You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home
Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson.
Cast folks. Galen Clavier joining you here.
It is the 17th of April. And one day after Indiana got
some more good news in the basketball portal on the men's
side, we're going to talk about that to start off this show real
quick and dive into a bunch of other content.
We had a bunch of content coming up throughout the course of this
week and I hope you enjoy it. We we had Courtney Cronin on
you. You either watched or listened
hopefully to that podcast beforehand.
We've got Rachel Brown, who is one of the commentators for the
Little 500 broadcast coming up later on in this show.
And of course Little Five week is this week, the the world's
greatest College weekend back again here in Bloomington as the
women's race is going to be taking place on the 19th the
men's race on Saturday the 20th. Rachel going to be helping to
commentate the women's race alongside Zion Brown, Katie
Capusto, Riley Woodall and Kara Adams, so be sure to tune in.
That's a 4:00 start to the broadcast, followed by the race
very shortly afterwards. And then on.
Saturday, it'll be the men's race with the broadcast starting
at 2:00. You can find
those@broadcast.iu.edu. Just go to broadcast.iu.edu,
You'll be able to find the links from there.
And yeah, I think if you haven't watched the broadcast before,
I'm biased 'cause I produced the broadcast.
But I think it's a really good show and it's a really
fascinating event if you've never been to little 500, or if
you went and you were in an altered state of mind when you
went. It's a really exciting athletic
event and and there's there's great competitors, great
athletes participating and even if you know nothing about
cycling, it's a lot of fun. So TuneIn to little 500
broadcast again, broadcast.iu.edu 4:00 Friday of
this week, 2:00 Saturday. Before we get to our
conversation with Rachel, I wanted to talk a little bit
about the news that's been going on with IU over the course of
the last couple of what really about the last week.
Some good news coming down the Pike with IU finally getting
some Portal signings and a couple of really impressive
looking players coming in. Of course the news I think it
was late last week that Miles Rice gonna be joining IU was a
freshman guard at Washington State and you know some really
impressive metrics for a freshman 6, three, 180 lbs.
So you know is built you know in a way that you know has some
athleticism, was in the top 300 in assist rate was among the
players that played the most minutes in the country.
I think it was 100, like basically 210 minutes in the
country as far as total percentage was concerned and was
a player that really generated a lot of of defensive stops, had a
lot of steals. And you look at his statistics
offensively and and clearly from a shooting perspective still a
work in progress. As you know he shot about 28%
from three but shot 51% from 2 and looks like a very good free
throw shooter as well. So you know that looks like the
player that Indiana's going to roll with as their starting
point guard coming into this season.
And I think that that's about as good of a landing as you could
get overall in the portal as Rice only a freshman
hypothetically would have multiple years remaining in
Bloomington. And then of course the news
today or I guess yesterday, technically I'm recording this
right on the tail end of of Tuesday the 16th.
But the news that Omar Balo, the senior out of Arizona is going
to be coming to Indiana and this is a really it's on the one hand
it's exactly the type of player that you'd expect Mike Woodson
to get out of the portal. On the other hand, this is a
really exciting player. This is a player who according
to several transfer portal ranking systems is ranked first.
Like the the most sought after big.
At least maybe not for some player.
For some teams who who play at a smaller size, maybe not the type
of player they're looking for. But Indiana, as we know, loves
to play through the post under Mike Woodson and Ballow's
numbers are are just awesome. I mean, this is a guy who was
basically top 200 in Offensive rating.
He was one of the most efficient shooters in the entire game of
basketball. He was literally a top 20
rebounder in the country. Both defensive and offensive
rebounding didn't turn the ball over that much.
Shot 66% from the field, which is ludicrous.
