Convention 2024

How about some sort of conference or regional all star meet for tf.

big ten selects 6 guys total from any school per event. Then the big ten competes in a scored meet vs the sec. This could be done by conference, region or whatever. Kind of a weird version of the way basketball has conference challenges.

AGREE 100%.

These rule changes would just result in more programs being cut.

You don't have to have rewards/punishments - Don't HAVE to tie wins/losses to anything with post season.

If that's the case, maybe they would adapt and start investing in other events to have a more well rounded team. You can't compare results under the current constraints to what results would be with a different set of constraints. One constraint that might arise is that meets get smaller. Instead of 10, 20, 30 "Teams" (And I put "Teams" in quotes because the meets like Boston and the ones where people go to get marks, usually don't involve the entire team), you start seeing more 1-5 team meets. You don't see team sport's not having a player a certain position because it would be almost impossible to win as a team like that.

However, to critique my own argument - NCAA track and field probably doesn't have the infrastructure for that system to exist - not enough tracks, officials, etc. to support the increase number of meets you would need to have in the same number of weekends. OR (I'm writing my stream of thought out here) - You can keep having those giant meets, but you just score them in multiple ways. So maybe there are 20 teams at a meet, you race normally, but you only are "Scoring" the meet against a pre-determined number of teams at that meet. Like the old double and triple dual meet scoring system.

I get the argument that its stupid and track is an individual sport. But maybe at some levels it needs to be more team focused. College programs could be more team focused, if you're good enough to go pro then it can go back to the individual mattering for USA's, WC, Olympics etc.

Dual meets wont work for 75-90% of the teams. They cant cover events. Plus just having a score be the goal for each team isnt incentive. We do though need a way to balance the individual aspect and team aspect of the sport. Coaches and athletes favor the individual aspect. Administrators want team scores/results. I think if we just score every single meet including the largest (BU, Bryan Clay, etc) it wont hurt anything individually but can add something administrators want. Heck the ncaa team championship can be won with 1-3 athletes so why not score all meets

Well maybe if the rules were to change those teams need to change their ways or be willing to risk getting cut by their administrators. Just because the Furman’s, Portland’s, and or the sprint and jumps only programs of the world exist doesn’t mean they can’t figure out how to change in order to make our sport viable to our administrators.
It is hilarious that people blame Sam Seemes when it is this exact thing (coaches wanting to specialize and avoid a well rounded team) that is what has gotten us to this point. Coaches seem to only worry about THEIR team and what benefit THEIR wallet rather than do what is best for OUR sport.

Colorado Boulder is going no scholarship / no NIL. You heard it here first.

Exactly what I was saying in a different comment. Everyone shuts down potential changes by saying that they wouldn't work based on "today's results/program's structure, funding etc. " instead of considering how a new set of constraints would lead to different outcomes. Coaches, strategies, athletes, etc. will either adapt to the new set of constraints, get fired, left behind, etc.

It's the same as what I discussed this past summer with some other coaches regarding hosting meets to a certain standard. For years coaches have voted against improvements because it would limit the program that they are currently at. But the thing is that it helps put pressure on admin at schools to fund things to a certain level. For example, this was in the context of minimal standards for hosting a conference meet. While some schools in a conference might not be able to meet the facility standards, does that mean we shouldn't aspire to still have high standards? That program is just out of luck. If they want to have the honor of hosting, then they need to pressure their admin to increase funding, or get left behind in the conference. But if we continuously only vote for things in our own self-interest/current programs interest, we are holding the rest of the sport back and the teams with greatest support are going to continue to just increase the gap between the haves and the haves not.

I’m not sure changing scoring or qualifying structure draws any more attention. To me, first order of business is to convert the millions of people that were/are track participants into fans.
When I was in high school my coach took our team to a few indoor college meets and created several lifelong track fans as a result. It can be done if you invest time into making fans out of youth participants rather than making money from them.

I agree with what you are saying, but I don't think you take it far enough to its logical conclusion.

We coaches can't do anything "directly" to save track and field. Our programs do not make any money. The only way to control our program's destiny is to make money. What do you need to make money? Attention, fans, donors, facilities to host meets (huge high school meets help this), etc.

Getting more fans, whether they were once athletes or not, SHOULD be a way to make more money. More money = more say/control over our future.

So if more fans = more money; then WE NEED to make changes to help engage/attract more fans. If scoring meets engages more fans, attracts new fans, etc., then it is a good step.

