How many athletes in the NCAA right now, do you think, are using performance enhancing drugs?
Trackshark: Well, talk about hitting us right off the bat. Do I think there are collegiate athletes out there using performance enhancing drugs? Of course there are. In fact, there have been a number of cases where several athletes have been tested positive in the past. I don't think the number is overwhelming, however, if you were take a percentage. It's a problem that everyone is aware about and I have personally seen, for example, athletes being taken to the side by officials five minutes after their race at the 2000 NCAA Outdoor Championships. It's also done random by the NCAA and each school. I have also been drug tested in the past along with a number of my former teammates. It's not fun when you have to wake up at 7:00am when you have a class at 11. Also, don't think that just because you or an administrative person looks at someone and singles them out for testing because they look suspicious. It just doesn't work that way. It's a debate that will go on forever and even ignored by many people.
How come you haven't interviewed so-and-so from so-and-so yet?
Trackshark: We try to interview as many people as we can on any given week. All of our interviews are conducted over email since we wish to give the athletes time to respond and at their convenience. In the ballpark of 10 athletes who we contact, only around 6 of them will ever reply and respond to the questions. Some athletes only give one-word or one-sentence answers and some give back a number of paragraphs. What you see is what you get.
Why did you go to the Division II indoor meet when you should have gone to the Division I meet? There is far greater competition there!
Trackshark: Since I live in Massachusetts -- and I work during the day -- it was easier for me to make the trip to Boston instead of Arkansas. I wish I could have been able to go to the meet as well, however, it would have been another expense paid out of pocket including missing several days of work. Remember, everything you see on this site -- from the articles to the photos to the team rankings -- is done on our free time. There is not one instance where any of us have been paid for our services. Granted, the original launch of this site knew the intentions of not making hardly any money as we simply want to give back to the sport and support it as much as we can given our free time. Going back to the original statement, there are many great performers at the Division II level going from Jason Smoots to Adriane Blewitt. You can't deny that athletes on that level don't perform well.
It looks like from the television replay that Sanya Richards of Texas stepped outside her lane a couple times during her race at the 2003 NCAA Indoor Championships. Wouldn't you agree?
Trackshark: Yes, she should have been called for a lane violation and not been awarded the team points. However, so should have another number of athletes I'm sure we didn't see on television. Perhaps there should be cameras set up along each of the straight-aways so the officials can go back and pick up on any mistakes, just like they do for tennis or hockey. After all, these officials are getting paid for what they do and we want to make sure that everything is done right as much as possible.
How did you build the page and what programs do you use?
Trackshark: I built the page in Adobe Photoshop 6.0 first, then cut and slice the image up by importing it into Macromedia Dreamweaver MX. Much more programming, such as Javascript, CSS, Flash, dynamic HTML and PHP (thanks to Jason Byrne) have been installed as well. I've actually seen several sites already take some of my ideas, which is fine, since I believe in open-source development. Just don't carbon-copy the entire site, people.
How come you don't cover any of the high school or professional ranks?
Trackshark: If you are not aware, Dyestat.com already does an excellent job at covering the high school ranks and it would be simply foolish to jump into that kind of coverage since it's already done anyways. The professional ranks have a number of great sites, such as IAAF.org. It's the collegiate scene we felt had no voice or coverage that needed to be filled. Therefore, we hope to provide the best coverage possible for collegiate track & field.
What happened to Tracksharkmedia?
Trackshark: It was getting too expensive to hold up. Everyone and their neighbor were downloading all of the video clips from the 2002 NCAA Cross Country Championships provided by the great work of RunnerMedia. When you have such large files combined with the great number of people downloading them, that increases your internet bandwidth charges and the number was piling up to the point where it started to get out of hand for my own good. I still have all of the clips, so if you wish to have them, feel free to send over an email.
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