Harvard women run "B" team at HYP's, Princeton men don't show up - the death of rivalries in sport?

The current system to qualify for nationals has destroyed what the regular season used to be. Rivalries not withstanding, how happened to just plain old racing?! Go to meets, compete, race! Gimme a break about Princeton; a couple of weeks of training under the belts (on top of summer miles) is plenty of time to have your team go out and race hard for 18-20 minutes in mid September (it was only a 6k!).

The mission to collect points/wins has killed the regular season and has trivialized the sport on the D1 level. Remember when Iowa State hosted a decent meet? or the Indiana or Furman Invite's or when teams would fly to Maine to race in the Murray Keating meet? Wyoming came to the Illinois Invite when I was in college, just because... it was a decent meet in October and they just mixed up there schedule to go somewhere new that year. They would never do that today. Nobody was on a mission to collect points; every meet mattered (or didn't matter depending on how you look at it).

Now we have 4-5 big meets with massive fields and nobody seems to race their best runners in September or if they do, it is in watered down 4k/6k races. The Wisconsin Invite or Pre-Ncaa's or Notre Dame are basically nationals - the actual national meet is almost anti-climatic because all of these same teams have already raced against each other twice earlier in the season. How exciting is it to come in 19th at the Wisconsin Invite? Well it got a team points so that's all that mattered. And the trickle down is that even the mid-pack or not-so-good teams now follow the same scheduling and competition model of the national caliber schools... and the sport as a whole suffers. D1 cross-country has never been so boring and the regular season as irrelevant as it is now.

House Call wrote:

Anybody know if this is true? If so, that in fact was not the Harvard B Team.

No comment on the injuries, but AFAIK they were not running a B team.

I certainly agree with you, the example of the Boston "Coast to Coast" meet shows clearly. Teams coming in from all over so they can get points towards qualifying for Nationals and no other reason.

As I pointed out, this method works for the 30 or so teams around the country that qualify each year (and it is mostly the same 30 or so) for Nationals. Meanwhile the rest of the 270 or so D1 teams can go take a hike, meaning they are all just out to run against B teams. Now this is a great showcase for the sport.

Add to that the convoluted methods for getting "bonus" points (you need a master's degree in Math) and you really have something sports fans can follow..

I have the solution:

350 D1 teams means ~2400 runners.

Find a course with a wide opening 1-2 miles.

Run everyone. It's no bigger than a medium sized road race.

Now people aren't chasing points.

Harambe wrote:

I have the solution:

350 D1 teams means ~2400 runners.

Find a course with a wide opening 1-2 miles.

Run everyone. It's no bigger than a medium sized road race.

Now people aren't chasing points.

Now all we need is a starting line that can fit about 700 runners across. That's not even a half mile wide. This should be easy.

Just some ideas, probably all terrible but who knows, there might be something shiny in there.

- Limit the size of meets to no more than 15 with few exceptions - namely, whomever is hosting this year (Pre-Nat) and next (Pre-Pre-Nat) get to host 31 teams to test their processes, and then maybe each regional host gets to host one big meet (same idea) that year. Force more schools to host meets

- Limit the number of points you can get off any one team to two, max. Again, same principle - make teams run against other schools. If they want a big point total, they'll need to go see a lot of different teams, especially when put in conjunction with the first suggestion. I could possibly be persuaded to up the limit to three (specifically to address the HYP question that prompted the thread), but how is that particularly any different to now? What's the percentage of teams that score more than two points against any single team now? I seem to recall that Kansas girls a couple years back beat Texas at every meet in the season except for regionals, and got into NCAAs because of it.

- NCAA golf a couple years ago had a similar issue, and they instituted a rule that teams could not be selected (besides auto bids) with a sub-500 record. So, what happened was that the overall strength of tournaments across the country got better, because teams that had been going to the same 4-5 tournaments and finishing in the back half, now spread themselves out to ensure they hit their required records. Do something similar for XC, and make it the team head-to-head record regardless of A team or B team -- if you show up at the meet, you're going to be judged on your performance no matter who you put up.

You want more local stuff happening, limit the number of teams that qualify for regionals, for one. Top one or two (maybe more from stronger conferences) from each conference in region and a few at large teams based on dual meet record or conference strength. Right now you have fields of 32 or more going to regionals, and then if your team craps out it can still go if they got lots of "bonus" points at these pre-nat invitationals (ie. time trials).