This is the kind of back & forth we need - now we need about 1,000 other people to join in the discussion haha.

it's been explained a couple times to you that adding or changing scoring isn't going to create more fans. scoring the meet isnt the issue. its just not.

read the comment above about the history of the usc vs ucla dual meet. that meet was way way bigger years ago. they score that meet exactly like you are suggesting and no one cares.

sure, something needs to change but it's not how track is scored. changing to something that was already done, that isn't working isn't the answer

Shut up, the NCAA is going away for all Olympic sports within a few years

No more USTFCCCA

If all of a sudden EVERY track meet was scored, I don't think you can say that wouldn't make it easier for everyday people to understand track better, for traditional media to report it easier, and put it in front of more viewers. More viewers = more potential fans. Who wants to watch a meet when it doesn't matter who wins or loses lol. That's the problem track has at every level. Even pro track is trying to do things to CREATE STORY LINES. Sprint on Netflix is a great example. The new Grand Slam series is going to have the same people race against each other over and over - this creates story lines. Adding win/loss record and having every meet mean SOMETHING even if its just a win or a loss CREATES OPPORTUNITY FOR MORE STORY LINES.

I'm not trying to argue that this is the golden nugget that is going to be a cure all and solve all the problems of track and field. But I think it would HELP more than it would hurt.

I agree on one point, that was my original stance too. BU is huge indoors, I love going there. I love getting the times that go to NCAA indoors … But it remains true that 13:10 doesn’t mean anything to anyone outside of our sport. Most of our AD’s have absolutely no idea what that even is. It’s like uhh rough meet? Johnny took 27th place? Nooo, it was great meet! He qualified for NCAA’s and set a school record! The response always a confused “oh! Well yeah good job!” Lol it’s f’n exhausting. Or when you host a meet with a bunch alumni and your admin all shows up and goes, oh Johnny isn’t running? Is he hurt? Welllll no, he’s fine. He’s on pace to breakthrough in 5 weeks. It’s frustrating explaining our sport to people in charge of determining our success and our contracts.

idk what the answer is. I certainly don’t think it’s duals, not cost effective. My first thought would take a massive coordinated effort that is likely impossible. 2 weeks of the outdoor season, dedicated to nationwide scored meets with 20-25 teams based on small regions so travel expense is lighter. The answer lies in something other than what we’ve been doing.

I don't think you have to host meets with only 2 teams. We can keep hosting meets in the same format (maybe a few changes to how heating/seeding works?) and then just score them against a pre-selected number of teams that are also at the meet. It will take a lot of coordination and cooperation among programs. You have to start scheduling stuff like other sports do so you know in advance what teams are going to be at the same meet as you. But then the scoring on the back end is against maybe only 1-2 other teams at that meet that are in your conference, region, or etc. Same way that double and triple duals used to be scored.

Scoring meets doesnt matter currently with the mindset we have in the sport. The mindset, whether it be scoring or something else needs to change. Scoring everything wont solve everything but it will satisfy one thing- the sports fan wants to see meaningful outcomes. Sure coaches who cant win a meet dont want scoring. Sure some coaches will say how does scoring get my guy to the ncaas. Simply it is a change that can be made that satifies the “who wins and who loses” question.

in every other sport your gameday performance matters. In track if you run poorly in a mid season meet you just say “it doesnt matter. Its not the championship”. The first game of the football season matters as much as the last.

100% agree. Same as I said earlier. Its not THE solution. To think there is only ONE solution that will solve everything is foolish. There seems to be a mindset in a lot of coaches that says, "There is only ONE solution so lets disregard everything that isn't THE ONE." This will lead to ZERO changes.

Its going to take a series of smart, thought out solutions that maybe only each only solve one thing, but with enough of them on the whole things will improve.

I think there needs to be a balance of understanding that the nature of track and field just won’t allow it to ever be as popular as the money sports like football and basketball, but also needing to do whatever we can to attract more fans.

I don’t think allowing betting on track events or drinking at meets is the answer. That will just enhance the experience for a demographic of people that are already fans. People that don’t know anything about the sport or don’t care about it probably aren’t going to want to bet on it.

I don’t think these mega meets help our cause either. The meets like BU and Bryan Clay are obviously amazing for athletes to perform well, but even as a diehard fan, I get tired of watching 18 heats of 5k. I’m able to stay somewhat engaged though as a coach. I may only have a few athletes racing at meets like that, but I’m following along to see what other relevant athletes are running to see how we are stacking up on the national list. But then think about the other mega meets that have 20 heats of 400 for and 40 heats of 60/200 and 10 heats of the mile and 16 heats of the 4x4. It’s exhausting and boring watching that all day even as a diehard fan.

