BATON ROUGE — Just one week removed from a tremendous showing at the NCAA Indoor Championships, the national champion LSU women’s track and field team and third place Tigers will open the 2002 outdoor season on Saturday at the LSU Alumni Gold Relays.
Field events will get underway at 10 a.m. at Bernie Moore Track Stadium, while track events begin at noon.
“It’s a chance for us to get started outdoors which we’ve been looking forward to,” said LSU head coach Pat Henry. “We’ll take it slow with a number of our NCAA people from a week ago, but there are a lot of people that we will open up this weekend and look for a productive outing.”
Joining the festivities on Saturday will be members of the SEC and Sugar Bowl champion LSU football team, as numerous athletes will take part in “the Fat and the Furious,” a 4×100-meter relay race.
Relay teams will be comprised of two “fat guys” and two “fast guys” as the offensive and defensive lineman will join forces with LSU’s skill position players to form a three-team race at 12:30 p.m.
Football players scheduled to compete on Saturday include Reggie Robinson, Rob Sale, Rodney Reed, Brad Smallings, Adrian Mayes, Corey Webster, Chad Lavalais, Ben Wilkerson and Elice Parker.
Competing in the main field of the LSU Alumni Gold Relays will be a majority of the Louisiana schools including Tulane, Northwestern State, McNeese, Louisiana Tech and Louisiana-Lafayette.
With the theme of the meet stressing a return of many of LSU’s prominent alumni, Saturday’s competition won’t disappoint.
One of the more intriguing match-ups of the day will be in the women’s 4×100-meter relay at 12:35 p.m. LSU’s current team, which consists of Muna Lee and Stephanie Durst from last year’s NCAA champion short relay, as well as All-Americans Lolo Jones and Bianca Rockett take on a star-studded roster of former Lady Tiger greats Peta-Gaye Dowdie, Debbie Parris, Joyce Bates and Monique Freeman.
Elsewhere, seven-time All-American Marcus Thomas will begin his final campaign with the Tigers on Saturday at noon when he takes part in the long jump.
Thomas redshirted the 2001 outdoor season with injuries but has made a full return. A former SEC champion in both the long and triple jumps, with All-American honors in both events this spring at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Baton Rouge, Thomas could leave as the most decorated athlete in LSU men’s track and field history, surpassing the men’s record of eight All-American honors.
In addition, SEC champion and All-American Blake Theriot will be competing in the javelin for the first time since the 2000 season. Theriot had elbow surgery prior to the 2001 season and missed the entire campaign.
Following the LSU Alumni Gold Relays, both teams remain at home again next weekend to host the SEC Three-Way with Georgia and Mississippi State coming to Bernie Moore Stadium on March 23.