Question for BillVol (or other Tenn fan)

[trackstar]

What happened to William Frullani, decathlete for Tennessee? I see him on the Vols roster, but I can't find him on any lists, and I see he's not at the NCAAs.

[BillVol]

Re: Question for BillVol (or other Tenn fan)

I believe he got hurt somehow. I'm not sure if he's being redshirted or what. I'll try to find out. We could sure use him now.

[trackstar]

Re: Question for BillVol (or other Tenn fan)

Yeah, so could I. He's on my fantasy track team. Tennessee will probably get good points out of the decathlon, but I drafted the wrong volunteer.

(I guess "drafting" a "volunteer" doesn't make much sense, does it?)

[BillVol]

Re: Question for BillVol (or other Tenn fan)

>I guess "drafting" a
>"volunteer" doesn't make much sense, does it?

LOL. BTW good luck to the Horns and Lady Horns. I've always liked Texas (even though you took a couple of our coaches in the '80s!). ;-) (Stan Huntsman and Terry Crawford.) Many connections between Tennessee and Texas of course.

Fantasy track team. That sounds fun!

Re: Question for BillVol (or other Tenn fan)

< Many connections between
>Tennessee and Texas of course. >>

"T for Texas, T for Tennessee, T is for Thelma, who made a wretch out of me."

[BillVol]

Re: Question for BillVol (or other Tenn fan)

http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/gv_other_sp ... 89,00.html

Article above says Frullani returned to Italy after getting hurt and isn't expected back.

[trackstar]

Re: Question for BillVol (or other Tenn fan)

Thanks for the tip. I'll have to drop him from my team, then.

Yeah, I ran for Huntsman during the single season (1987) of my less-than-illustrious college track career. Heck of a coach. He whipped us into amazing shape. I still shake my head in disbelief at what we could make our bodies do back then.

Our hardest workout (so hard we only did it twice a year):

(running every lap at the same pace)

8x400
2x800
4x1600
2x800
8x400

Yes, it was just as brutal as it sounds. Those eight quarters seemed pretty easy, but by the time you were running that mile, it started getting rough. One of my teammates -- who never bothered to look at the monthly workout skeds Huntsman provided ahead of time -- showed up for practice unawares. When Huntsman told us what we were going to do that day, the teammate replied (in shock): "What, are we going to do it on bicycles?"

[trackstar]

Re: Question for BillVol (or other Tenn fan)

whoops, that was a mistake: it was 1x1600.

4x1600 probably would have gotten Huntsman on trial at The Hague. :-)

[dl]

Re: Question for BillVol (or other Tenn fan)

As reported in the Collegiate Eligibility update on p.41 of the May issue of T&FN, Frullani redshirted this season. He was injured when he came over from Italy and never got healthy.

Too bad, since I'd never heard of an Italian competing in track in the NCAA. Perhaps along with Portugal, the only European nations not to have a regular (or any?) presence in the NCAA. Anyone know of any Italian or Portugese athletes to have competed over here?

[BillVol]

Re: Question for BillVol (or other Tenn fan)

I met Coach Huntsman once, back in '83, at the track and remember he wasn't very friendly. I was already a fan and was excited to see him and went up and introduced myself and thanked him for the great job he'd done. He looked at me like I had two heads and green slime coming out of my ears. Very unfriendly. I was disappointed. But I guess guys from the old school were like that. But he was a great coach.

[tandfman]

Re: Question for BillVol (or other Tenn fan)

You must have caught him at a bad moment. I've known Stan Huntsman for many years and I can't think of a single negative thing to say about him.

[trackstar]

Re: Question for BillVol (or other Tenn fan)

He's a nice guy, but not the best in the world at expressing himself. He quite literally might have not been sure how to respond. It's probably for the best that he went into track coaching and not public relations. :-)

Re: Question for BillVol (or other Tenn fan)

I was talking to a high profile coach at nationals, and he mentioned how many people want to come up and say hi to him. "Dammit", he said. "Can't they see I'm coaching!" He said that the only way to be able to concentrate on what his athletes are doing is to be rude (not verbally, just not returning much conversation), until they give up and go away. haha People come up to coaches at these things and want to start a conversation. Would you expect a football or basketball coach to acknowledge you in the middle of a game? "Oh, Hi! How ya doin? How was your flight? Oh drats! I just missed that jump by my High Jumper. But it's OK, she still has one left. Of course I didn't see that last one so I can't tell her what she needs to do, but at least I wasn't rude to anyone.
My recommendation is not to judge a coach by how he/she treats you at a track meet. I've always walked away from talkers at track meets.

[BillVol]

Re: Question for BillVol (or other Tenn fan)

He may have been having a bad day. This was not at a meet BTW. In fact the track was deserted except for him. He had been digging around the press box for something. Maybe he didn't find what he was looking for. I'm sure Coach Huntsman is not a bad guy.

[BillVol]

Italians in NCAA

Tennessee had a distance runner named Roberto Lenarduzzi in the early '70s. I'm pretty sure he was from Italy. Are there any other Vol fans here who could confirm?

He was on the Vol national champ cross country team of 1972. He scored for UT at the national meet, along with Danny Zoeller, John Angel, Ron Addison and the great Doug Brown. Vols nipped instate rival East Tennessee State. The Bucs had their famous "Irish Brigade" of Neil Cusack (NCAA individual champ ahead of Doug Brown; Cusack also won Boston Marathon), Ed Leddy, and company.