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The Rice Thresher
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by Chris Larson thresher editorial staff You probably didn't notice Adam Davis' debut as an Owl. It came in the little-watched sport of indoor track and field, and it was across town at the University of Houston. But put the name in your memory, because you're going to be hearing a lot more of it in the future. Davis won the 800-meter run at the Southwest Classic in 1 minute, 50.73 seconds in a field of 26 competitors, including runners from eighth-ranked Baylor University and 12th-ranked University of Texas. To understand the quality of Davis' time, consider that he was more than four seconds faster than any Owl from all of last season. He was more than three seconds faster than last year's Western Athletic Conference champion at the WAC meet, and teams typically organize their training efforts so their athletes peak at the meet. In fact, the time would have earned him 13th place at last year's NCAA Championships. Then, consider that the meet was his first ever in college, that the team trains straight through their early-season meets so their times are significantly slower than if they had tapered their training, and that he'd been battling a fever the day before and pulled out of the mile race. Now you see why head coach Ray Davidson is so excited to have Davis at Rice. "For a first race, in 34 years it's one of the most impressive things I've ever seen," Davidson said. "It was beautiful. He looked like a guy who had been to the national meet several times. He took on some seasoned studs - all of the Baylor guys had run faster times than Adam had in his life." Davis stalked the leader for the first half of the race before assuming control and was able to hold off a late charge by Baylor's Floyd Thompson to win by just a tenth of a second. "It definitely felt good," Davis said. "My coach told me to sit on the Baylor guys for the first 400 meters because they were going to go out fast, and then if I felt good to go for it. Since I had had a temperature the day before, he didn't want me to do anything crazy. But I felt good after the first 400, and I felt pretty good until the very end." The race was one Davis had been waiting for for a long time. Since he didn't run cross country in the fall, he hadn't run in a race that counted in college. "I felt like I had been training forever," Davis said. "I felt really strong in workouts, and now I was finally getting the opportunity to run, so it was really exciting to get out there." But due to his fever, Davis almost didn't get to compete. A hesitant Davidson decided to allow him to race, but warned him to step off the track if anything felt wrong. "I was really nervous when I woke up on the first morning of the meet, and then I had the fever," Davis said. "I was getting kind of depressed. But the next morning I was really happy that I felt better and was able to run." Davis wasn't the only Owl who came through with surprising results. The Owls scored 87 points to finish third in the eight-team field. Champion Texas scored 120 and Baylor finished second with 93. "We scored twice as many points as I anticipated," Davidson said. "Last year, we only scored forty-something at the same meet." Junior Todd LeBlanc opened the season with a win in the triple jump with a personal-best jump of 47 feet, 10 inches. Sophomore Tommy Oleksy captured the long jump with a mark of 24 feet, 10.5 inches, and junior Keith Pierce won the 3,000-meter run in 8:33.39. "Keith had a good weekend," Davidson said. "He ran a good full mile in the distance medley relay and came back to win the 3,000." Such a strong finish in the team's first meet, especially considering that several of the other teams had already competed in meets this season and that the Owls came in off two weeks of tough training, has created a buzz of anticipation in Rice track circles. "Baylor and Texas had already gone to two or three meets," Davidson said. "We were all kind of beat up going into the meet. Going into it, I had pushed them the last two weeks, which was another reason I didn't expect us to do well. Doing that well is really a credit to the kids - it's going to be an exciting year.
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