Drew a lot of fouls. Blocked a lot of shots, like the
classic rim protector scorer combo that you know that Mike
Woodson loves. Not a great free throw shooter,
but you can't have everything. And you know, as the joke has
been, he'll fit right in. IUT I'm mostly kidding, but I
know a lot of people have gotten upset about the free throws over
time. But no, both of these players
really good gets for Mike Woodson and you know, clearly
the nil money is working. And I tip my cap to Mike Woodson
and the and the staff because we talked a lot on this podcast
about how difficult it can be if you look at what little evidence
we've had up to this point. But there there at least has
been some evidence for leading players like to to make them
want to come to teams that are not coming off of NCAA
tournament appearances. And you know, the message seems
to be resonating as Indiana has other visits that are going on
right now. And I think you got to like
Indiana's overall chances with a couple of those players and and
these are high caliber players. And you know, if you think about
the way that the cycle has progressed over the course of
the last month and a half, maybe two months, you know, if you go
back to February 16th, things are about at their lowest ebb in
Bloomington as far as the perception of the basketball
program and where things are AT. And you know, Indiana has just
lost on the road to Purdue and they're in the midst of what
would be a four-game losing streak and a lot of questions
being asked about everything. And then obviously the next
couple of weeks happen the losing continues and it really
feels like things are falling apart now you know how much of
that was was rumor how much of that is fact.
You know what was obvious and we we talked about before there was
something wrong with the way the team was was playing and gelling
and then that got to some degree fixed over the course of the
last few games of the season. So coming into the off season,
the question was, well a can Mike Woodson and his staff
retain the players that they want to retain on the roster?
And that was always the first hurdle in my mind that Indiana
was going to have to jump over. And Indiana seems like they've
retained all the players that they wanted to keep.
Obviously you had a couple of defections, but you look at the
fact that you've been able to hang on to not just Trey
Galloway, not just Malik Renew, but also Mackenzie and Bako.
That provides a real solid core of players that played a lot of
minutes last year for this IU team.
And you retain some depth pieces as well.
Obviously Gabe Cuff's still on the roster, you know, so that
look that that was a good sign. And so you come out of that
hurdle and you say, all right, well, you don't have a very
stock roster at that point. What 6-7 players?
So you know, how do you fill the void of the players that you
have to go get that are going to have to fill at least a couple
of starting roles with Khalil Ware leaving and Indiana's
managed to fill some holes in the starting line up as it looks
like they've acquired their center and it looks like they've
acquired their point guard. And now the big question is you
know where does Indiana go next? And you know I would look at it
like you know, Scott has always talked about on the not always
but like basically since last year the idea that getting
Khalil Ware in the portal was a a home run type of get.
But then you look holistically at the way that Indiana's portal
year went last year and it really didn't deliver what the
team needed. It's hard to say.
I mean you know at this point Indiana's transfer class right
now is ranked number one overall.
Evan Mayakawa has that ranking. That can change.
But the fact that Indiana's pulled in two starter caliber
players we you know with their their portal activity you have
to tip your cap to the coaching staff and and to to Hoosiers
connect and and the nil collective that you know that
helps make these things possible these days.
I mean Indiana's figured out a way to step up and they've also
been able to sell a vision. We as much as we've talked about
the vision selling and how difficult that can be to to Rice
and to borrow that vision clearly resonated in a way that
they felt comfortable with. Obviously there are still some
concerns and you know, people have expressed concerns about
where's the outside shooting because that is clearly
something that Indiana needs to get better at.
And clearly you need to be able to go out, get a player who at
the very least can compliment the type of shooter that
Mackenzie and Bako became at the end of the year.
I mean, you know, over the last basically half of the season and
maybe be able to also free up Trey Galloway so Galloway can
get back into his rhythm and and maybe Galloway ends up shooting
more like his, you know, more like his junior year as opposed
to how he shot last year. So there's still work to be done
and you know the 3rd and final hurdle once you get past the
portal and again, really good work so far, but but clearly a
couple of more pieces need to be added to make this a complete
team. But you get through that and and
that final hurdle and I think the thing that's going to
probably have a lot of IU fans still withholding the type of
enthusiasm that they generally will show unabashedly.
What's the chemistry look like with this team.
You know, how do the new players interact and and create
chemistry very quickly with players that are already playing
for IU. And frankly a team that didn't
look like it had a lot of chemistry for most of the
season. And I think that that's
ultimately going to be one of the two big question marks as
far as the Encore product that just fundamentally aren't going
to be able to be answered until we start to see this team out on
the court. And the other one is of course
does the scheme change. You know you bring in BOLO and
we've heard, you know Jared on assembly call has talked about
this quite a bit. Tony's mentioned it as well.
