So on the same weekend, Brooks, adidas, and New Balance all threw HS track meets? Good or bad for the sport?

Absolutely bad for the sport. The Nationals, as adidas, Nike and now NB were improving every year. Nationals is so watered down. It's a shame.

It's not good for the sport, exactly. But there's no reason why Brooks or Adidas can't go after the NSSF and New Balance.

One of the NSSF meet coordinators came after me pretty hard for recruiting a field on the same day as the NSSF meet several years ago so I have no sympathy.

I'd love to see that meet die.

I don't like it. One of the nice thing about the winter is everybody as the Armory on the last weekend. No split fields. I think part of the problem with the NSSF is they have too many Emerging Elite races. What's the point of having JV nationals? They just water down the weekend. There's an EE 800m sprint medley. What are we doing? Get rid of all the EE races, put a few more kids into each championship race, and have a real national meet.

New Balance did themselves no favors in the girls steeple. First heat they forgot to send them over the water jump on the first lap and skipped two barriers. Second heat they AGAIN skipped the water barrier the first lap and skipped one barrier . When you run your meet like it is a jv meet, people treat it the same way.

Bad. I was pretty mad when Brooks moved it to an outdoor meet from a premier indoor meet. It seemed stupid because we had the Dream Mile and New Balance Nationals as big outdoor meets, and now every meet is somewhat watered down.

All those sponsors throwing their meets is bad for the sport!

hounddogharrier wrote:

New Balance did themselves no favors in the girls steeple. First heat they forgot to send them over the water jump on the first lap and skipped two barriers. Second heat they AGAIN skipped the water barrier the first lap and skipped one barrier . When you run your meet like it is a jv meet, people treat it the same way.

Do you know how many times they go over the water?

rojo wrote:

On the HS ranks, it used to be that the meet in North Carolina (now sponsored by New Balance) was the end all and be all. Now everyone is in on the action.

What do you think? Good for the spots? Or bad?

It kind of reminds me of NXN and FL in the fall.

I thought of that today too.

You know what would be cool, is if they would do a rotating thing with it, where the earlier meets serve as play-offs for the "natty" (which would rotate.)

All 3 meets would then have better coverage, excitement etc.

Mostly, just happy for all the kids that get to race, to get after it some more, which was never an option for so many previous generations.

Memories of a lifetime for some of these kids. Friendships of a lifetime made. (They'll always have each others email, twitter handle, snapchat, etc. lol.

Would love to see the best race the best head to head, but that's going away somewhat with three national meets on the same weekend.

Actually, I was a bit disappointed in some of the races at Brooks PR and adidas, the exception being Kate Murphy's 4:07 at adidas.

New Balance gives many athletes a good opportunity to compete over a three-day event, so it is different than Brooks or adidas. The top competition is divided in some events between the three meets, but that's life in corporate sponsored America.

Perhaps the most exciting distance race of the weekend so far occurred at New Balance when Weini Kelati and Nevada Moreno ran stride-for-stride in the 2-Mile. Moreno did run adidas the night before.

Andrew Hunter not competing individually and injuries to other top runners does not help either.

hounddogharrier wrote:

New Balance did themselves no favors in the girls steeple. First heat they forgot to send them over the water jump on the first lap and skipped two barriers. Second heat they AGAIN skipped the water barrier the first lap and skipped one barrier . When you run your meet like it is a jv meet, people treat it the same way.

They do miss 1 + 2 on the first lap. They then go over 3 and the water and 5.

If they missed the water on the first then that's a huge FU. Several years ago I was screaming at officials at the start of the SC when they had all the barriers on the track for the first lap. Seems they rarely get it right.

I don't mind the opportunities for the kids just don't call every kid All

American

Other options wrote:

hounddogharrier wrote:

New Balance did themselves no favors in the girls steeple. First heat they forgot to send them over the water jump on the first lap and skipped two barriers. Second heat they AGAIN skipped the water barrier the first lap and skipped one barrier . When you run your meet like it is a jv meet, people treat it the same way.

Do you know how many times they go over the water?

As a matter of fact, I do. One more time than they did at that race.

It's disgusting wrote:

All those sponsors throwing their meets is bad for the sport!

yeah, I read the thread title and thought they were gambling and had a fix in place

maybe 'held' would have been a better term?

Absolutely maddening, it always bothered me when NIN and NISC were the same weekend. Meets need to know their roles and cooperate to form a better schedule, if they all want to hold meets then form like a HS circuit, that would be cool.

a Duck. wrote:

You know what would be cool, is if they would do a rotating thing with it, where the earlier meets serve as play-offs for the "natty" (which would rotate.)

Do it like college nationals. Have 4-8 sectionals to advance people to the nationals. Some issues with areas being weak but you could fix that with some tweaks.

I don't follow high school running like I used to when I was in high school, nor could I even if i wanted to (RIP Dyestat, that website was unreal), but I hate that all these meets are on the same weekend. NON back in the day was unreal every year, now that there are so many post-season meets, it's hit or miss, and the smaller invite-only meets with less events can attract the best kids. Look at the NBN boys 2 mile this year...9:03 i think. they only had 1 section. I remember when they had 3-4 sections, and the fast heat was like 8:45 in a bad year. The mile was like 4:05ish every year and always competitive, there was that team from somewhere that was always running unreal relays (somewhere in virginia or the carolinas i think? they had like twins and 3 other guys and ended up running like 5-8 HS records and a 3:08 4x4 over like 3 years), most of the meet was a must-watch. Now its all about the $ with the whole emerging elite for every event.

I did notice the boys shot put was unreal this year, 2 over 73 ft, 3rd place 71 feet.....

It USED to be the Golden West Invitational RoJo. Then the others came in.

It used to be Golden West in Ca. And The Keebler meet in Ill. A week apart if I remember and outstanding fields. Keebler long gone an GW is now basically an all comers meet, sad

NBON and all the EE entries/races is about making money. I am sure it is a "non-profit" but at $50 a race it sure seems different.

Good for the sport. All of the pomp and circumstance and hype surrounding these meets gives exposure to the sport and should trickle down to the families, teammates or competitors of those at the meets. Why worry about "watered down" competition? What does it really matter? If you want to compare performances go look on dyestat or whatever site maintains these. The sport should be fun and allowing kids to compete at these meets sets up for fun, positive experiences.