 p.m.
Mesa Classic
Arizona State will send a yet-to-be determined group of athletes to compete at the Mesa Classic at Mesa Community College in Mesa, Ariz.
Mt. SAC Relays
Arizona State's distance group will travel to Walnut, Calif., to compete in the Mt. San Antonio College Relays. Fasil Bizuneh will compete in the men's 10,000m, while Kelly MacDonald and Mary Duerbeck will race in the 5,000m.
Pac-10 Athlete of the Week
Senior Dwight Phillips earned this season's first Pac-10 athlete of the week honors as he placed third in the 100m at the Texas Relays with a wind-aided 10.12. In the previous day's qualifier, he clocked a wind-aided 10.11 to win his heat. As the wind was above the NCAA-allowable 4.0 mps in both events, he cannot use those times to qualify for the NCAA Championships. His time was the second fastest in ASU history. The senior from Tucker, Ga. is a six-time All American, holds four school records and is a two-time NCAA runner-up in the indoor long jump.
National Rankings
The Sun Devils' men's squad moved up one spot in the second edition of TrackWire.com's rankings and are currently 18th. The women remain unranked for the second consecutive week. In the men's rankings, six Pac-10 teams are in the top 25, leading with second-ranked Stanford and fifth-ranked USC, and followed by UCLA and Arizona tied at 11th, No. 17 Arizona State and No. 23 Washington. Additionally, all three Arizona universities are represented as Nothern Arizona is 21st. On the women's side, league members UCLA is ranked third, followed by USC in 5th and Arizona in the 14th spot.
Last Outing
Freshman Tiffany Greer became the first automatic qualifier for Arizona State's track program to the 2000 NCAA Championships at the 73rd annual Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays in Austin, Texas, this weekend.
Friday's action saw Greer place fourth with a 21-2.5 on her first leap in the women's long jump event.
Valerie Williams provisionally qualified in the women's long jump, placing sixth with a 20-7. The 4x400m relay bettered its provisional mark, placing fourth with a 3:37.80.
Also of note, Williams' triple jump of 40-7 was 1/4 inch away from a school record.
Outdoor NCAA Championships
This year's National Championships will be held at Duke University in Durham, N.C., May 31 through June 3. The Sun Devil men are looking to improve on last year's 18th place finish while the women are looking to place for the first time since 1996. ASU is already automatically qualified in the women's long jump (Tiffany Greer) and is provisionally qualified in two men's and five women's events.
Head Coach Greg Kraft
Greg Kraft, ASU's eighth director of track & field and cross country, has tirelessly rebuilt the Sun Devils' program from probation to prosperity as he enters his fourth year as a Sun Devil. After spending his first two years at ASU rebuilding the program one event at a time, 1999 saw Kraft get some results. During the indoor season, ASU's men finished 11th and the women tied for 32nd at the NCAA Championships. Marcus Brunson (60 meters) and Dwight Phillips (Long Jump) were NCAA runners-up. Six indoor school records were broken. The outdoor season saw three school records fall while the men finished fifth in the Pac-10, just 0.5 points out of fourth place, and 18th at the NCAA Championships. Three conference crowns were won at the Pac-10 Championships. Kraft, 44, was introduced as ASU's head coach July 28, 1996, after spending seven years heading the track & field and cross country programs at the University of South Carolina where he was the 1996 SEC Coach of the Year. During Kraft's tenure at South Carolina, he rebuilt the men's program into a league power and built the women's program from scratch. Kraft also headed the men's program transition from the Metro Conference to the SEC. Kraft, a Cal Poly SLO graduate, is now entering his 20th year of Division I coaching and 11th as a head coach, has long been associated with successful track & field and cross country programs. As an assistant, Kraft tutored 34 All-Americans and individual conference champions while helping guide his schools to four conference championships and three NCAA Top 10 finishes.
Meet Sun Angel Honoree Maicel Malone
Arizona State University takes great pride in recognizing Maicel Malone as the 2000 Sun Angel Track Classic honoree.
