The News

Tigers win GOLD at the 2009 Regionals, June 6 - Pictures

Tigers Congratulations on winning the USCAA Regional Track & Field Meet June 6th at Rice University Track!!!! Last year we were beaten by Shell and it felt great to take back the silver cup!!! OUR TIGERS WON ALL GOLD AND SILVER MEDALS - NO BRONZE!!!! I believe this is the first time this has ever happened! Here are the final results:

TIGERS 9 GOLD!!! 7 SILVER!! 0 BRONZE! - Gold medals in both the jumps and the weights!!!

Here are the Tiger Team Results and splits

Our new crop of rookies really made this meet!!! They are:

Dora Branyon - Dora helped the Women's 3000m team win GOLD!!!
Cathy Sotelo - Cathy was in a couple of the Relays and assisted me with the meet. She is a distance running buddy of mine.
Andrew Cashion - Andrew teamed with John Hedengren to win GOLD!!! in the Men's Mile then helped us knock out a couple 2:15 800m legs!
Justin Price - Justin ran a strong 3000m race and a sub 30s 200m in his first track effort. He says he is not a sprinter - well guess what!?
Curt Williams - Curt was just what we needed to bring our Pyramid Relay Team the GOLD!!! He took the longest leg (1200m). Then he helped the Sprint Relay Team get the GOLD!!!
Matthew McCafferty - Matthew ran his first ever race on the track - a stong 1:03 400m leg. He is a valuable addition to the Tigers!
Lauro Porto - Lauro helped us in the 3000m and also ran his first Relay. He has a great attitude and we are please to have him!
John Hedengren - John ran THREE mile events in the space of 1 1/2 hours ALL well under 5 minutes. His last was clocked at 4:36. Incredible!!!!
Francois LaJeunesse - Francois brought his lovely family and stayed all day. He helped our Executive Relay go GOLD!!!
Gabriel Gomez - is a new Master for our Team. He was suffering from some calf soreness but still gave it his best!
Steve Reynolds - practices by running up and down his driveway at home. This was Steve's first track meet and next year he wants to throw too!

Brigitte Laki is not a rookie but we have not seen her in several years. She stopped in to say Hi to me and I handed her a uniform for the 3000m. Brigitte was a good sport, ran the 3000m and made sure the team had 4 members to score - won the GOLD!!!

Noel Comrie had an injured and sensitive hamstring. He asked to be placed in just one race and I chose the Sprint Relay. The 400m leg was his choice. Well injured hamstring or not he ran a 49.6 second split (one of the fastest ever at Regionals) and put our Team out front for the GOLD!!! Is he real????

Herman Williams just had an incredible day! He threw personal records in the shot and discus and teamed up with Bill Wright who also had an excellent day - they won the GOLD!!! After the meet you should have seen him wearing a smile as big as Texas!!!!

Joshua Camp came back for his second Regionals and because we were low on sprinters he anchored three critical events - the 3-lap sprint. the 4X100m and the Sprint Relay. Joshua also posted our highest High Jump. 2 GOLD!!! and 2 SILVER!! for the day for Joshua!!!

Elaine Mut normally chases kids at our meets, organizes the Corporate Kids Races and serves as our Photographer (see her album below!) Because we were short handed for Master females this year she also ran two 400m relay events with a best time of 1:20!

Alan Mut did a super job organizing the meet as always. He diserves a lot of thanks from us. It's a lot of work! Thanks Alan!!!

Judy Jones helped Alan all day with event sign-in. Michelle Mohyla, Jessie Foltz and Sema Beavers helped me with splits. Tracy Jones brought the canopy, many others brought food and items to share.

Team this is what it takes to win a meet - all of us pulling together, recruiting new team members, volunteering, turning in some great performances, toughing out the heat and the aches.

Tigers capture First place at the 2007 Regionals, June 9

I'm so proud of our ExxonMobil Tigers!!!! They beat a tough Shell team on Saturday at Rice University to win the USCAA Houston Regional Meet by a final score of 180 to 174. The final scores for all competitiors were:

ExxonMobil - 180
Shell - 174
Schlumberger - 112
United Space Alliance - 107
J. Ray McDermott - 87
Chevron - 60

I'm especially beaming because our 35 member Tiger Team consisted of about 60% rookie talent!!!! Ages on our Team ranged from 18 to 63. Just look at these TIGER athletes in action!

Coach Bob

Tigers champions at the first USCAA/Army Ten Miler on October 8, 2006

Congratulations to all for a historic run in the USCAA/Army Ten Miler yesterday. The Tigers are the National 10 mile Champions for 2006! You've Gotta Believe ... in magic!

Since this was the first year of the event we also hold the National and ExxonMobil Corporate 10 Mile records. I could not be prouder of each and every member of our Team. All contributed tremendously to this effort, even those who were unable to run due to injuries or health. Due to the spirit of our injured reserves and to all of those who were able to participate yesterday, we were able to accomplish this success. More importantly, however, we did it as a Team, pulling together, and I think we had a fantastic time in the process. There is a very special feeling when running as a Team and it electrified the air in DC yesterday! I just can not wait until next year.

