After three days of competing together at the Mid-American Conference Championship, the Ball State men's track team took one last lap around the George L. Rider track at Miami University (Ohio).
The Conference Champion, the Kent State Golden Flashes, asked Ball State and Western Michigan, whose track and field program is also being cut after this season, to join them on their victory lap.
"It brought back memories from the whole year," freshman hurdler Kurt Kinkead said. "It was kind of sad, some guys on the team got emotional."
For most of the Ball State track team, it was the last time they would run around a track with a Cardinal uniform on.
"That was actually the idea of the kids on the team," Kent State head coach Wendel McRaven said about the invitation his team gave. "Our kids can empathize a little bit with what's going on at Ball State and Western Michigan, and they want to stand up for what's right."
Five Ball State members will go on to compete in the NCAA Regional meet, but the whole team will never be together again on the track.
After the emotional run around the track, the coaches held their last team meeting. All the assistants each said a word, as well as head coach Jermaine Jones and Western Michigan head coach Mike Turk.
Turk said he thought the Cardinals needed to hear from someone other than their coaches that they performed well this season. He also told them he thought that their experience with Ball State's program would carry them through the rest of their lives.
Turk said the freshmen on the team could have easily sat out a year and was surprised some of them didn't.
"It's amazing to me that they were able to keep that team together and do what they did," Turk said. "It's really hard to understand how they did it."
Jones said after the meet that he didn't know the best way to describe his team.
"I don't even know if 'team' is a good word to describe this group of young men," Jones said. "It takes an individual of great character to decide to come to a program knowing it's not going to be around at the end of the year.
"That says a lot about their character, and that's something, it's beyond education, it's beyond track, it shows the type of values they have and what type of family they have to go ahead and say, 'Hey, we decided on this institution, we're going to stick it out for this year and go from there.'"
The freshmen who decided to come to Ball State were the ones who made the program one that was on the rise and one many knew would be a contender, Turk said.
"I assumed in a couple years they would be one of the teams we would have to battle with for the Conference Championship," McRaven said. "It was definitely going in the right direction."
McRaven, who was named MAC Coach of the year, said it frustrates him when he sees teams being cut because he feels the universities are doing a great disservice to the student-athletes.
"It pains me to see what I consider one of the greatest sports on earth being dropped when I consider all the positives our sport brings a university," McRaven said. "If people looked at what was good and what was right they wouldn't be dropping men's track in the Mid-American Conference."
One of the positives, Jones said, is that most of the members on the team hold 3.0 or higher grade-point averages and that shows that Ball State is not only getting a good athlete but a better young man.
"Track is important, but they chose this institution not only because of track, but because of what they're getting as far as an education goes and that will be the reason why some of them stay," Jones said.
"Ultimately, at the end of the day, you have to fall back on what you did before you got to practice as opposed to what you did while you were at practice and that's what our guys are about."
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