Running two National Championships (Pre-Nats) and Nats is pretty silly to me and has been from the start. The teams with big budgets go and get into Nationals if they even run half decent. Those teams that spend more on track and field won't go to save money for the other two seasons. So, get rid of this point system that is confusing and mind boggling. Get rid of the regionals being an all comer meet and put conference meets and championships into the mix to go to Regionals and on to Nationals. You want to be good enough to qualify for Nationals, beat the teams in your league and in your region.

One of the things that always amazed me over the years is that some new rule would be put into place by the NCAA and then it would hardly ever be revisited. When this regional setup first came about, I was sure it would be laughed at and shot down. Little did I know.

So the tail is wagging the dog. You have your team do whatever it needs to in order to try and qualify for Nationals. The bottom line, however, is that only a few teams end up going and it is usually the same schools year after year. Meanwhile the vast majority no longer have local rivals to compete against because they either don't run or run a "B" team. So many good meets have fallen by the wayside as these "super invitationals" take over. Nonsense if you ask me. I see the sport has having become an outlet for the more elite runners and elite teams. The vast majority are only along for the ride, but have to pay for the gas.

Sport "becoming" --it has been-- the vehicle for shoe companies. I really resent having to go to the MW two/three times during a season. Four if you are counting on going to the NCAA champs.

The BigEast had a tradition of having their CCC at either VCP or FP. No more. I can understand that MW makes sense for travel reasons but does the NCAA have to be in KY/In every year?

Typical schedule now is a two low keyed meets you --maybe-- run split squad. Followed by two Inv. you fly to and your Conference meet. Next 2 more low-keyed split squad things (optional) followed by regional. So what you are really doing is running Invitationals (points) and really going all-out for your Conference title and regionals. Dual meets are long gone.

HillaryVotersAreGaysTrannies wrote:

The Ivy League is for Hillary loving pieces of trash.

Nailed it.

These Ivy Leaguers, with their "educations" and their "three-digit IQs," like to think that they were being cool or edgy by voting for Hillary. But in fact they were just members of the plurality, the same as other folks: By the millions, more people voted for her than for any other candidate.

"Special"? Don't make me laugh.

One assumes that if you've got the appetite to run DI, it's largely because you like to race. Why would an athlete want to go to a school where he spends every fall training for a race or two? Get out and compete for chrissakes, it's part of the process.

The only great no-holds-barred rivalry meet that I can think of is Army-Navy. They typically run it during Pre-Nats weekend, so if either are in the nationals picture they have to get their points at Notre Dame, Griak, Paul Short, Panorama Farms, etc. Navy made nationals on the place of a 2nd place finish at MA regionals last year, but needed that 2nd as they were severely lacking in points. The rivalry is always highly competitive in track, often coming down to the 4x4, and though Navy has won the past 8 Patriot League track meets, Army has beaten them multiple times in the dual.

While we're on the topic of dying traditions in our sport, let's lament the downward spiral of the IC4A meet. The outdoor meet still has some value, as it's at the end of the national qualifying window, but some conferences have been scheduling their meet for the same weekend, so it has been watered down. The qualifying standards also were made much less stringent two years ago. Indoor is still a good quality meet, but it's after the qualifying window, so it's not attracting many real studs. I remember seeing a sub 4 mile there 2 years ago. XC is the same weekend of nationals and has turned into a local meet for NYC area teams (Columbia dominated last year).

It would be great to see the return of the IC4A meet. It's still a championship meet against geographic rivals, and should be a step up from the league meet. But obviously having it the week after a conference meet is not great as kids are already putting it all out there at conferences. The best possible scenario would be a set conference meet weekend for the entire NCAA, and then a regional championship weekend 2 weeks later (IC4A, MPSF, etc.) with no other NCAA-sanctioned meets. That way athletes who are desperate for a time can chase in the week between at a Swarthmore-type setup, and if they really need to, can try to set something up at the regional championship (I believe Johnny Gregorek qualified for NCAAs out of the IC4A 1500 a few years ago).

I would love to see the revitalization of our sport's tradition by measures like this. Kids are running faster than ever, and that's fantastic, but keeping the meets with rich histories alive and well helps to build the sport's lore and staying power. I liken it to college football. Winning the Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl and rushing for 200 yards is great, but it's not something that old-timers will talk about in 30 years. Eeking out a win in the Rose Bowl with a last second hail mary?

In high school, our conference was scored so that the championship meet was worth the same as all of the regular season meets combined. So if the conference had 10 teams, Team A went 5-4 for the regular season and came in first at the championship, and Team B went 8-1 for the regular season and came in third in the championship, Team B (total record: 15-3) would have Team A (total record: 14-4) beat. On the one hand, this successfully makes regular season meets more important. On the other hand, it's kind of weird for the winner of the championship meet to not be the winner of the conference.