For full details on the Team and individual results, our awards etc. for the 10 miler please see USCAA site. Also if you have not seen the Team Trophy please see Andres Hillar or I. We are in the process of finding a suitable location for the Team Trophy and will advise when that is decided. In the interim we protect it with our lives.

A video of many of the runners and the awards ceremonies will also be available for your viewing pleasure, please stay tuned.

I would just like to add that this is just one of three events (the other two are the USCAA Marathon in February and the spectacular Corporate Relays in July). Consider participation in either or both, they are truly great events and are great tune-ups for the 10 Miler on October 7, 2007.

Last, help us get the word out for these three events (details on the USCAA web page). Without participation from all of you these events would not be a success.

Hope all had fun, I surely did!

Best Regards,

Jeff Stapple

Tigers run to two new Team Records at the 2006 USCAA Nationals

The 4X100m team lined up and right from the crack of the pistol jumped out to lead and then WON THE 4X100m event with a RECORD SMASHING TIME of 48.446. As far as I know WE HAVE NEVER WON the 4X100m until this year!!!! Congratulations to our Gold Medal 4X100m team: Norma Johnson, Amber Abel, Ken Thomas and Jean-Christophe Bayard! The AT&T team tried hard with a 48.68 but they could not match the speedy Tigers! The handoffs were just perfect!!!! What a way to start the finals!

A few minutes later our 3-lap Sprint Team set another new EXXONMOBIL RECORD - 2:33.539 seconds - more than a second faster than the old record. They finished second behind GE but this just shows the incredible level of the sprint competition this year! The Team was Norma Johnson, Eugene Robinson, Jean-Christophe Bayard and Jared Peacock. Jean-Christophe and Jared BOTH RAN UNDER 50 seconds for 400m and two observers clocked Jared UNDER 48 SECONDS (47.96, 47.40) - THIS MAY BE THE FIRST SUB 48 second SPLIT RECORDED for ANY EXXONMOBIL RUNNER EVER AND DEFINATELY THE FIRST IN MANY YEARS.

Congratulations to the ExxonMobil Women Team completing the New York JP Chase Corporate Challenge on October 1st in at time of 1:33:21, finishing the 3.4 miles course in 9th place.

Tracy Jones, Lorna Campbell, Amy Ruf, Heide Mairs
2005JPChase
Results

Tigers finished 6th and 19th at the 2005 Famous Penn Relays

Click here for full story

Tigers at the 2004 USCAA Marathon

Congratulations to the Tigers USCAA 5k Team for a FIRST PLACE performance in New Orleans!!!! The Tiger Marathon Team also turned in a solid performance but could not beat the likes of GE. A GE runner actually won the New Orleans Marathon overall with a time of 2:33! Here are our Teams and results:

5K Team FIRST PLACE
Paul Donavan 15:45 1st OVERALL (Yes he won the entire race - hundreds participated!)
Andy Homoly 16:51 2nd OVERALL
Scott Hackel 18:29 7th OVERALL

Marathon Team 6th Place
Steve Smith, 52 - 3:34:14
Bob Botto, 55 - 3:45:36
Barry Chambers, 60 - 3:57:56
Kelley Espindola, 40 - 5:41:20

Thanks also to Larry Slupianek and Kristi Darby who came to cheer us on. We all had a wonderful time in New Orleans! Pictures will be coming!

When you can't be a Tiger...be a Superhero!

My best friends from high school and I ran this year's NYC Marathon dressed as Superman, Batman, and Robin (see picture below) Although the time was some 50 minutes off my PR, it was easily the best race of my life. Attached is a NYC newspaper article where I am quoted and below that is my friend's (Robin) account of the race, which he submitted to Runner's World. I guess it's a sad day when the only way I can get my name in the paper for a race is by acting like an idiot.

Matthew J. Kolesar
Senior Environmental Coordinator
ExxonMobil Chemical Company
Baytown Olefins Plant / Houston Olefins Plant

By Jim Baumbach
STAFF WRITER
November 3, 2003

After attending high school together, Jason Fought, Matt Kolesar and Mike McKenna have made a yearly tradition of taking adventurous trips together. This year, the Ohio natives ran the New York City Marathon as Superman, Batman and Robin.
"We played it up," said Kolesar, 36, a chemical engineer from Houston. "We took the long wide turns to slap hands with the crowd. We stopped to take pictures."
Although the costumes made for a hot day, they were happy with their finish in 3:37.42. They spoke highly of the New York crowd, though Fought was disappointed with their knowledge of superheroes.
"I am shocked with the public's lack of knowledge about Robin," said Fought, who wore the costume of Batman's sidekick. "We kept hearing, 'Go Superman! Go Batman! Go other guy!'"

As submitted to Runner's World:

"I hate you."

