DIII Runner Not Going to Nationals Because of Clerical Mistake by His Coach

I certainly do not know the entire story,

but, damn, he sure hung his coach out to dry.

My coach made mistakes, but through it all I trusted him and respected him and kept it "in house". His good FAR AND AWAY,surpased the bad.

What does Nick think of possibly costing this guy his job?

Nothing could have ever been gained by hanging out this dirty laundry.

As I wrote earlier, I do not know the entire story, but if I were a decent man and a caring coach, and this kid opened my fly like this, man, I would be upset.

VO2-Max-Man wrote:

Sometimes, when you are in a position of authority, you are given the opportunity to fix a mistake someone else made. In most situations, it's a damn good thing to do that, no matter who screwed up.

I would like to be the first to offer Nick a beer. F*** it, shit happens...

mplatt wrote:

I certainly do not know the entire story,

but, damn, he sure hung his coach out to dry.

My coach made mistakes, but through it all I trusted him and respected him and kept it "in house". His good FAR AND AWAY,surpased the bad.

What does Nick think of possibly costing this guy his job?

Nothing could have ever been gained by hanging out this dirty laundry.

What???

His coach made a clerical error. We all do innocently at some time. How is that airing dirty laundry or going to cost him his job?

Ronaldo wrote:

Didnt he realize that he had entered his athlete in the wrong event before the final heats sheets for nationals came out? So saying that he decided to make this whole thing up becasue he did not get in the 5k is wrong. -Ronaldo

They didn't realize the mistake until after the final list of DECLARED athletes was shown, which came out before the heat sheets. Therefore, that possibility still exists that they did intend to scratch him in the 10k, but changed their minds once the final list of athletes was shown. For emphasis however, nobody has said that Nick or his coach did that, a couple of rational people were just trying to show how this system could be manipulated if the NCAA let everyone who scratched their athlete change their mind once the declared athletes in each event are published. It would create far greater problems than the one that exists with Nick not getting into the meet. In reading over these posts, I think the people who really understand the whole declaration process and why it is in place feel sorry for Nick, but understand the NCAA's decision to not reverse the scratched entry. It is the people that don't understand this that are upset. And another point of emphasis, this was not a clerical mistake, Nick's coach scratched his athlete from the meet in the 10k.

DIII Coaches:

Doesn't the entry system process an email to the coach at the time of entry confirming the entries you just made? If not, I wouldn't call it a job costing mistake, but the AD and the president of CMU should have been on the NCAA like stink on doo doo.

Technically, he wasn't scratched for the 10k, he was not declared/entered, but it's semantics.

Otherwise I agree entirely. The "Accepted Athletes" list came out 6-7 hours before Nick's coach realized the error, if the timeline Nick tells us is accurate.

After his coach was done declaring, he got an email looking like this:

ENTERED

=======

NICK END 5000 METER RUN 14:45.10

NOT ENTERED

===========

NICK END 10000 METER RUN 30:38.13

I take exception to the "rules are rules" idealogy that seems to be so prevalent here; I contend that the application of rules and laws needs to be dependent on the context of each situation that arises within the rules.

Take this for example: say there is a rule that stipulates that it is illegal to cross parallel lines while driving - pretty standard. But, suppose a driver is met with a child darting in front of their vehicle and the only options the driver has are to cross the parallel lines in the middle of the road or to run over the child. Say the driver chooses to run over the child - how horrendous! But, rules are rules and they are not allowed to cross the parallel lines, for certainly, there are no exceptions written into the legal statute. Conversely, if the driver swerves into the other lane and violates the lawnd whatever else punishment is to be afforded. Now, say BOTH case but saves the life of the child, they will be ticketed, fined as happen within very close intervals of time and the public is keen to both- the driver who kills the innocent child is not punished (they did not break any law, and "killing" the child was merely a tragic accident) yet the other driver is punished. How is that acceptable? It isn't, and neither is Mr. End not being allowed into the National Meet. Both are clear examples of why the rules should not be held without exceptions and why the application of such rules should be at the discretion of the ruling body, not mandatory.

While this analogy may not match up exactly with this case, the principles are one and the same; rules ought not to be enforced without regard for the circumstances and context that make every situation unique. I disagree with the opinion that the NCAA NEEDS to be as unforgivingly strict and that a "Pandora's Box" will be opened if they start the precedent of making an exception.

andyroo wrote:

I take exception to the "rules are rules" idealogy that seems to be so prevalent here; I contend that the application of rules and laws needs to be dependent on the context of each situation that arises within the rules.