There's been a lot of discontent with Mike Woodson's offense and
the way that it runs and it is a very old school looking offense
the way that it has run. But if you're going to run that,
you better get the best possible players that can run in that
system. And certainly Bolo, he's a
different type of player than Khalil Ware, but that looks like
a guy who can slot right in and maybe do some different things.
And that's going to be really fascinating to watch as we've
all seen. Those of you who are out in
Vegas for that game against Arizona, you saw Ballo up close.
Like, that was a guy who I remember thinking as I was
watching him, like, I don't know the guy you could ever really go
get a guy like that. And I think other than the
normal recruiting process, that's not a guy Indiana's
getting. I mean he was at Gonzaga and
went to Arizaga I think came with Tommy Lloyd or was in very
close proximity to when that that transition happened where
Lloyd went and took over the Arizona program.
But it I remember watching him in that game in Vegas and being
like Woo that is that is a guy who just looks like a different
type of basketball player that I'm used to Indiana getting.
And so that's where the Portal can come in handy and that's
where for a player of that size and that caliber, you've got a
lot to sell. If you're Mike Woodson because
you can point to Trace Jackson Davis, you can point to Coleal
Ware and say those two guys, well you know one of them's in
the NBA and is playing incredibly well.
One of them's going to be in the NBA that's going to be you next.
And that's you know alongside the nil money you've got to have
those two things. It's not just about one or the
other with that caliber of player.
So you know, obviously I don't think that you can give a final
grade on the portal until you know probably mid-May because
there's going to be some scrambling.
I think up to that point, we've still got about a month of this,
but it is gratifying that the IU fan base can rest a little bit
easier because these weren't just Portal editions, these were
big portal gets. And for Indiana to be able to
say we got these two guys, that's going to be a selling
point that goes elsewhere and I think the fans can relax a
little bit at least in terms of there's going to be talented
players out there playing basketball for Indiana.
You know, how do they look? How does that come together?
You know, that is that is an open question.
And I think that there's some deserved skepticism about how
everything gets put together going into this upcoming year.
But I do think if you were feeling doom and gloom about
Indiana or if you were being like, you know, really skeptical
about the chances of of things materializing, This is why you
you really can't ever close the door, I think, on where a
program is AT. And again, it's part of the
equation, and there's a lot of other elements to it that come
down to style of play, come down to, you know, will we see as
successful of an offense, as you saw with Trace Jackson Davis?
Is that possible with the style of offense?
Where does the shooting come from?
From the outside? I think all of those things are
valid questions. But I also think that you can
acknowledge that there's something special that's
happened in terms of being able to get these two players out of
the portal, being able to keep a lot of the key pieces together
from this last season. And I think you can feel good
about that as an IU fan and be very curious and and
anticipatory about what happens next.
So looking forward to talking more about the remainder of the
Portal season. I think we might have some more
movement coming up this week, maybe even by the time this
podcast drops. So definitely worth keeping an
eye on things. And if you didn't catch the
emergency podcast that our friends at Assembly called did
with Omar Balo signing I think the Rick Rick Bozich came on I
think they had a couple other people on go check that out.
It's a nice blow by blow and a kind of a re evaluation of where
he he fits into the landscape. Just a reminder I mentioned
Assembly call we're all part of the back home network brought to
you by home field apparel. It is a little five week and as
we go into our interview with Rachel Brown, you know, former
twice race winner when she was in school.
You know, Little 5 retains such a special spot within the
culture of Indiana University and it touches so many lives and
there's never really been a huge amount of merch around the
Little 500. You know, home field put a shirt
out a couple years ago, which I wear proudly.
Really enjoy that. There's, you know, if you, if
you're working the race as I have done every year, you get
some polos or things like that. But there's not a lot out there,
you know, with Little 5 branding and yet that's changing because
of home field apparel. A little 500 merch drop coming
up this Friday and Saturday and it's I think 8 pieces of Little
500 merchandise, some amazing looking stuff.
If you haven't, go to their social media and check out the
pictures and I think you'll be thrilled at what you see.
If you go to Upland on Friday or Saturday here in Bloomington,
you can get 20% off the little 5 merge, so take advantage of
that. If you're not in Bloomington,
it's fine. You get his order straight off
of home field apparel.com use the code home 23 get 15% off
your first order again, home field apparel.com Some little 5
merge this year. Really excited.
