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June 22, 2006

Given To Fly: ISU track coach guiding hurdlers at USA Championships

By Craig Pearson

TERRE HAUTE — John McNichols is no stranger to a hurdle.

He’s obviously done a pretty good job coaching the hurdles at Indiana State. The Sycamores have had two NCAA champions in McNichols’ tenure, Aubrey Herring in the 2001 indoor season and Chris Lancaster during the 1990 outdoor season.

The ISU Track and Field Coordinator’s expertise has been employed by the USATF Men’s Development Committee as the Hurdles Broad Event Chair since 2000. Before taking on that responsibility, he had worked as the 110-meter hurdle coordinator since 1989.

His job is to work with the nation’s top athletes to further the development of American hurdlers. With the U.S. Track and Field Championships going on this weekend on IUPUI’s track at Indianapolis, McNichols has a busy weekend. Also, helping him with analyzing video of the hurdlers is Al Finch, an ISU professor of exercise science, who serves as the biomechanist for the USATF Elite Hurdle Development Committee.

He and McNichols analyze film of hurdlers and copy the film into a visualization software called Dartfish.

“[Video analysis] was going on well before I got involved,” McNichols said. “We do what’s called touchdown times. We take the athlete’s time as they step down off of each hurdle. The hurdles are an equal distance apart so we can break it down in perfect increments.”

McNichols and Finch work with America’s elite down to junior athletes.

“You can compare the same athlete to another athlete, run a junior next to an Olympian to show them the correct technique,” McNichols said.

“You put the elite athlete right over the screen of the junior kid and they can really compare where the trail leg drives to. It’s a good program. It’s pretty intensive.”

The technology is nice, McNichols said, but it can be time consuming.

“Computers save time, but on the other hand you have to enter the data. It takes a long time to get all the video downloaded,” he said during a storm-caused delay Thursday. “[Thursday night] the athletes know to come to the High Performance Center, at Hyatt Regency. The athletes sit with us one-on-one and their coach will be with them also.”

To get the video this weekend, there are eight cameramen, one of whom is Terre Haute South track Coach Jeff Martin. Jeff’s wife Angie Martin, an assistant on McNichols’ staff, is also at the championships working with ISU 400-meter competitor Sean Wright — a Missouri Valley Conference champion as a freshman — and South graduate Anthony Bertoli. Both are competing in the 19-and-under competition. Bertoli is competing in the decathlon.

Since long before McNichols became involved, hurdling has been one of America’s top events in the summer Olympics, McNichols said.

“On several occasions we’ve swept the 110 hurdles,” McNichols said. “We expect a medal every year. The last World Championships, we went 2-3 in the 110 hurdles and 1-2-3 in World Championships last year in 400 hurdles.”

A graduate assistant coach for ISU this past year, Herring is one of the United States’ top hurdlers, as his top time of the past year of 14.34 ranks fourth in the U.S. and sixth in the world, McNichols said. Herring’s competition begins Saturday.

“Aubrey should make the finals and make a run at one of the top spots,” McNichols said.

After leaving ISU, Herring was one of the top hurdlers in the nation, but he had fallen back a bit. McNichols said he thinks Herring returning his training to Terre Haute has made a big difference. Herring also utilizes the computer software in his office.

“Video analysis is an integral part of Herring’s preparation for racing and training,” McNichols said. “Herring has a very efficient technique in which he rotates over the hurdle, but this technique also requires extreme precision, rather than a hurdler who tends to sail over the hurdle. Video analysis can show him if he’s getting back on the ground fast enough, and if not, why not.”

The computer software is great to have around, McNichols said, and so is a biomechanist.

“We have a bunch of coaches. It’s good to have the biomechanist,” he said. “He’s an authority on human movement. He had things to learn about the hurdles from the coaching terms to the layman terms to what we look for as coaches, but he has knowledge of angles, of moments of inertia and different aspects of momentum.

Then McNichols can translate that added information to the athlete.

“It’s not rocket science, but it is science,” he said. “You have to have an understanding of movement. Then you break it down in terms they’re going to relate to from the execution side of it.”

McNichols’ team has been shooting video of all women’s competitors as well at this weekend’s championships. Other than the break for Thursday’s storm, it’s a busy week.

“It’s a pretty work-intensive activity,” McNichols said. “It’s not a paid vacation in Indianapolis. We’re working for per-diem and a room. It’s not a profitable operation. We do it to try and assist the USATF as a service.”

Other ISU athletes at the championships this weekend are Charlie Sparks (shot put) and Jordan Fife (3,000-meter steeplechase).



Craig Pearson can be reached by phone after 4 p.m. at (812) 231-4356 or by e-mail at craig.pearson@tribstar.com.

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