Best format for High School State Championships?

Florida

4 classes

District meet --> Regional meet --> State meet

top 4 from districts go to regionals

top 4 from regionals go to state meet

heats for the sprints at each.

no auto-qualifying times. win your race or go home.

for the big schools, the championship races end up basically being the top 4 from miami vs the top 4 from broward/palm beach

Georgia. 7 classifications. 1A( Private and Public)- 6A. A public is always awful while A private is usually pretty good. They are adding a 7A next year. 8 regions. Top 4 qualify to sectionals. 2 sectionals for each class, top 8 make it to state. Two different state meets boys and girls. Girls is first or second weekend in May while boys is week later. 3 day meet, all running finals except for 1600 and 3200 are on Saturday. Distance races are on other 2 days

CO Coach,

Yes your attitude is a LITTLE elitist, but it's at an acceptable level. Really, you need to just decide that you are never going to be impressed with the phrase "I was a state champion". Ok, what state? What division? What year?

Here in Ohio there are just 3 divisions. I don't mind that so much as the way the Regionals decide who goes to the state meet. In the 3200 for example, a kid might run 10:05 in one region and make it to the state meet while someone runs 9:16 in another and gets 5th and doesn't make it. For the indoor state championships, they take the top 18 times which I like much better. Still, I see a reason for the Regional race to count as far as the winner goes. I would rather see top 2 in each Region get out and then the next fastest 8 times so that conceivably you could have 10 in one region get out of it if it were super tough and the others were not.

How do other states divide their divisions? By size of the schools or by assuring that there are the same number of schools in each division? Ohio does the latter and I disagree with it. There are only a small number of highly competitive schools in the smallest of three divisions and the largest division spans from schools with 300 boys or girls to over 1400. From a team standpoint, this is very unfair to many. It seems much more equitable to determine divisions by size of schools with an unequal number in each division to assure teams are competing against those of like-size.

How are others divided?

Soprano wrote:

Honestly, for high school track I always thought even the 2 class system was silly. Why are we sending a 10 minute 3200 runner to states when a guy in the same qualifying race ran 9:24 and doesn't get to go? The class system in XC makes sense because it's a team sport and obviously a smaller school is going to have less kids to choose from and put together a good team.

But for track and field state championships, while there is technically a team score, no one pays it any attention (at least in NY). It is really all individuals competing, so why should the size of your school matter?

I will state my bias up front; I was a "state champ" in Texas' smallest of 5 classifications (they have since split it up again into 6 classes). The cutoff was enrollment of 200 or less. Winning times were between 9:40-10:00, and qualifiers ran as slow as 10:20s. I would not have qualified in the largest divisions.

Most everyone is ok with team sports being split apart, but not track because it's individual. Yet I would argue that circumstances at small schools create an uneven playing field that spills over into track.

There are fewer kids to choose from. The entire classification has about as many students as one district of the largest division. The odds are heavily against them.

Because of that, every kid is expected to do multiple sports and other extra circulars. Sure they could choose to do only one, but that's actively discouraged by necessity. The other option is to cut programs.

Coaches also do do multiple sports. Schools hire for the primary sports first. Track is their 2nd or 3rd assignment. XC is a chance to collect a stipend while not doing anything. Track coaches are not likely to know anything, and are busy with other sports June to Feb.

The rural location of most schools doesn't allow for clubs or private coaching.

Saying it's all individual, and any kid can train hard no matter where they are, is true by itself. But the reality is that fast kids come from good track programs, where good training is thrown at a lot of kids and a few excel. A school of 150 like mine would have to sacrifice all other sports/activities to go all in on track with the possibility of maybe getting one kid to state every decade. It just doesn't make sense.

Yes there are a few fast runners from small schools. They usually are close enough to a larger metro to get private coaching and have quit all other sports. That is ok if a few do it here and there, but just isn't possible for most.

Ohio ranks 4th in the country in number of kids running track but ranks 47th in how many run at state.

We have 3 divisions, district regional state format with 4 from each race to the next level.

The coaches association has presented to the OHSAA for upwards of 6 divisions. Even with that Ohio only moved to about 25th in regards to % of kids participating in the state meet.

Soprano wrote:

Dyestat Rumor wrote:

What about relays?

