2013 Summer Deaflympics – USA Track & Field Team‏

22 Jul 2013 USA Deaf Track & Field

Below are the 2013 Summer Deaflympics USA Track & Field team that will be attending in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Top Row: Shanieka Coleman, Onyemachi Davis, Diana Dick, DeWayne Esper, Jr., Delvin Furlough, Thomas
Guidon, MaKenzie Hageman
2nd Row: Michael Haynes, Joshua Hembrough, Kori Koss, Taylor Koss, Erin LaFave, Paul Littlebear,
Immanuel Neubauer.
3rd Row: Craig Saalfeld, Jasmine Simmons, Janna Vander Meulen, Saria Webb, Kyle Winter
Bottom Row: Daniel Fitzpatrick, Dave Frank, Steven Fuerst, Lawrence Smith, Rohan Smith, Thomas Withrow

Wish them best of luck at Sofia!

For printable copy, click here

2013 Prep Top 50 Best Performances and Awards Announced

15 Jun 2013 USA Deaf Track & Field

This year National Deaf Interscholastic Athletic Association (NDIAA) and USA Deaf Track & Field (USADTF) has created a positive collaboration. The partnership will bring greater recognition for Deaf schools. With this, they are three key changes in the criteria:

Top 8 finishers receive team points. In the past, points were awarded to the top 6 teams and this method has not changed since 1950. This helps provide more opportunity for recognition and expand competitiveness.
Team points are awarded only to NDIAA member schools with the exception of 6th/7th/8th graders. However, all individual deaf athletes from any school will still get recognition according to their performance ranking.
The highest honorable awards (team, individual, and coach) will be only awarded to NDIAA member schools.

For the first time since 2000, the Coach of the Year award is now returning to the spotlight! Thanks to NDIAA for redefining the criteria for this award. For the list of past Coach of the Year awards can be found here .

This year, 37 schools have turned in their best performances for both boys and girls.

After reviewing and compiling the finishes of all Track & Field events, the committee has declared the Team of the Year, Player of the Year, and Coach of the Year honors for both boys and girls.

2013 Prep Top 50 Best Performances

For all past prep top best performances, they can be found here .

More about NDIAA, please visit their website – www.ndiaa.us

The winners are:

Boys:
Top: Team of the Year – Illinois School for the Deaf
Left: Track Athlete of the Year – Dwayne Esper, Illinois School for the Deaf
Middle: Field Athlete of the Year – Shaun Novella, Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf
Right: Coach of the Year – Joseph Lee, Illinois School for the Deaf

Girls:
Top: Team of the Year – Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf
Left: Track Athlete of the Year – Kori Koss, Wisconsin School for the Deaf
Middle: Field Athlete of the Year – Malakia Gowan, Louisiana School for the Deaf
Right: Coach of the Year – Therese Pohl-Markowitz, Wisconsin School for the Deaf

Sixth Berg/Seeger Classic Completes the Mission

17 May 2013 USA Deaf Track & Field

The original 6th Berg/Seeger Classic was to be scheduled on April 12-13. It was called off due to wintery weather conditions. Then it was rescheduled for May 11 and the Deaf Schools track & field teams were happy it got another chance.

The Sixth Annual Berg/Seeger Track & Field Classic for Deaf Prep Schools across America was held at Bruce Smith Stadium in Faribault, Minnesota on May 11, 2013. It was hosted by Minnesota State Academy School for the Deaf (MSAD).

Bruce Smith Stadium has 2 alternately colored 9-lanes with Mondo surface. Mondo track is the world’s leader in running track performance. This was the same competition surface used for the 2009 Summer Deaflympics in Taipei. Athletes had the fantastic opportunity to run on this world class surface.

The weather was sunny and had northwestern gusty winds which topped between 20 to 35mph.

MSAD came away as both the Boys’ and Girls’ Team Overall Champions.

MSAD boys’ team scored 191 points, a comfortable victory over second place Wisconsin School for the Deaf (WSD) with 100 points and Indiana School for the Deaf (ISD) who came in third with 78 points.

The girls’ championship was in similar fashion as MSAD scored 238 points; second place goes to WSD who finished with 120 points; ISD with a score of 88 for third place.

At the Berg/Seeger Classic, a total of 94 athletes from 9 schools competed. Over the weekend, 1 meet record was broken in the boys’ 4x200m relay. The old record was set by Model Secondary School for the Deaf with a time of 1:38.69 on April 18, 2009 in Austin, Texas. The new record was eclipsed by MSAD with a time of 1:37.66.

