bad rule instituted for NCAA meets

Is this real? The post-collegiate part (among other parts) is whack. So all pros will have to enter Husky Invite with 'no time'?

That's what I was told by NCAA rules person today.

It's whack in a whole lot of ways.

This is great! No more fudging those 1000 times to gain advantage at the dual meet. What a relief. I always feel guilty when they run 20 seconds slower.

It doesn't say meets can't create multiple invite sections and fill them however they want. "Invite" "gold" "post collegiate hasbeens" I think you get it.

Seems to me to be an over reach for all the exaggerated seed times submitted to invitational meets around the country. With DirectAthletics being the main source for entries, this may be a bit of overkill, except for maybe early season meets. Question I have is how do you enforce it? Who do you punish, the meet director that ignores the rule, the coach that puts in a bogus time or the athlete? Or maybe there is no real enforcement possible.

If coaches didn't abuse the entry seed times to begin with you wouldn't have to go to such extremes.

I found in most cases, coaches were mostly honest and it was always the same coaches who would "project" performance marks year after year, some faster than outdoor best marks for their athlete they wanted in the fast section of a race.

dznuts wrote:

Is this real? The post-collegiate part (among other parts) is whack. So all pros will have to enter Husky Invite with 'no time'?

Don't think a post-collegiate would be entered in a collegiate meet.

I don't see anything about post collegiates?

Wetmorethanu wrote:

It doesn't say meets can't create multiple invite sections and fill them however they want. "Invite" "gold" "post collegiate hasbeens" I think you get it.

It says that the sections must be seeded by TFFR times - in rank order. And if an athlete doesn't have a TFFR mark, he or she must be entered as with NO MARK.

There is no wiggle room. It's cut and dried.

An indoor mark done in March does not carry over to the outdoor season in April. How frustrating is that?

Am I blind? wrote:

I don't see anything about post collegiates?

We called in and was told that Matt Centrowitz would be credited with NO MARK, as he has no TFFR.

Back in the day you used the earlier round placings and time to seed the next rounds.

I believe now the NCAA says the seed time used to get in the meet supersedes slower actual at the actual meet performances when seeding the later rounds.

bad idea, very bad rule wrote:

Wetmorethanu wrote:

It doesn't say meets can't create multiple invite sections and fill them however they want. "Invite" "gold" "post collegiate hasbeens" I think you get it.

It says that the sections must be seeded by TFFR times - in rank order. And if an athlete doesn't have a TFFR mark, he or she must be entered as with NO MARK.

There is no wiggle room. It's cut and dried.

An indoor mark done in March does not carry over to the outdoor season in April. How frustrating is that?

He's saying that meets can create multiple sections of 5000m, for example, and seed them using TFFR times, but also have a special "Invitational 5000m" section that they invite athletes into, including post collegiate athletes with"no time".

The rule has become necessary. If common sense had worked, then we wouldn't need the rule, but common sense hasn't worked:

Coach "inflates" an entry because "their workouts suggest they are in shape."

Coach B wants his kid in a fast heat so he "inflates"

By default, the coach that enters honestly is penalized.

Just to get in to some invitationals you have to "super inflate," then your kid gets left out and you watch as they would have beaten over half the field.

Then the meet director/coach has to answer phone calls from his "friends" or other influential coaches and "do favors."

Then there are the meets that only put THEIR kids in the best lanes, and leave the fastest kids in inferior lanes.

With TFRRS, a coach should ONLY select the event they want their athlete to run in a meet. The seeding should be automatic based on their current best season performance. Or early in the year, last years performance.

If you are FAST, then you are FAST. If you are FAST you can race solo or in and run FAST. Maybe not your FASTEST, but you can run FAST enough to get a seed time that will get you into deserving heats in the future.

Does it such for 10k, yes probably. But if all the FAST 10k kids show up at Stanford with No Mark, then the heats will have FAST kids in them to run FAST.

If coaches didn't abuse the privilege, we wouldn't need the rule.

