LUBBOCK, Texas – The Texas Tech indoor track and field team will close the regular season home slate hosting the fifth-annual Jarvis Scott Invite Friday and Saturday inside the Sports Performance Center.
Meanwhile, select members of the middle-distance and distance squads will be in Boston for the BU David Hemery Valentine Invite.
Meet Coverage
· Live results/schedule (Boston)
Rankings
In the week three rankings of the USTFCCCA Rating Index, the women’s team moved up one spot to No. 7, while the men’s team slid down one spot to No. 8. The women’s team is the second-highest ranked Big 12 team behind BYU (No. 5). The men are the second-highest ranked Big 12 team trailing Kansas State (No. 1).
History of Jarvis Scott
Scott was born on April 6, 1947 in Waco, Texas before she moved with her family to Los Angeles at the age of nine. She started running at David Starr Jordan High School where she became the first female to compete in in track & field. By the age of 21, Scott had qualified for the 1968 Mexico City Olympics in the 400m and 800m, becoming the first American to accomplish such feat. She would give up her spot in the 800m to her friend Francie Kraker in an act of solidarity as Scott would go on to place sixth in the 400m finals.
Scott started her coaching career in 1977 at Cal State Los Angeles – where she is now in its Athletics Hall of Fame – and made her way to Lubbock in 1979 as the first head coach for both the men’s and women’s cross country programs as well as the first women’s track and field head coach. Scott held both of those roles up until her retirement in 1991. She remained heavily involved in the global track community and in Lubbock, before her passing on September 29, 2017. Her legacy lives on at Texas Tech from becoming the first African American head coach for any sport, to helping develop the cross country and women’s track & field programs to what they are today.
What to Know
This will be the last time a full squad competed for Tech before the Big 12 Championships in about two weeks as the Red Raiders look for better national qualifying opportunities. Antoine Andrews still holds the nation’s top mark in the 60m hurdles (7.51), while Temitope Adeshina remains at the top in the high jump with her 1.97m clearance.
Malachi Snow is ranked fourth in the 60m hurdles but is still eyeing a top 16 spot in the 60m which he’ll run this weekend. The triple jump duo of Ruta Lasmane and Jonathan Seremes each boast the No. 2 mark in the NCAA and are slated to jump this Saturday.
After breaking the school record in the pole vault last weekend, Kashlee Dickinson currently holds the 15th spot (4.44m) in qualifying and will look to better that mark for added insurance. In Boston, Red Raider fans will get to see the much-anticipated debut of Fanny Arendt. The Luxembourg native started her season in January running for her country where she turned in an 800m time of 2:00.83 for a national record.