Go check it out. And we appreciate their support
on the podcast. We're going to go ahead and get
to our interview with Rachel Brown and there's no ending to
this podcast. The podcast just kind of cuts
off. We had to do that because of the
way that we recorded it earlier. So enjoy my conversation with
Rachel. I'm going to, I'm going to
change time and space. I'm going to jump into a studio,
so you're going to see me there. If you're watching a video, if
you're just listening, you're just going to hear A quick pause
and we'll get to our interview with former two time race winner
and color commentator on the women's Little 500 broadcast,
Rachel Brown. Coming up now and joining us on
a special edition of Crimson Cast LITTLE 500 Edition, Part
one. We're going to have more of
these because the LITTLE 5. 100 races of course are coming up
next week, next Friday and Saturday, and we are thrilled to
have on Crimson Cast today not only a member of a winning
Little 500 team from the 2018 season, but also one of our
broadcasters for the Little 500 broadcast.
Rachel Brown back for a second season on the Little 500
broadcast joining us on the show.
Rachel, great to see you again. It's been a while.
How are you doing? Galen, good to see you too.
Everything's great, especially now that it's April.
My brain basically just switches from working to this being the
primary thing that's on my mind, So I'm feeling really excited
for the upcoming couple of weeks.
It's always a lot of fun. It's something that a lot of
people still in the IU universe don't know that we do, which is
cover Little 500. But you know we've it's been an
in house production that's streamed through IU broadcast
since basically 2016. It's something we get a lot of
students involved in. You got a chance to work with
some of them last year, but we also like to get alums from
Little 500 involved and you've been very much a part of that.
Let's start with that. First and foremost, give us your
background. How did you come to IU in the
1st place? Like where did you grow up and
and what got you interested initially in riding Little 5?
Sure. So I think where I can start
then is I'm from Fishers IN for those who are Hoosiers born and
raised. I went to Hamilton Southeastern
High School. I played sports my whole life
just as a lot of Hoosiers do, and then made that transition
from here to choosing to come to IU not quite knowing exactly
what was going to be on the horizon.
I knew that I was going to be pre Med and I wanted to work
hard and figure out who I was. But pretty much like any 18 year
old, I couldn't tell you what that was going to look like.
And then I found that the Little five was the thing that, like,
gave a scaffold to create sort of an identity for myself, to
figure out how to work hard and to do it with other people.
And for me, that looked like joining Kappa Alpha Theta as a
freshman, joining the bike team thereafter, and then pretty much
double majoring in whatever I was doing to get into Med
school. And then besides that, just
doing a little 5. And so that was pretty much the
most formative experience of my life for those couple of years.
And that led for me to join on with my teammates for
back-to-back victories in 2017 and 2018.
And now it's just an absolute privilege to be able to still be
involved in the race almost a decade down the line.
Yeah. It's it's a fascinating
community because I think a lot of people outside of the Greek
system don't necessarily understand like who participates
and why and and how much work goes in not just to being a top
rider like you were, but also, you know, doing the academics
that you need to be able to get into medical school and and
trying to balance the amount of work that goes into one with the
other. And what you take from each of
those things that kind of sets you on your pathway.
I mean, you know, so you join Cap Alpha Theta, which if for
those of you who aren't familiar with the race, like Cap Alpha
Theta is among the most decorated and most successful.
If not arguably the most decorated and successful of all
of the women's teams historically.
So you joined a a team that had a tremendous legacy going in.
You know, how how quickly do you learn about that as a student
and and how quickly do you kind of figure out?
Yes, not only you know, is it something that I want to do, but
it's something that I have the skill and the ability to do at a
high level. OK, good point.
So I think that it's honestly pretty, I'd say it's easy enough
if you're a freshman at IU to sort of find your own enclave or
your own group and then not get that much exposure to Little 5
beyond the understanding that there is a large social
gathering of all kinds happening in the spring, but.
Social gathering folks, Yes. But for me though, I knew that I
was looking for something to put my energy into.
And so at least when if you're going through Greek recruitment,
then it's going to be mentioned. Oh, and by the way, we have a
really good bike team by the way.