Valid point. What does Cali and Indiana do for those?

Indiana uses the same format for relays as individuals.

As a fellow Ohioan, I see a definite need for at least one additional division. However, I see the bigger issue of how the divisions are determined. Ohio feels a need for each division to contain equal numbers of teams. This causes a weak division III (smallest schools) from a team standpoint, and a very unequal division I (largest schools) with numbers from 300 boys or girls in a school to over 1400. My solution is to group the divisions based on size even if there are unequal numbers of teams/schools in each division.

The guy from Texas just posted he was in a division with schools of 200 or less. In Ohio it is possible they would be grouped with the largest schools. This is very inequitable for team competition.

Jersey does it pretty good too. its not really "time based" but your season's best determines what heat you're in at the first round (sectionals), but it basically has a 3 tiered system. After your county meet there is states, with the first round being the sectional meet, then the group meet, then the meet of champs. In order to qualify to the next round you have to place top 6 in your event.

At the group meet you can also qualify for meet of champs by being a wildcard, or the next fastest time after all of the groups run. (6 groups). Meet of champs converges all the groups together, which makes the races way more exciting than watching 5 different classifications determine their individual champions. Groups are classified by size of school, so group 1 is the smallest with group 4 the biggest ( and we have Non-Public A & B for Bosco and CBA and such ) so the slower group meets (usually group 1 or NP B) can qualify, but once they make it to the Meet of Champs, its seldom that they could win states since only one person can win it for each event. Makes it a lot more exciting and truly is the best way to determine the real state champions!

Well said bud.

I grew up in VA. The current system is pretty silly. 3 classifications was just about right. You had big schools usually from urban and suburban cities with big enrollments, you had medium size schools which were from towns and ocassionally the outskirts of medium to big towns in the country, and you had your rural small schools from the country or small towns. Now competition is too watered down. Teams from the same city with fairly similar enrollments that used to compete against each other are in different state meets now. 6 divisions might work in a state the size of California.

_______________

Anyways, I feel like if you're going to run separate state track meets, they should be in separate locations, and shouldn't last longer than from friday night to sunday afternoon.

In VA, private schools compete separately, which is kind of silly, but what they like. They used to have just one division, then they went to large schools and small schools, and now I think they have 3. Needless to say the competition is really watered down and sub 10 in the 3200 is probably all state, maybe state champ for small schools.

Flagpole wrote:

In the 3200 for example, a kid might run 10:05 in one region and make it to the state meet while someone runs 9:16 in another and gets 5th and doesn't make it.

Three responses:

1) That kind of competitive imbalance does not happen in Ohio. It's impossible to believe anyone has qualified to the D1 state meet with a 10:05 or anyone has ever failed to qualify with a 9:16 in any lower division.

2) To many athletic administrators, relatively equal regional representation is a feature and not a bug, and hardly limited to track and field. It happens every so often that the "real" state championship basketball game is in a regional or even district final. One year Toledo had two boys' basketball teams in the national top ten, but only one of them made it to the regional tournament.

3) We think the best athletes automatically produce the best times, but weather and facilities make a huge difference. Consider the 2003 northwest regional boys' 200 meters -- a huge storm came off Lake Erie during the race, and the BOYS state meet qualifiers ran between 24.14 and 24.69. All ran 2 to 3 seconds faster at the state meet the next week, and 3rd place at state (just one place behind Ted Ginn Jr) wouldn't have made it into the meet under your plan. Or think about how different the temperature alone can be in Austintown and Dayton in late May and how much that affects the 3200 and especially anyone trying a distance double.

Ohio's system has shortcomings but we don't obsess over times, we just compete. My opinion of it is like Winston Churchill's opinion of democracy: it's the worst system, except for all the others that have been tried.

just the facts wrote:

As a fellow Ohioan, I see a definite need for at least one additional division. However, I see the bigger issue of how the divisions are determined. Ohio feels a need for each division to contain equal numbers of teams. This causes a weak division III (smallest schools) from a team standpoint, and a very unequal division I (largest schools) with numbers from 300 boys or girls in a school to over 1400. My solution is to group the divisions based on size even if there are unequal numbers of teams/schools in each division.

The guy from Texas just posted he was in a division with schools of 200 or less. In Ohio it is possible they would be grouped with the largest schools. This is very inequitable for team competition.