My parents didn’t know anything about the sport and didn’t care about it until I started doing it. Then they gradually learned more and more about it as they followed me along to high school meets, then college meets, and now more college athletes as I’m a coach now and they like to watch my athletes compete. They still don’t know everything about every event, but my mom likes to sit there at the meets with her iPad and check tfrrs to see if athletes PR or where they sit on the national list. But here’s where we have to accept that our sport will never be like a football or basketball. Even though my parents are much bigger fans of track than the average person, they will never go watch a meet that my team isnt affiliated with. Outside of events with my team, the most they will do as fans of the sport is watch the rarely televised track meet if they stumble across one on tv.

I personally don’t think that scoring meets during the regular season would do much either. For the argument of “it gives ADs something to keep track of”, that may help some programs but I’m sure many still wouldn’t care about regular season meets. Coaches want to do well at nationals. If they have a history of doing well when it matters, they will probably get support from their AD in doing whatever they need to do to continue success at nationals, even if that means making the conference championship less important and sending some athletes to Boston to chase national qualifiers rather than competing at conference. Scoring regular season meets would only become truly meaningful if everyone doing them cared about them and tried which is extremely unlikely.

So anyways, I agree with whoever said it starts with the youth. Try to get more people engaged and educated early to create lifelong fans among the kids and their parents. We just have to accept the fact that for many, this will just be a sport to do on the side and stay in shape for football or whatever else. Kids grow up with dreams of being a professional sports player and making tons of money and it will stay that way for the money sports. But the more kids we can get doing track, the more we will have that continue to do it just for the love of the sport.

But then having more people in the sport creates more of a need for having these mega meets that will allow lots of opportunity for athletes to compete, which I already talked about being boring and exhausting. In terms of attracting fans to come watch a meet that aren’t just there watching their kid, we’re probably better off having a smaller 3 hour meet where it’s just all elite fields. Maybe just host both types of meets. Sometimes we could have those elite meets and then sometimes host the mega meets that allow for as much participation as possible. But as a coach at a place that hosts a lot of meets, finding officials is getting pretty tough. A lot of our officials are very old and are going to either stop officiating soon or to be blunt, they’ll pass away. Not a whole lot of young officials out there so that’s something we need to work on, attracting more young people to get certified and interested in officiating. Most young adults involved in the sport are coaching.

In the end, I feel like track and field would be better as a club sport in America. Even at a university that has quite a bit of revenue from hosting big track meets, our expenses heavily outweigh that. The only reason that is okay is because we are also a very successful program. That’s probably the safest way to save our sport - don’t make it so expensive. Stop spending so much money on scholarships, travel, equipment, etc. Have each athlete pay some club dues each year to help fund some things. But they mostly pay their own way to meets and for their own equipment. Universities that are capable of hosting meets are at a big advantage because at a minimum, maybe they can argue to their AD that the revenue from meets is to fund our coaching salaries. If we don’t have to spend all that money on scholarships, then we are truly bringing more revenue to the university by recruiting student athletes and getting their tuition. Club dues would be very minimal compared to that. If athletes are having to fund their own travel, then it makes competing locally/regionally a bigger deal. Make U23s a bigger deal in America like they are in Europe. Then coaches could stop complaining about BYU or the 26 year old freshmen that come to the NCAA. Also if we did a club system, we could totally disconnect from academic requirements or age/year limitations in the club. Clubs would be made up of mostly students at a university, but I don’t see why someone even has to be a student to be in a club and participate in the sport. Why shouldn’t an athlete be able to keep participating in a club after they’ve done it for 4 years and have graduated? If you’re not having to foot the bill for a big scholarship and they’re paying club dues, let them stick around however long they want. If they get good enough to get sponsored and paid, great. Let them get whatever they want with no restrictions.

That was a little all over the place, but just my 2 cents on various topics. I’m sure there are flaws with some of that, but there’s never going to be a perfect scenario in our sport.

The fans get to see who wins and loses EVERY EVENT. Those are meaningful outcomes.

Penn Relays is one of the best meets of the outdoor season because teams bring partial squads to race relays against other top partial squads.

There are a ton of scored meets in the regular season already, and guess what....NOBODY CARES AND NOBODY WATCHES THEM.