Wabash College will play host this weekend to the North Coast Athletic Conference indoor track and field meet. The Little Giants will do so as the defending champions after capturing the men's title a year ago.
 
Events will take place all day Friday and Saturday as Crawfordsville becomes home for the conference's nine men's teams and eight women's squads for the weekend at the Johnson track in Knowling Fieldhouse. The weekend's events have been a work in progress for several months as the school gets a rare chance to host the conference championship.
 
“It's a lot of work, but we have taken care of business in terms of preparation months ago,” Wabash coach Clyde Morgan said. “Now it's just tying up the loose ends.”
 
The Wabash facility in Knowling Fieldhouse is among the best in the conference, featuring a 200-meter, six-lane indoor track, enclosed long jump and triple-jump pits, and electronic timing,
 
The Little Giants have the opportunity to host the meet due to the NCAC's policy of rotating the championships among member schools with the facilities needed to host. Morgan feels like that policy is great not only for the schools, but for the student-athletes.
 
“You want to do it right, not only for your athletes, but for the conference so we can show them why we should rotate,” Morgan said. “It takes some pressure off the same coach and institution hosting every year.
 
“More importantly, it gives our student-athletes a chance to see the conference. I told the conference coaches from the beginning that we are denying our student-athletes from the experience to see the entire conference. That is what I really like about bouncing the conference meet around, to be able to see each other's campuses.”
 
The Little Giants will certainly enjoy an element of familiarity in this year's conference meet, not one to be overlooked according to Morgan.
 
” Little things like being able to look up and see your parents in the same spot, seeing familiar faces in the crowd, those are big deals,” Morgan said. “They keep you calm, but it gets you pumped up at the same time. We have that advantage that none of the current athletes around the conference have ever run here.”
 
While their opponents will be competing on the Johnson track for the first time, Wabash's athletes will literally be right at home.
 
“We run on this track every day and we know the environment,” assistant coach Roger Busch said. “Most, if not all, of the schools have never been here. It's a completely new environment for them. We get to rock it out in front of a home crowd.”
 
The ability to host is not only motivation for the Little Giants because of the familiarity of the facilities and lack of travel, but also for the rarity of hosting the conference meet.
 
“Motivation is paramount for coach Morgan and I because as the conference is currently formatted, we rotate between all the schools who have indoor facilities,” Busch said. “At the earliest, it will be seven years before we can host again.
 
If you are on the track team now, this is your only chance to host the conference meet, and you want to take care of business. We use that as motivation, and hopefully it works.”
 
Tickets for the meet can be purchased Friday and Saturday in Knowling Fieldhouse. The cost of admission is $5 for adults and $3 for children (18 years and under) while students with a valid NCAC school ID get in free. Two-day passes are available for $10.