Why would a coach potentiall compromise training by racing a meet that essentially offers zero gains? A coaches focus is on conference, regionals, and nationals. Not all teams have the luxury of sliding through those meets with no friction.

What if teams couldn't travel out of their region to race prior to their conference meet?

You make some very valid points that seem to be ignored. I do see that "tradition" is in the eye of the beholder, similar to many other things in our modern world today. But that I mean the window of "tradition" is quite small and has little to do with history. The transition of the coaching profession (going from lifetime at one college to moving up the ladder from one school to another), the NCAA mandates of how qualifying to nationals is done and changes in coaching philosophy (training methods) seem to all contribute to a change of how XC (and track and field) is now perceived.

As I stated in an earlier post, you really have to go to D3 to get the more traditional dual meet concept to work. Division 1 is all about conference, regional and national and there seems little interest in turning back (note the lack of response of my suggesting using conference criteria for qualifying to nationals).

In the meantime this new "tradition" of running B teams, split teams and traveling to "super" invitationals is in vogue. Back when I started Oregon was one of the few programs that seemed to primarily only focus on the Nationals. Most other programs ran dual meets, regional championships (IC-4A, Big Five, Mets, Mid-America, New Eglands, etc). Most of these meets are "watered down" or gone from schedules. Some such as the IC-4A meet took a hit when NCAA regionals split and the IC-4A meet could not be a qualifier. That has now carried through to indoors and outdoors.

My point is that the vast majority of programs are not fully funded, do not have unlimited budgets, so the pursuit of the NCAA's is pretty much a fruitless endeavor for them. These mid-major and mainly dual meet type programs have lost out as the emphasis has so been changed by the top elite teams, there is not much left for these programs in terms of meeting up with old "rivals". The big five down in Philly used to be a great meet with Penn, LaSalle, St Joes, Villanova and Temple (I think that is right), going over to Belmont Plateau and having a great meet. The IC-4A meet was always a slugfest between teams from New England (Providence, BC, Northeastern, UMass, Harvard) and Mid Atlantic (Manhattan, Penn State, Navy, Georgetown, Villanova).

But that is the old, just like the old six day bike races. New traditions are just that "new".

This is perfect wrote:

Harambe wrote:

I have the solution:

350 D1 teams means ~2400 runners.

Find a course with a wide opening 1-2 miles.

Run everyone. It's no bigger than a medium sized road race.

Now people aren't chasing points.

Now all we need is a starting line that can fit about 700 runners across. That's not even a half mile wide. This should be easy.

Actually though.

Why don't we do this.

We are one of the few sports where we can just have EVERYONE compete at once.

Who needs regionals.

If you can show up at the course on raceday, you can compete.

How long a starting line would you need to fairly start 2400 runners?

Tom

ImissSpicey wrote:

Eye Vee wrote:

It doesn't make sense anymore to have these type of races. How many times a year do those schools need to compete against each other. Tri meet, conference, at least one invite, regionals, nationals, indoor, outdoor, etc.

Exactly this. Tri-meets at the Collegiate level? I get tradition, but that's just not how things work anymore.

In high school we ran a lot of tri-meets and some duals and we thought they were stupid. Depending on the year we'd only get to do 2-4 invitationals because our schedule was mandated to include all these little head-to-head meets against our conference schools.

I'm now in my 30s and involved in high school XC and they don't bother with little meets anymore, it's all invitationals. I know there are 50 states with 50 different ways of doing things and some states still have a full season of duals/tris/quads/whatever, but my state has said to hell with the little races and we're better for it, I think. I know it's come up a few times where I've talked to our athletes and they said they would hate to run in little tiny meets.

Those are high schoolers -- I can't imagine ever wanting to do a tri meet in college. Two of the other teams in my old college conference still do an annual dual in track the week before the conference meet and the distance races just silly - the longer races are full of slow B-team runners and all the best distance guys are screwing around in the 800. Whenever I hear of college dual/tri-meets I feel bad for the athletes having to waste their time.

As far as rivalries I have an incredible solution that might have escaped some people: coordinate with the other school's coach and both of you go to the same big invitational! You might even have that happen without planning, just by chance! Amazing!

Derderian wrote:

How long a starting line would you need to fairly start 2400 runners?

Tom

Give each team 3 slots up front. so about ~1200 runners.

It's easy to start 2 people in the width of a track lane (1.2m). We figure that 0.6m should be enough for an athlete.

Total = 720m or about 1/2 a mile.

One option is do start 2 teams deep and award front slots to those who finished in the front 50% the year before.