The Pomona-Pitzer track squad has undergone some serious changes over the past few weeks. So distraught over his second-place SCIAC finish to rival coach, CMS’s Goldhammer, Coach Pat Mulcahy opted for early retirement leaving the team in the hands of shot putter Ari "God’s Gift to Average Women" Polychronopolous (’01).

Mulcahy chose Polychronopylous because, "Aside from Matt Campbell (’00), Ari is the only athlete on the team that can compete in and coach everything from throwing events to distance running events." Joe Hartford was laughed off the track when he said he could, too.

In light of these developments on the men’s team, Kate Hill (’00) decided that she too wanted to be coach and made a plea to coach Kirk Reynolds. "You haven’t gotten us the publicity we deserve. I want to see MY name in that headline," she said.

These coaching changes will drastically affect the lives of many Pomona-Pitzer track and field athletes.

There are, however, those that will be left unaffected by the coaches’ departures. Among others are the men’s Javelin throwers; Dan Wire (’01), who has never listened to a word Mulcahy said anyway, Greg Teplow (’01), who is hopeless anyway (and too busy talking), Dewalt Mix (’01) who opts for late night practices in Santa Barbara over any type of coaching, and, Chris Avery (’02), who is too busy with the Cal Lutheran female shot-putters to care. Kent Fung (’00) will also be unaffected.

In fact the entire men’s throwing squad is fairly apathetic about the whole ordeal. Team captain and spokesman, Ed "The one that drove Fung off" Castillon (’99) said: "Ari is a much better coach than Pat could ever be. He’s got a certain energy about him that makes people want to hear him. The fact that he has single-handedly demolished almost all of the hammer and discus rings in the conference with his scratches is a testament to his energetic nature."

The runners were a little more distraught about the change. Adam Boardman was particularly upset saying: "Ari is a good guy and all but I know for a fact that he won’t be as supportive of my dancing fettish as Pat was."

Boardman went on to expound on his plan to run both the 1500 and the 5000 in pink tights and a too-too.

The women were less bothered by the loss of their coach. Larissa Yocum was overheard saying, "do you know how sick of hearing ‘merry little troop’ I am!"

Hill’s first issue on the agenda was to get everyone to start calling her, instead of Yocum, super-woman. "I’m sick of hearing Larissa this, Larissa that around here. From here on out, I’m super-woman."

While it is true that the coaching changes caused a stir, honestly, not much will change around the track. The program here is not held together by the coaches, but rather athletes like Andy Moon (’01) and Dewalt Mix (’01) who make the effort to show up every day, rain or shine, regardless of sickness, injury or lack of motivation.

An example of just how truee this is was after Coach Mulcahy heard about Dreux Dillingham’s (’01) third (yes, third, that’s not a joke) car accident in the past year. Pat said, "So what if he got in a car accident. Why isn’t he here?!? Does he want to be a part of this program?" Dillingham was recovering from whiplash, but that was no excuse. He was later reprimanded for his intolerable actions.

I tried to reach Pat at both his private phone-line at "Hero’s" and "Pizza and Such" to speak with him about this aspect of the team, but he had already started on the first leg of his vacation - Tiajuana.