And ultimately, IT IS THE SAME FOR EVERYONE so no one is at a disadvantage. No longer do you get omitted from a meet because you aren't friends with the head coach, or didn't attend the high profile school. EVERYTHING IS EARNED, not SPECULATED.

IT IS A GOOD RULE

Previously, if you could point to a 13:45 indoor 5k, you could get into a fast heat at Stanford. With this rule now in place, you cannot use your indoor time.

Using a previous year's mark is forbidden after the fourth Sunday in January for indoors and April 9 outdoors. So, if you want to get into a fast heat at Mt. SAC, you have to have run the time between March 12 and Mt. SAC meet.

Neither the indoor times nor the previous outdoor times can be used.

If Matt Centrowitz has to run as no mark, how can you say that everything is earned??? His marks are real, but will be ignored.

A freshman who has run very fast in high school has his/her marks ignored as well. Everything is earned??? Somethings are cast aside as if they didn't happen when in fact they did. That's getting shafted.

I think the rule is an equal REACTION to the actions of abuse of the current system.

Perhaps there is a compromise. Direct Athletics can be set up to take the fastest mark an athlete has produced in the last 365 days. I'd be fine with that.

I am not fine with the nebulous way in which current entries are done.

I think coaches should NEVER enter a performance for a meet, they should ONLY select the event, and let the legitimate data seed the heats and lanes.

Centro doesn't need a time to run in the Milrose Games. They can use whatever rules he wants. But if he wants to line up in an NCAA meet, he will have to follow whatever rule is included for unattached athletes.

Do collegian times from Milliseconds not count then? Where is the line drawn between an ncaa and non-ncaa event in your Centro example?

An NCAA event is an event hosted by an NCAA Institution.

Mt Sac is not an NCAA institution

Milrose Games, not an NCAA Institution

NCAA Athletes can still gain qualifiers there as stated in the rules for qualifying marks.

There is going to have to be an interpretation about "unattached" athletes in NCAA events. There will need to be guidance about how they can be entered.

It is only a guess, but unattached athletes are not subject to the same rules. Therefore a place like Stanford could have a heat full of No Marks in a 10k and place plenty of fast unattached people in those heats as well to make sure the heat is loaded with both quality athletes that are both unattached and that have no marks.

Smart coaches will figure it out. Smart coaches will get together to intentionally have many athletes entered with No Mark so that the No Mark heats will be quality

Smart coaches will have teammates that can push each other entered with No Marks so that the No Mark heat can serve the purpose of having a quality performance.

As each season gets later and later the system will show its value as the cream will rise to the top and there will no longer be a need for speculative marks.

bad idea, very bad rule wrote:

It says that the sections must be seeded by TFFR times - in rank order.

It doesn't say that in the part copied above. Are you saying it says that somewhere else? I'm thinking the rule is mostly in place to help coaches figure out who is qualified to nationals/regionals.

I'm thinking the studs will get seeded however the meet wants to. And they won't be seeded by TFFR times. Just that the times that appear by their names will be real.

My coach cut a minute off my actual 10K time, but I was still lined up behind people that cut off 2 minutes.

I think its a great rule. It stops all the BS in acceptable entries. I can't tell you how many times a coach has called me asking for his or her athlete to be placed in a fast heat/section because their athlete ran a "so-called" fast split or ran this or that in "practice"....are you seriously calling me to put your kid in a faster heat because of what they did or didn't do in practice? Or from the distance coaches, my kid is ready to run this or that time and they need to be in the fast heat. I tell them that's great and they can run that fast time from the heat they are seeded in based on their incoming time.

If meet directors and coaches ignore the acceptable entry rules and place and seed kids as the see fit, tons of coaches are going to raise hell at the meets. Follow the rules and race your kids and you will not have a problem.

So, you have until January 22 to get a mark for seeding to get put into a fast 5k. The 13:50 you ran outdoors the previous year doesn't count and the 13:50 you ran last year indoors doesn't count. Only what you do between December and January 22 can be used. Otherwise you have No Mark. (Even though you shown your performance level many times before - they are all irrelevant now.)

How about a little common sense?