End of semester? No way, not for Michigan's runners and jumpers

While most University students are hitting the home stretch of the semester, the Michigan men's track and field team is just getting warmed up. With just more than a month to go until the Big Ten and NCAA Championships, the runners can't exactly relax with the end of finals next week.

This coming weekend's meet is one of the more famous track meets in the country. The Wolverines travel to Philadelphia for the Penn Relays this Friday and Saturday. The relays will feature a special 4x1-mile relay, as opposed to the usual 4x1500-meter relay.

The Wolverines will also participate in several other events, but Michigan head coach Jack Harvey says the 4x1-mile relay will be the highlight of the weekend.

"They're really playing this thing up big. It's going to be Arkansas, us, Colorado and Stanford " said Harvey. "They're trying to see if they can get four guys on the same team to go under four minutes each."

Michigan will celebrate the end of exams by heading down to Columbus for the Jesse Owens Invitational on May 3. The Wolverines will have a chance to check out the venue for this season's Big Ten Championships, to be held on May 23-24 in Columbus. The Invitational will feature at least three or four Big Ten teams.

"There are a bunch of invited teams at that one, so it winds up being a real good competition," Harvey said. "The Jesse Owens meet will be a good opportunity for some qualifying (for NCAA Championships) because it's going to be a good meet."

Each meet gives the Michigan runners an opportunity to qualify for the NCAA Championships, June 4-6 in Buffalo, NY. So far, two Wolverines have qualified. John Mortimer earned an automatic qualification in the 3,000 steeplechase and Kevin Sullivan earned a provisional qualification in the 1,500 run.

"Now it's just a question of maybe trying to qualify Brian Theisen in the intermediate hurdles and Jay Cantin in the 1,500, and Don McLaughlin in the 1,500 or the 800," said Harvey. "The only other person that might qualify is Charles DeWildt in the pole vault.

"Those guys won't (be trying to qualify) at Penn because they will be running the relays. But normally, they'll be running their same events each week for the next two or three weeks."

'M' lands three more prospects: The men's track and field team has received commitments from three more high school athletes, raising to four the number of prospects that have signed national letters of intent to compete at Michigan.

The Wolverines filled holes in the sprints and jumps with sprinter Ike Okenwa and triple and long jumper Oded Padan.

Derek Applewhite, a nationally-ranked sprinter and hurdler, signed his letter of intent during the early signing period.

Distance runner Mark Pilja rounded out the group of promising freshmen-to-be.

Michigan also hopes to receive some help from incoming freshman Justin Fargas, a highly-touted football recruit who is also the reigning California state champion in the 100-meter dash.

04-21-98