TrackTown Radio provides clarity amid clutter at NCAAs

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

EUGENE – It’s possible that the best seat in the house at Hayward Field is the one next to John Gillespie.

If you really want to know what’s going on while studying the three- and four-ring circus of a massive track meet such at the NCAA Division 1 Outdoor Championships, you probably can’t do much better than listen to a Eugene resident with decades of track and field coaching and nuanced understanding.

Thanks to something called "TrackTown Radio," Gillespie can be in your ear and telling you everything you’d want to know about a particular field event while you watch the meet unfold.

During the four-day stretch of the Division 1 Championships, the former Oregon assistant coach has been on one of the four channels that spectators can listen to for free.

TrackTown Radio was conceived a few years back by Vin Lananna after he watched the NCAA wrestling tournament on television and was curious how the expert commentary was able to bounce around from one mat (and weight class) to another.

After learning how it was done, with ESPN Radio feeds coming from broadcasters focused on one specific mat and transmitted to listening devices that could be obtained by spectators, Lananna, TrackTown USA's President, was intrigued about bringing the same idea to track and field.

About 5,000 of the listening devices are available for free at Hayward Field this week for NCAAs. The device rests comfortably on your ear like a large bluetooth and the commentary is crisp and clear. It's the third year the sevice has been available.

Former NCAA champion Rachel (Yurkovich) Buciarski discussed the javelin competition on one channel while her husband, Piotrek Buciarski, a former All-American pole vaulter and Danish Olympian, described the action on the vaulting runway on another.

Gillespie, Tom Heinonen, Brian Schaudt, Lauren Crockett and Prefontaine Classic meet director Tom Jordan have all been part of the four-day lineup of experts. All of their commentary goes out on the individual ESPN3 feeds that are available online, but it also goes directly into the headset devices of fans in the grandstands. For Friday and Saturday's finals, the USTFCCCA has provided team score updates.

The channels, and expert voices, are geared around adding an extra layer of information about field events, several of which might run simultaneously.

“The thing that I’ve found that’s really great is the team scores (updates),” Lananna said. “Something I believe that in the sport we’ve done a miserable job of is broadcasting what happens in different field events, and at this meet, how it impacts the score. People tend to watch what’s on the track, so this is a great way to highlight those (events).”

But even for diehard fans of the javelin, who understand the intricate details of what’s going on, there is something next-level about listening to a recent star like Olympian Rachel Buciarski describe what she’s seeing and weave her own personal experience into it.

As Texas junior Haley Crouser, a native Oregonian, threw well enough to make the finals (she was eighth), Buciarski cheerfully pointed out that: “She stole my high school record. Oh well. Good job, Haley.”

And Gillespie, commenting on the women’s long jump Thursday, described every piece of equipment used to mark the distance of jumps, gave insight on what the officials are doing, and even shared information about the quality of the sand in the pit.

He also revealed nuggets from his coaching days:

“I used to tell my jumpers, ‘Don’t land. Get up and stay up. Why would you want to come down?’”

For Lannana, there is an increasing emphasis on trying to enhance the viewing experience at track meets.

To that end, TrackTown Radio is merely a piece of a bigger puzzle. A pre-meet preview broadcast that played out over two days, and in-house track side commentary and interviews by former athletes Sasha Spencer and Jordan Kent during the meet itself, are intended to elevate the level of understanding and create a narrative that spectators can follow more easily.

“For years all we talked about the experience of the student-athletes and the professional athletes when they have a meet, which is what it should be. However, if you don’t have any spectators and you don’t provide the fans and media with an experience that they can grasp onto, they’re not going to get involved in it,” Lananna said.