Jim Fuller Quotations

We have a saying in sports. It is not whether you fall down that counts, it is whether you get back up. All three of those seniors have that kind of mentality.

We won't be able to replace Katie with just one athlete when she leaves. We'll need two, three or four people. Plus, she is very competitive. She understands her events and knows how to go about doing them in the right way.

Megan was also another one that kind of got run to death.

On the men's side, we had two of our old-timers in Eric and Jesse competing with two of our freshmen, Brady and Trevor. Jesse competed unattached tonight. He's coming off a foot injury, and he's just starting to come back. Eric was just tired after football. We've been kind of slow with him coming back. But he will be there pretty quick. His mark tonight isn't much off his personal best right now. Brady and Trevor both have a couple of events they need to work on. Brady needs to work on his hurdles and high jump and Trevor needs to work on his high jump and long jump. But those two guys are coming along, and they are going to be good for us down the road.

He had one particular good jump at 15 (feet). He still isn't quite sure where to put the standards when he gets up that high.

Jake had a great meet. We kind of ran him to death, too.

Jake always trains hard. He trained hard in high school and trained hard as a freshman. He just has a lot of belief in himself. He had a really good indoor season and I think it carries over. Sometimes athletes just get on a roll. He's in a zone. That's just the way it is for him right now and it's just working.

Katie wasn't very far off her school record (3,254). Katie had a pretty hard week. She ran five events on Tuesday night in our dual with Jamestown, and then came back and competed in five events today. If Katie isn't sore tomorrow, I don't know if she will ever be. That was a good score for her today considering how much she's competed this week.

I thought when we came into the meet, we had an outside shot to win six or seven events and we won five. I don't think we've won that many events here in a while. That's pretty good.

I thought 'Wally' looked real good. He won by a considerable margin. He did it kind of easily.

I thought Trent ran a good race. It was 7:30 at night and still above 80 degrees so it was pretty hot to run. Some kids who laid back early ran a little better and Trent kind of pushed himself a little. I'm happy that he placed. He will run better if he gets in better condition.

Jenny Betz had a really good hurdles race. She's worked pretty hard on that.

Our hammer throwers threw good today, all four of them. I was really happy with the way they threw.

Our women's team is just not where it needs to be to compete in the Ohio Valley Conference. We need to move forward in our women's basketball program. Having said that, we need to make sure our coaches and players understand we are not going to compete at the mid-tier level or below in the OVC.

It has become a tradition here. Some high school kids have become intrigued about Northern because of it.

Usually the conference meet comes down to how you qualify for the finals in the running events. For the most part, we did pretty well. There was one event where I thought we should've qualified and didn't. But for the most part, the kids I expected to be in the top eight, they were.

When you work the whole year for a couple of days of performing and things don't go well, you take it personally. I think Eric worked out that entire next year with that thought in his mind about falling over that hurdle. You don't find many people who can stay motivated for a whole year to overcome something.

We won more than half of the events. That was one of the goals I put on them. To win more events than the other teams.

We got out there at eight this morning. There was so much new stuff, but we had it all ready about noon. I looked around and thought, 'OK. This is good.' We're still not done with everything but in a couple of years when it's finished there isn't a better track in South Dakota. Our field event areas are great. It's good to have a home track again. I'm counting the days until the conference outdoor meet comes back here.

Consistency is going to make the difference. There's going to be a lot of jumbling in our region as we turn that corner and find more consistency. At the beginning of the season, some of these young teams are just trying to get into the flow of the game. It's especially hard on young pitchers, who pitch Monday and Tuesday and then don't pitch again until the following Wednesday because of the weather. It's just tough to get into the flow.

Thank you for this consideration of the residents.

Coach Bryant told us the fact that we didn't have any votes on the East Coast was his fault. We didn't have the integration of other teams.

That was a big race for him. He was real happy about that.

There's a lot to do. We're suppose to have good weather tomorrow, so it should be a fun day.

It's just good to be outside and kind of figure out where you're at. We haven't seen them in a meet for five weeks.

It was cold and cloudy and as the day went on it got nicer. I thought our running event marks got better as the day went on.

It was good day. I was pleased with what we did.

It was a good run for Jeremy, not quite what he wanted. The provisional qualifying time is 31:10 so he just missed that.

I have really enjoyed working with those three seniors.