This is something that we care about a lot and people are
basically investing their entire college experiences into.
And for me, I did not know coming to IUI didn't have some,
you know, alumni parent who had raced in the past and so was
raised to expect to do this. Rather, my experience was just
meeting people who said we care a lot about this, We are
dedicated people and are on a team and that's what matters to
us. And I just kind of thought that
that was the coolest thing that you could really envision in
terms of making the most of your college experience.
And I think that's pretty much what all the Little 5 riders who
are involved in this and invested in it, that they've
realized that this is just how they can make the most of being
in college. What's the for you?
You know you're on the two teams that win back-to-back in in 2017
and 2018. You you put the amount of work
you put in and all the training and you you get to that point
and you're on a team that wins. I mean, what is that feeling
like? Very few people have actually
been able to experience that of all the people that have raced
in little five over the course of time, even like top level
riders. How have you tried?
Like how would you contextualize that for for anybody that's been
involved in other athletic pursuits?
Like we know how given that it's a team thing as opposed to not
necessarily an individual thing. Right, right.
I think that actually being able to win Little 5 is something
that anyone who goes into the race and decides to dedicate
themselves to it knows that they could put in four years and just
never see it happen despite being the best rider in the
field, despite being the best team out there, Just because the
nature of the race is so fickle that you only get one chance
every single year and that's it. So I think by and large, anyone
who's ever won this race will tell you that it's absolutely
surreal because they have envisioned knowing I could do
this for year after year after year, and the expectation should
almost be that I won't win. But I also have to go in with
the attitude when I train every day that I'm doing this, because
I want to be able to at least give myself the best odds to win
on race day. So anyone who wins, I think that
you can see just from the post race interviews that they don't
know what to make of themselves. It's surreal for them for the
next couple of weeks. And if they're seniors and they
go on to graduate, I don't think that it hits until you're like
sitting in your office job in September that you can't believe
that that actually happened. Yeah, you also had some
individual accolades as well. You know in terms of you, you
win missing out while you're here, which is explain what that
is to people who don't know. Well, I'm biased.
I think that Missing Out is the most exciting event that happens
for the Spring Series. There's qualifications which
does not go towards the Spring Series standings, but does
determine where you start on race day.
There's the individual time trials, which is just suffering
for four laps. As hard as you can to get the
best time. Riding by yourself.
Team pursuit, where you're riding with other people for a
certain number of laps, but missing out is the best one
because it's the most competitive in terms of actually
using your strength and your speed strategically.
So it's kind of a bracket style race where you start off with a
certain number of people all at the start, finish line and then
like musical chairs one lap after another, whoever crosses
the finish line last is eliminated.
And so that leads, I think to being very, very strategic over
the course of the day in terms of how do I use my energy in
order to really use it when it counts because you're not trying
to win every lap, you're just trying to not lose every lap and
then win at the very, very, very end.
Yeah, your your transition over to a broadcaster has been an
interesting one. I mean, you and I talked a lot
last year. This last year was your first
year on the broadcast. How do you take what you know as
a rider and as a former champion and try to put it into words in
a way that that is able to translate what you experienced
out on the track to what an audience, most of whom have you
know, if they've been on a bicycle, they've probably never
raced competitively on a bicycle, are trying to get their
heads wrapped around while they're watching this event.
Well, I found it, I think, appropriately challenging,
understanding that I'm putting on a different hat than what I
was training for every day when I was in college.
But I think that the main things that I'm trying to focus on is
just being able to cater to both audiences.
I got the benefit of knowing what it looks like to have
watched race tape through the eyes of someone who is trying to
learn how teams manage to win and where teams had the points
at which something went wrong and that was the reason why they
lost. And so trying to keep an eye for
those things, for the people who are watching really, really
critically and have seen 10203040 little 500 races that I
think I want to be able to speak to that audience and also speak
to the audience of people who are finally coming to this for
the first time. They've got their kid who is in
little 500 for the first time. And they, I have no relation
whatsoever to the cycling community.
And to be able to sort of pull them into, to recognize, like
what a beautiful exemplar of sport and college achievement in
general that it is. Yeah, how exciting is it this
year with the women's race that we have a full field?