The Ruth T. Seeger award recipients for girls were:
Shellane McKitty, SR from New York-Fanwood in White Plains was named best Track Athlete
Tabitha Anderson, JR from MSAD was named Best Field Athlete
Simone James, JR from Indiana received Best All Around Athlete honors

The Thomas O. Berg award recipients for boys were:
Taylor Pierce, SO from MSAD for best Track Athlete
Shaun Novella, SR from MSAD was named Best Field Athlete
Malcolm Harris, SR from Oregon received Best All Around Athlete honors

For more information from the 6th Berg/Seeger Classic, you can click on this link below, which will download a PDF document for Summary/Photos, School List, Roster, Results, Records and more.
2013 Berg/Seeger Classic Results

For the Top 10 Performances list of each event from Berg/Seeger in the 6-year history of the meet, click below.
Top 10 Performances

For next year’s 7th Berg/Seeger Classic, Kentucky School for the Deaf won the rights to host the event. This will take place on April 11-12, 2014, at Danville High School which is closeby the host’s campus. At the time of the writing, 9 schools have already expressed interest in participating.

Ashland Pole Vaulter Eric Klucar Sets Indoor American and Collegiate Record

9 Feb 2013 USA Deaf Track & Field

Senior Eric Klucar of Ashland University broke the Indoor American and Collegiate Record in the pole vault with 5.10m (16′ 8 ¾”). This performance was done last night at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan.

With this new record, Klucar broke Patrick Southern’s indoor record of 5.02m (16′ 5 ½”) which stood since February 17, 2006. At that time, Patrick was competing for University of Nebraska and Patrick currently owns the outdoor pole vault World Record at 5.06m (16′ 7 ¼”). Klucar is already no stranger at that height and can break the world mark when spring comes.

Klucar is already provisionally qualified for the Indoor NCAA DII Championships. In order to qualify as automatic entrance, he merely needs to go over additional 0.01m (¼”). He has two more regular indoor meets to earn “automatic” status. The Indoor NCAA DII Championships will be held at the Crossplex in Birmingham, Alabama on March 8-9, 2013.

Klucar is on the USA Team for upcoming 2013 Summer Deaflympics which to be held at Sofia, Bulgaria.

Project: Top 10 All-Time Performers Now Underway!

12 Dec 2012 USA Deaf Track & Field

USA Deaf Track & Field continues to work on various projects which include revamping track & field records for both indoors and outdoors. Currently, USADTF has developed and established 23 different record categories for each gender (a total of 46 categories). The updated track & field records can be found here .

The track & field records continue to evolve as we keep on finding more performance records that has yet to be recognized. This one has been done for the past 18 months.

The other new project we are working on is the Top 10 All-Time Performers. The performances in the Top 10 were made by USA’s deaf/hard of hearing athletes. We are nearly finished with this project with some records still under research, requiring verification.

We are proud to open this project to the public viewers of what we currently have. You can view the Top 10 All-Time Performers here .

Your help is needed! We need your assistance with the records by letting us know of any error you may find. This includes misspelled names, marks, dates and location.

Also, if you know of any athlete that is not mentioned in any of the record lists that should be included, please let us know and be sure to provide evidence such as newspaper clips, URL web address, etc. Your assistance will help solidify the lists.

In order to add the performance in the Top 10, we would need the following information:

Full athlete’s name,
Performance mark,
Exact date, and
Location.

You can also include an URL of the results that is available on a website. Please provide the following errors or information to the Records Keeper, Keith Sanfacon, records@usadtf.org and info@usadtf.org

Additional projects include the Top 10 Collegiate and Top 10 Prep. The Collegiate project is half way done while the Prep project will be the most complicated one to complete.

In case you may not know, we have finished the Top 10 List – USA Deaflympians. These Top 10 performances were only made at the past Games by USA athletes. You can find them under the Deaflympics section on our website . Do click on ‘Top 10-USA Deaflympians’ link on the right side. A direct PDF link also can be found here .

Many thanks to Keith Sanfacon and Wayne Langbein for their hard work to make these projects a reality. Keith gave countless hours visiting the Gallaudet Archives, researching tons of information via websites, and email follow ups for validations and more information from the athletes and coaches while Wayne worked endlessly assembling records and followed up with records. USADTF is grateful for such great team work, Keith and Wayne. Hands waving!

RIT Cross Country Athlete Erin LaFave Named the Liberty League Performer of the Week

30 Nov 2012 USA Deaf Track & Field

A recent World Championship 3000m Steeplechase bronze medalist and current 5000m Deaf World Junior Record holder, Erin LaFave, was named the Liberty League Women’s Cross Country Performer of the Week.

Erin, who is now a senior at RIT, had a banner year as she closes out her cross country career. She earned several honors for her cross country performances, All-NYSCTC second team and All-Region honors. She was RIT’s top finisher at the recent Atlantic Regional Championships.

Story can be found at the RIT website below:

http://www.ritathletics.com/news/2012/10/15/WXC_1015125256.aspx
http://www.ritathletics.com/news/2012/11/10/WXC_1110124954.aspx