The Gateway to Sacramento: Louisville Men Rising

This feature is the fourth of a seven-part series highlighting the athletes, coaches, and teams that will attend the NCAA Mideast Track & Field Regional Championships on May 25 and 26, held at Audrey J. Walton Stadium in Columbia, Mo.

Ron Mann has turned the Louisville Men's Track & Field team from a not-known to a well-known in just two years as head coach. Get this, Louisville had never had a single athlete qualify for the NCAA Indoor Championships before this year. And what happened this year? Two national champions, Andre Black and Tone Belt, helped the Cardinals to a 10th-place national finish. Add to that the team's first-ever conference championship earned just two weeks ago at the Big East Championships, and, you've got yourself a pretty good story.

Shawn Davis
Missouri Media Relations Student Assistant

13.

It is usually a number related to a bad omen or a sign of bad luck. There is not a 13th floor in skyscrapers, no 13th aisle on planes. But when the Louisville men's track team came into the 2006-07 season ranked 13th in the season-opening Trackwire Outdoor Top 25, it was a sign of good things to come; The ranking was the highest in Louisville history. Since then, they did not fall victim to the bad omen; instead they have had two individual national champions, a Big East Conference title on the men's side and peaked at the No. 4 spot in the top 25. Not bad for a team that until last year had never finished above fourth in the conference and had never been ranked nationally.

The first signs of improvement for the Cardinals came last season when they finished second in the Big East with 125 points, just behind conference rival Notre Dame who finished with 132. The second-place finish was the highest in school history but it left Head Coach Ron Mann and the rest of the Cardinal faithful hungry for more.

"All of the pieces are here to develop Louisville into a conference contender, a regional power and a strong national representative, not only this season, but year in and year out," Mann said. "Two and a half years after I got here, it is all starting to happen for us."

Building on last season's success, Louisville has soared through the national rankings and has earned two individual indoor national champions. Led bys sophomores Andre Black and Tone Belt, the Cardinals finished tenth overall at the 2007 NCAA Indoor Championships at the University of Arkansas on March 10, 2007. Black, a triple jump specialist set the school record at the meet jumping to 53 feet, 5½ inches on his fifth attempt. Joining Black, Belt broke a school record of his own in the long jump when he jumped 26-1¾, earning him the national title. The two titles were the third and fourth NCAA Titles in any sport for the university. Black and Belt have gained Louisville national prominence and have elevated the Track & Field program to heights that few thought possible.

"I never imagined being ranked that high, everyone on the team, we love it," Belt said. "Every week we work our hardest to try and get our marks up and improve that ranking."

Mann, who coached for 24 seasons at Northern Arizona University, had high expectations when he was introduced three seasons ago. Bringing in a proven track record of 107 All-Americans, a combined 58 Big Sky titles in track & field and cross country, four individual national champions and 57 Big Sky Coach of the Year awards, it was clear that Mann had high hopes for the Cardinals, but no one expected the turnaround to be this quick. Since his arrival, Louisville has competed in its first NCAA Indoor National Championships and has moved to seventh place in the national Trackwire rankings heading into the NCAA Mideast Regional. The Cardinals peaked at No. 4 on the poll one year to the day of earning its first-ever national ranking on May 9, 2006.

"It's been a lot of fun, the way that it has all been together," Mann said. "It surprised me how quickly things did come together. The city of Louisville has really embraced the sport of Track and Field."

For Belt and Black, the experience has been even better as they have embraced all of the success throughout their career. The best friends are always coming up with new ways to make themselves better, pushing each other to be the best that they can be, and it has been a dream that they shared since they stepped foot on the Louisville campus two seasons ago.

"When we were freshmen, we talked about making All-American our junior and senior year," Belt said. "It's weird to think that the next year we would win a national championship, I didn't think it would come so soon."

Keeping true to the spirit of competition on the field, Belt and Black keep coming up with new ways to keep their competitiveness off the field. The two stars, who have lived together since their freshman year, bring the competitive spirit out of each other.

"We compete in everything, at practice, playing video games," Belt said. "It always makes us better and helps us do better overall."

Despite all of their success, Black realizes that the program has even bigger goals to achieve. Coming into the more difficult outdoor regional, Black, Belt and the rest of the team will need to bring their best, as they are no longer a team that is flying under the radar.

"The program is up and running," Black said. "Just the other day we got interviewed by the Track & Field News which is like the track bible. We just need to try and keep our heads small and the task at hand. There is a big target on our backs, now everyone wants to beat us."