I looked. We have not had a full field
since 2014. So honestly, I don't know that
I've ever really seen it for myself.
And given that the year after COVID we had 17 teams, this is
truly stellar because I think that coming out of COVID we knew
that it was going to take a lot of effort in order to I think
really bring back the community and the tradition because that's
so crucial to how Little 5 operates.
And so I think seeing that teams are coming out and either re
emerging after not having a team for a couple of years or are
deciding to do Little 5 for the first time is seriously
thrilling because it's really not the same if you've got like
17/18/19. Twenty teams is having every
single pit filled. Yeah, it.
And it makes, it does make a big difference.
I mean, they've been great races over the last decade, you know,
without the full field. But there's something about
seeing all of the pit lanes completely filled, seeing the
stands completely. Filled and all of the.
Different colors and supporters groups that come out from the
various teams and especially with the women's race, I mean
the women's races, it's at a different time of day.
It's not, you know, it's 4:00 on a Friday.
You know, you can get some really great visuals as the race
comes to a close around 5/20, 5:30 in the afternoon and just
kind of the feeling of having more people invested in the
race. I think it it amps it up for all
of the other teams that are there.
It's it's a really special thing that's hard to describe unless
you've actually been there. Yeah, I agree.
I think it's good to see just that we're getting to the point
where I think women's sport more broadly is becoming something
that I think people are finally recognizing has deserves just as
great of an audience as sport. That is also done by the men's
teams as well. And so I know that's something
that for someone who's raised, that was never important to us
in terms of who's coming to the race, who's seeing it.
Because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter.
We've seen it in like 2021 that even if there's not a single
member in the audience, people are still going to go out,
they're going to ride hard. But I think just having the
continued growth, other community and having teams that
are perennially competitive as well as teams who said that's
also for us and we want to give it a shot even if we're not
going to be in contention our first year.
I think counts for a lot in terms of people recognizing
really what Little 5 is for beyond just the couple of teams
that have always been there. So let's talk about the race
this year on the women's side. So let's talk about
qualifications, placing and kind of where everything's AT and
what you see is the main storyline.
So for those who who haven't seen this yet, I'm actually
going to, I'll do a little magic here with my screen and let's
just call up the qualifications Big board for the women on the
left here you can see. So teeter on the pole, Alpha
Chi, Omega, Novus and then you've got Delta, Gamma Kappa,
Alpha Theta and Alpha Fasta Bica.
I I mean, what sticks out to you, I guess, when looking at
not just the first couple of rows, but just kind of the way
the qualifications shook out so far this year?
I'd say first, I mean deeply unsurprising.
The teeter was at the front. They were bringing pretty much
everyone back this year and they look incredibly polished from
the get go. And I know that they were out
there riding their bikes like the couple of days after Little
5. So them coming together and
putting together a really stellar performance day of is
just exactly what I would expect of them.
I think that beyond that, I want to acknowledge that like Novus,
Alpha Fasta, Bica, teams like those are not teams that I have
that much familiarity with, just because I think that they've
emerged in the couple of years since I graduated.
And Alpha Fasta Bica may be new as of this year.
So for them to be able to, you know, come up to the upper
echelon is really exciting. And then beyond that, I'll also
say Qualls is always kind of awash in terms of like it's
consequential for where teams end up.
But if you ask me, Rachel, which team is really good based off of
looking at the calls board, I'd say I don't know, just because
it really is just based on the time of day.
Right, Well, So what should people who maybe wouldn't think
to look at anything other than the calls board as far as who
the contenders are? What what would you recommend
they look at and what are you keeping an eye on coming into
the race this year? Sure.
So I think not surprisingly looking at the overall metric of
where do teams land in spring series that cumulatively that
does show the overall strength of a team.
And so if you go and look at where do teams stack up when it
comes to the end of the day on Spring series performance, that
would be the easiest and fastest way, I think, of figuring out
which teams just have the most firepower for day of.
But beyond that, I think it's very interesting just to see who
which teams have really, really strong primary riders by going
through ITT's and then getting a sense.
Yeah, just being able to get get a quick look at.
Oh, if a team's got their top four riders in the 1st, 15 or 20
of ITT's, that means that pretty much every single one of their
riders is one of the strongest riders in the field.