Sure, she didn't say it aloud, but I could see the gaze of contempt in her eyes. She'd probably trained months for the New York City Marathon and made it a focus of her life. Yet, passing her at mile 18 were three jackasses dressed as Superman, Batman and Robin. Worse, my friends Mike, Matt and I were joking and clowning with the New York crowd while she was hitting the wall and hoping not to lose bowel and bladder continence. And while few people were yelling "Run fast, non-descript woman in your mid-thirties!" plenty of people were loudly cheering for us.

She wasn't too different from many other runners on the course. Sure, some of them lauded our efforts, but most sneered, throwing us glances of sheer hatred. I suspect that they secretly hoped nearby kryptonite would cause us to drop out, or better yet, need medical attention.

I'd never dressed in costume for a marathon before, but after running the Chicago Marathon three weeks earlier, finishing at New York was by no means assured. My legs still hadn't recovered fully and walking the stairs at the hospital wiped me out. Matt, Mike and I had decided years ago to run this together, and there was no way I could bail out now. I needed motivation. After very little thought, I called my friends and suggested that we run as superheroes. The crowd might not know us, but surely they would know Superman, Batman and Robin and cheer them on. This would inspire us to finish, we reasoned.

We weren't alone in that thought, and bumped into other costumed characters wandering around the pre-race tents. Another Superman waited with his bladder of steel in the bathroom line, as did a large cow and an Imperial stormtrooper, who wore his plastic helmet in spite of 72 degree temperatures. Not smart, but I guess there's a reason that Darth Vader's forces didn't win. I nodded to him, however, knowing we belonged to our own fraternity of idiots willing to risk our health and self dignity to entertain ourselves and the crowd.

And the New York crowd loved it. Men cheered. Women cheered. Children looked at us with awe, screaming "Go Superman! Go Batman! Go ? uh ? go other guy!" I soon realized that Robin isn't as popular now as he was when Burt Ward joined Adam West as television's caped crusaders, and was called Spiderman, Green Hornet, "masked man", and "dude with the freaky tights". Regardless, we fed off of their enthusiasm, passing non-costumed mortals during the second half of the race. As I arrived at mile 19 and didn't see my good friend, the wall (which had always joined me in my previous five marathons), I wondered why I hadn't run in costume before.

Then I remembered. A few years ago while running the Chicago Marathon, I began to fade at mile 19. A runner dressed as Skeletor, the villain of the 1980's cartoon "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe", soon pulled along side of me. I nodded, but he just stared coldly ahead, as evildoers are apt to do, and picked up his pace. At the time, I was too proud to have a masked villain pass me so I began running faster. There was no way he was going to beat me. After a quarter of a mile, however, I would have settled for a tie. A half mile later, I realized that I had no chance against his supernatural powers. He dropped me and I hit the wall, which proceeded to back up and hurl itself into me, leaving me to suffer for the next six and a half miles. Wanting to curl into the fetal position and die, I resolved never to run again. All because of being passed by an idiot dressed as Skeletor.

My friends and I had now taken the role of Skeletor, inadvertently demoralizing some of the other runners around us. Feeling a twinge of guilt, I turned a corner to a group of children in Harlem, who were smiling and screaming for us at mile 23. Matt and Mike passed them first, and they cheered for Superman and Batman with delight. I followed, taking a wide turn to slap their hands. Believing I made their day a little better, I smiled and felt energized, knowing that dressing in tights as a costumed superhero in the sweltering seventy degree heat was worthwhile. After I passed, I heard one of them giggle and mumble, "Spiderman was pretty cool."

Maybe being a superhero isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Great story Justin!!! I would have just ditched the bike and run!

I participated in the first race of the fall mt bike season sunday. It's one of my favorite courses, but it rained all night and turned it into a sticky mess! After the first climb I was in first place and sitting with the second place guy. My plan was to stay with him and maintain my heart rate at an easily sustainable rate and wait for the second half of the race to really start riding. Well, the mud caked up on my bike and pushed my rear derailluer into my wheel and got it tangled up in my spokes, locking up my wheel and damaging a few things. By the time I got it untangled and sort of ridable, I in last place ! And with only 3 of my 27 gears usable! I managed to catch a few people and it happened again. Then it happened again. By this time, my bike was a single speed and the course was such a disaster that every person was either carrying their bike or trying to dig out the mud that was clogging up their wheels. It was so muddy that it was difficult to walk. When I could ride, I was going about 5mph and my heart rate was at around 185, which is about the maximum I can sustain without going anaerobic. Maximum power - minimum speed. Then my derailleur hung up again - this time I ripped it off. I was actually relieved at this, and relaxed and kept walking. I tried to coast the downhills just so I could get back sooner and eventually I could hear the announcer by the start/finish congratulating riders finishing and I was thinking "geez, I'm really behind! They're finishing and I haven't even finished my first lap" (two lap course). When I got closer, I heard that he was actually saying that they decided to cut the race and it was only one lap! So I ran it in. Turns out I was fourth! Can you believe that?? My bike was broken after about a mile! Crazy.

It was probably the worst race I can remember, but I had a great time anyway. Anyway, just a little "never quit" story for ya.

Justin Cremer