When Malone signed a letter of intent to run track as a Sun Devil, then-ASU head coach Clyde Duncan described her as "the female Carl Lewis." Associate Athletic Director Herman Frazier labeled her "a franchise." Both were true, as she finished her career at ASU with six NCAA Championships and 11 All-America honors. She still holds school records in indoor and outdoor 200m and 400m events, set in 1991, and was part of record holding 4x100m and 4x200m relays, set in 1988. She's also listed in the top six in the 55m, 100m and 4x400m relay events.
As a sophomore, Malone represented the United States at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea. Although she did not run in any events, she was an alternate for the 4x400m relay that took gold. In 1991, Malone again represented her country and won both the 400m and the 4x400m relay events at the World University Games in Sheffield, England. An injury kept her from running the 400m at the Pan American Games, later that summer in Havana, Cuba, but she was part of another winning team as a member of the 4x400m relay.
At the 1992 NCAA Indoor Championships, Malone became the first woman to win three consecutive titles in the 400m, taking the crowns in 1990, '91 and '92. Her season ? and Olympic hopes ? ended shortly after, when Malone learned she was pregnant. Her son, Jaylyn Trapp, was born that November as is frequently described by his proud mother as her "1992 gold medal."
When coach Tom Jones took a job in Florida in early 1993, Malone followed and began her comeback. According to Track & Field News, she was ranked ninth in the world in her signature event that season. At the World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany, Malone recorded the fastest American split in the semifinals of the 4x400m relay, and then clocked a personal-best 49.4 in the finals as the squad won in a meet-record 3:16.71.
The following year, 1994, Malone was the top American in the 400, third in the world. She broke Diane Dixon's U.S. record by .72 with a 51.05, but only held the recognition briefly, as the next day Dixon reclaimed the title.
Malone made her 1996 outdoor debut at our very own Sun Angel Track Classic, and became the 1996 Olympic Trials 400m champion later that summer. At the Atlanta, Ga., Olympic Games, Malone won her first heat, but headaches and flu-like symptoms kept her out of the finals. She did recover to help the 4x400m relay team earn a gold medal. As that individual medal still eludes her, Malone has her sights set on the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia.
Congratulations Maicel and thank you for all you've done for Arizona State University and the sport of track and field!
Sun Angel
Track Classic
Schedule of Events
3:30 p.m. Women's High Jump
4 p.m. Men's Javelin
4 p.m. Women's Shot Put
4:30 p.m. Men's High Jump
4:30 p.m. Women's 100m Hurdles
4:40 p.m. Men's 110m Hurdles
4:50 p.m. High School Girl's 4x100m Relay
4:55 p.m. High School Boy's 4x100m Relay
5 p.m. Women's Long Jump
5 p.m. Women's 4x100m Relay
5:05 p.m. Men's 4x100m Relay
5:15 p.m. Women's 800m
5:20 p.m. Men's 800m
5:30 p.m. Women's Discus
5:30 p.m. Women's Pole Vault
5:30 p.m. Men's Shot Put
5:30 p.m. Women's 400m Hurdles
5:35 p.m. Men's 400m Hurdles
5:45 p.m. Women's 400m
5:50 p.m. Men's 400m
6 p.m. High School Girl's 100m
6:05 p.m. High School Boy's 100m
6:10 p.m. Women's 100m
6:15 p.m. Men's 100m
6:25 p.m. High School Girl's 1600m
6:35 p.m. High School Boy's 1600m
6:45 p.m. Women's 1500m
6:55 p.m. Men's 1500m
7 p.m. Men's Long Jump
7 p.m. Men's Pole Vault
7 p.m. Men's Discus
7:05 p.m. Women's 200m
7:15 p.m. Men's 200m
7:30 p.m. Women's 3000m
7:45 p.m. Men's 3000m
8 p.m. High School Girl's 4x400m Relay
8:05 p.m. High School Boy's 4x400m Relay
8:10 p.m. Women's 4x400m Relay
8:15 p.m. Men's 4x400m Relay