And as you see here folks, Jenna Rogers from Alpha Chi Omega,
actually this was last. Year.
Oh yeah, I don't know if they've uploaded them.
Over. You know they haven't uploaded
them. That's my bad.
So that's but that's the page you would be looking at.
I'll, I'll dig up the actual one, yeah.
I know it's a second entry because I've been spending a lot
of time looking at it as of. Late, It's a it's a lot,
absolutely. But yeah, that's that's the
thing to keep an eye on. And obviously there's a lot of
different aspects that go into it.
I mean, right now one of the things we're looking at for this
upcoming race is, is the weather situation which goes back and
forth. I mean, last year we had a
really weird time. We actually had a postponement
for about an hour of the start of the women's race because of
rain. And what does that do?
Like give us a little bit of a sense of, you know, from a
conditions perspective, what are ideal conditions to ride in?
You know, how does rain affect things like as a rider, What do
you think of in those circumstances so.
I think primarily first and foremost ideal conditions.
If I were a rider and could just summon whatever I whatever
weather I wanted, I would say if it could be 60°, it's cloudy and
maybe it rained the night before or the morning of just a little
bit. So that way the track could be
padded down. In terms of the cinders being
smooth and consistent, then that's what I would like ideally
have in terms of the conditions. I think that if it gets hotter
and drier, then the cinders can become loose, and I think it's a
lot easier than for bikes to fishtail, especially when
they're going really, really fast.
And then on the other side of the spectrum, if it's rainy, it
can just be honestly pretty atrocious conditions.
You can get puddles where the teams have to decide if they
want to go through it or ride around, and that can kind of
even just cause the pack to break up a little bit and it can
get more dangerous from that perspective as well.
Here's this year's top 20 finishers for ITT and so I I
wanted to call these up. So as you mentioned, you know if
you've got a cluster of your best riders in the top 15,
that's generally a pretty good sign.
Audrey Laval, the overall ITT champion for this year.
And then you've got kind of an interesting mix of of you know
of of riders from other teams. Teeter's got, I think all do
they have all four in the top 15?
I think that they do, which, which goes back to what you were
talking about in terms of the qualifications and whatnot.
Yeah, I think that Teeter and Theta both have their top four
in the 1st 20 of IT, TS. So right away you know that
there's just not a weak link for other teams to be chipping away
at. And beyond that, I think that
we're seeing not surprisingly like Melanzana, they've got a
really good sprinter and then Dorothy for Novus and Allison
for Delta Zeta. I think that those are teams
where my impression from this is that those girls had been
putting in like a consummate amount of effort without having
like the pre-existing training that some teams do from year to
year. Like Delta, Gamma and Theta are
gonna be doing the same training every year.
But for like Novus and for DZ, for them to have riders that are
in the top five ITTSI think that those girls have really been
working hard to create stuff, maybe from scratch, even in
order to be able to be up in the same echelon as some of the
other riders from teams that you typically see on the podium year
to year. Yeah, it's there's so much that
goes into that. I mean people and again most of
the public only sees the race outcome like what happens that
day. I mean what are we talking about
training wise? Like what?
I mean what is the, what is the the full commitment that you're
doing as as a a starting like a a top four rider on a team
that's a contender on a weekly basis or or even a daily basis?
I think that people try and probably downplay just how much
it is that they're putting into it because they understand that
it can just sound like a lot to people who aren't in it.
But it really does look like scheduling out most of your life
in order to permit you to be able to do the equivalent of
like a part time job whenever you can fit it in.
So like most teams that are really, really strong, or riders
who are strong individually are biking six days a week with an
off day just so that way that for the other six days they can
go harder. Otherwise they'd end up doing 7
if they could. It looks like scheduling your
classes with the intent of being able to give yourself enough
sunlight to be able to make the most year round you decide if
you're going to study abroad based off of when little 5
happens. And like may forego that
entirely just for the sake of being able to not miss your fall
training semester and then even like, deciding where you're
going to take a summer internship based off of, like,
how good the writing's going to be.
So people like genuinely will plan out like the entirety of
their four years in order to make the most of it.
