Looking to improve upon a men's 12th place finish and a women's 10th place tie in last year's Big 12 Outdoor Track and Field Championships, the Red Raider men and women make their way to Columbia, Mo., this week for the 2000 edition of the event. The championships hosted by the University of Missouri, run through Sunday. The competition begins Thursday with the decathlon and heptathlon events.

It will be the first Big 12 Outdoor Championship meet for Texas Tech head coach Wes Kittley, who took over the program last July, and along with a new coach have come higher expectations for the Red Raiders. Last season the men's team scored 27 points as only three individual athletes and two relay teams recorded scores for Texas Tech. This season nine different Red Raiders and both sprint relay teams enter the meet ranked among the Big 12's Top 10 athletes in 11 different events.

Leading the way for the men are Gezachw Yossef and Jason Young. Yosseff has qualified for the NCAA Championships in the 1,500-meter run with a top time in 2000 of 3:41.97. He currently has the conference's second fastest time in the event. Yossef is also set to compete in the 800-meter run. He enters the race with the Big 12's seventh fastest time in the event. Young, a freshman from Dallas, is another NCAA qualifier in the discus event. His throw of 192'-11" is the third best mark in the conference. He will also compete in the hammer and shot-put competitions.

The women scored a program best 31 points last season and finished in a tie for 10th place in the conference. However, Leigh Daniel, an All-American performer who is redshirting during the 2000 outdoor season, scored 20 of those points. Still, the women still have plenty of reason for optimism as they have provisionally qualified four athletes and both sprint relay teams for the NCAA Championships.

The Tech women boast one of the strongest sprint corps in the Big 12. Tammi Zachary, Sherri Coleman and Monique-Wright Cruse have all set NCAA marks in 2000 and are favored to score in the Big 12. Evette Turner is one of the conference's top distance runners. Her 3,000-meter time of 9:29.85 ranks as the seventh best time in the conference this season.