Actually, the minimum for Division I in Ohio this year was 292 boys or 219 girls, and the numbers come from grades 9-10-11 only. A coed 4-year school of 200 students would be in the smallest of Ohio's seven football divisions. But your point about great variance of enrollment, especially in D1, is a very real issue that always gets talked about in every sport but rarely does anything get done about it.

GA is Insane wrote:

Georgia. 7 classifications. 1A( Private and Public)- 6A. A public is always awful while A private is usually pretty good.

complete opposite in Virginia. Private school running is usually a joke.

just the facts wrote:

How do other states divide their divisions? By size of the schools or by assuring that there are the same number of schools in each division? Ohio does the latter and I disagree with it. There are only a small number of highly competitive schools in the smallest of three divisions and the largest division spans from schools with 300 boys or girls to over 1400. From a team standpoint, this is very unfair to many. It seems much more equitable to determine divisions by size of schools with an unequal number in each division to assure teams are competing against those of like-size.

How are others divided?

In Colorado this is the breakdown of our classifications starting next year and it's based on enrollment:

5A 1503-up

4A 790-1502

3A 282-789

2A 100-281

1A 99-down

It's actually slightly different for different sports, so that break down is only for track and their goal was to try and get 60 teams in each classification, which still makes no sense as obviously 60 teams with over 1503 students provides a talent pool of over 90,000 students while in 1A the talent pool is less than 6,000 students. They seem overly obsessed with the team scoring aspect of track in this state.

So in states like California with one big state championship do they do team scores at all?

You make some fair and true points, but I still stand by my opinion for having only one state champion.

First of all, there are more fast kids from bigger schools because that is the mathematical odds. Do these kids at biggers schools often have advantages with facilities and coaching? Yes, but that's only a small part of the equation. The biggest part is just simple probability. At the high school level in individual sports, it's pretty common to excel just because you are super talented, with or without good training.

And then even if a lot of these kids at smaller schools aren't better because of lack of coaching/sport focus, then so what? Again, it's not a team sport, it's individual. If they're not "good enough" to compete with the best individuals in the state, regardless of their disadvantage, then that's just what it is.

Plenty of high schools even within the same division have a huge advantage over similarly sized schools for one reason or another (coaching, school tradition, etc), but they don't get handicapped when it comes time for qualifying for the state meet. What about the schools in the same section as FM or Saratoga girls? Other schools just as big as those two do not have the same quality coaches nor the school focus and support for track.

There are arguments on both sides and since most states have some kind of division by size for their track state championships, I guess I'm in the minority with my opinion. I'm fine with their being a class system in team sports and XC, but even there I think some states go overboard with too many classes. Two to four should be sufficient for most states.

1) I am not comparing lower divisions to Division 1. In 2014, Colin Burdette of Hilliard Davidson ran 9:16 in his regional and got 5th and did not advance to the state meet. That state meet was filled with guys he would have destroyed. One ran 10:04.

2) Besides, the system is still set up for this to happen. Doesn't mean that it has happened or happens frequently.

3) What is magical about the top 4? The Indoor state meet now has 18 instead of 16, and while I don't really care about making it MORE athletes, it does seem that some very good ones do get left at the curb sometimes (and CAN) based on a tough district or region. Ok, so how about the top 3 from each region go and then the next 4 fastest times? Still have a chance to qualify by running fast in your region (actually in my original plan you do too...just more of a chance now).

RI

Be one of the top 18 times in the state in your event from throughout the season, and you're in. 1 single All-State meet is the way to go.

Don't forget that high school sports are designed by the governing bodies to determine state championship TEAMS. That is why there are different divisions. They see it as too much to ask of a school of 120 kids to compete with those sporting 5000, especially in sports that require depth. They also believe the smaller schools would lose interest in most sports since they have little chance to be competitive.

As much as we athletes or former athletes are focused on the individual champion or individual element of the competition, the governing body sees this as nothing more than statistics. They see the individual times and places as nothing more than the same as a running back's yards gained or the point guard's assists, a sidelight to the real contest which is a TEAM championship.

This is why they see representation from all areas of the state more important than the fastest individuals participating in the meet. It is only us athletes, former athletes, and fans that want individual talent highlighted.