Like if you can spend a summer in Colorado just to get the
elevation gains, then like there were people who will go to that
point just to be able to know that they've like, maximized
their time. That's it's amazing and it's
laudable. I mean that amount of
dedication. I mean it's hard to it's it's
it's interesting thing right now I think about college there's
it's like fashionable to bag on college kids for a variety of
reasons like they're unmotivated or XY or Z or they want things
handed to, which I've never really believed.
Like I I love the students I work with on a daily basis.
You've met some of them you know in the sports media program who
they put. They're not putting that amount
of physical exertion in, but the amount of time they're putting
in to prepare for what they do and then going out and actually
doing it is is really far beyond I think what most people would
think. And it's it's amazing.
You think about you like little five you're talking about for
each race, men's and women's, it's not just 130 some riders
that are you know, the the on the teams that are preparing,
but there's extra riders on the teams that don't make the final
four that are still putting in this amount of effort.
Like it's a lot of people putting in a lot of time.
And it's, you know, the fact that that many people get that
much out of it from an emotional perspective, from a growth
perspective is is really it's it's something again, that I've
been very impressed with the more I've gotten to know the the
riders and the people that participate in the race.
Yeah, I I couldn't agree more. I think that first I want to say
that the media students are just consummate professionals in
terms of how they approach this. And so I really appreciated that
because I know that coming in as an amateur they are really on
top of it in terms of being able to both do their job and offer
appropriate guidance. And beyond that, I just think
that there's been, I've been very impressed by all of the
little thigh riders who have come after me in terms of just
the overall level of maturity and commitment that they're
demonstrating from like 1819 years of age.
Now looking back with a fully formed frontal lobe and I think
how easily like you could be spending your time on other
things instead. Seeing that people are choosing
to dedicate themselves to something that I think really is
just for the sake of self improvement and to know that
you're going to be trying to grow alongside other people at a
formative period of your life is just really impressive to be
able to see. Absolutely.
So for those of you who are going to be tuning in and we
hope that everybody does this will be available on
broadcast.iu.edu. I'm actually going to drop the
link for the broadcast for both the women's and the men's race
in the description of this podcast.
Rachel will be our analyst up top.
So she'll be working with Zion Brown who's one of our play by
play broadcasters in calling the action on the track throughout
the course of the race. The the broadcast starts at 4:00
on Friday. April, is it 19th?
I think it's the 19th. It is the 19th, yes, I have to
double check, but 4:00, Friday, April 19th.
But you won't be the only one involved 'cause we'll also have
down on the field our field reporters Kara Adams, Riley
Woodall and Katie Capusta who is not only a former writer but
also a former media school student.
So there's some nice synergy there.
She'll be be our on field expert trying to give an analysis of
what's going on down in the infield and and down in the pits
while you're providing kind of the top down view of everything.
So it should be a lot of fun. It's always a a fun broadcast.
The woman's broadcast is always my favorite one because it's a
more compact product. Like there's, you know, the the
the men's race and I love the men's race too.
But it kind of feels like if you ever watched an Indy 500 all the
way through, there's that period at like lap 80 where you're
like, man, we got a long way to go.
But whereas at lap 80 in the women's race, like that's when
that's when the real action is starting, like that's when you
know the you're you're down to brass tacks so to speak at that
stage of things. Yeah, usually you can find a
point where you could like take a nap, go to the bathroom, get a
snack during the men's race and not miss too much.
Women's race are pretty hard pressed to find a moment where
you could say that you could get up from the stands, leave for 5
minutes and then not have missed something incredibly
consequential. Yeah, it's, it is, it is little
5 on steroids essentially just in terms of how, how compressed
all the action is. So we will be going on air live
at 4:00 Friday, April 19th. We'll have Rachel on the call.
We'll have Katie Capusta on the call, Zion Brown, Kara Adams,
Riley Woodall, Emma Watson, Lauren Brewer producing the
broadcast. We're really looking forward to
it, Rachel. Looking forward to seeing you
back in town. I know you're coming in next
week, so we will catch up some more than and thank you for
taking the time to talk with us today.
This is great. Yeah, well, thank you for having
me. I can't wait.
Absolutely. Rachel Brown, our color
commentator for the 2024 women's LITTLE 500 broadcast.
Thank you.