While this analogy may not match up exactly with this case, the principles are one and the same; rules ought not to be enforced without regard for the circumstances and context that make every situation unique. I disagree with the opinion that the NCAA NEEDS to be as unforgivingly strict and that a "Pandora's Box" will be opened if they start the precedent of making an exception.

That is because you don't obviously don't understand the whole reason for the declaration process and why it is there. If you did understand it you would know why the NCAA really can't change the rules for one person and that this is just a really unfortunate situation that sadly ends up hurting a good athlete that did nothing wrong. The reason that the NCAA has so many damn rules is that too many people try to get around the rules and then more rules have to be made. In this case, if Nick was able to compete, yes it would open it up for other coaches in the future to say the same thing, that they accidentally declared in the wrong event when in fact it was a strategy to see who declared in what event before deciding what you want your athlete to do. It is not that complicated people. It would cause problems in the future if they made an exception, just this one time for Nick.

A few others have tried to show why this could be a problem for the future, but I will try to give one more example. Coach Smith has an athlete that is qualified in the 1500 and 800 meters for nationals, with a ranking of 12th in the 1500 and 8th in the 800. His athlete doubles pretty well and he thinks he would like to have him double at nationals. He thinks that several of the 1500 guys are going to scratch from the 1500 and run the steeple or 5k. Once the declared athlete list comes out, it turns out that nobody scratched from the 1500 and he realizes his athlete is going to have to run very hard in the 1500 prelims just to make finals. Because of that he may not do that well in his better event, the 800 and may have trouble even making finals in that event, since he won't be fresh. He is now wishing he hadn't decided to double him and he remembers the Nick End situation from the previous year, where the NCAA let the coach change his declaration after the entry list came out. He calls up the NCAA and says he accidentally declared his athlete in both events, but he really only wanted him to run the 800. It makes sense, since he is higher on the list in the 800. Please take my athlete out of the 1500 because I just made a mistake. Now the NCAA is in a bind, because they did it for Nick and this coach may be telling the truth as well, it was just a mistake. The scenarios like this are endless and the entries just can't be changed once the declarations are made.

Actually, you can scratch after you have declared for an event. Someone did it in the very same 10k in question.

Well put Well put. There is no way to verify with 100% certainty the intentions of the coach. I agree with NCAA's decision as to not open up a back door which will inevitably be abused in the future. Unfortunately, we live in a cruel world where the innocent are punished for the ill intentions of a few bad eggs.

gawsh wrote:

Actually, you can scratch after you have declared for an event. Someone did it in the very same 10k in question.

but you cannot scratch from a single event. If you scratch, you scratch out of the meet, which is why an add was taken in the 5k.

I saw on the website that they fired the assistant coach. THEY FRAMED HIM!

Firing coaches over this is not cool. It is a simple mistake that anybody could have made. It is very unfortunate that the runner could not run at nationals, but sometimes sh.t like this happens and there is nothing you can do about it. There is no way the NCAA could have put him into the race, as they must follow there writen rules exactly. You guys say that it wouldn't have mattered if they put him in the race, but what happens when he gets 8th and the 9th place kid, that would have gotten all-american, doesn't. He will feel like he was wronged and WOULD have a case to take to a lawyer. The only way to semi-fix this is for the NCAA to fix there rules for the future so that something like this doesn't happen again.

Should have run for Winston-Salem State ... they can get you into a race even if you DIDN'T qualify.

Rick Reilly put an article in SI ripping the NCAA to pieces. It's a bit satisfying (unfortunately you have to be a member to see it). It doesn't make up for the mistake, but hopefully this will bring some much-needed publicity.

"'It was an honest mistake. You

make mistakes. I make mistakes. The NCAA makes mistakes. You

just revise the list! Simple!'

Apparently not so simple for the cold, gray, immovable

elephant the NCAA has become. It can't seem to keep track of

nationally celebrated players such as USC's Reggie Bush,

whose parents allegedly got a sweetheart deal on their rent,

or Chris Webber, who got thousands of dollars illegally at

Michigan. Kelvin Sampson cheats at Oklahoma, and the NCAA

lets him skate happily to Indiana with a slap on the wrist.

But a nonscholarship engineering student in a nonrevenue

sport gets more screwed than plywood. "

I hardly call an article written by Rick Reilly, who knows very little about track & field, revenge. If Rick Reilly had read the few logical arguments throughout this thread about how the process works and why it would have been wrong to let Nick into the meet, he never would have written the article. But he doesn't really have a clue about this except for the person who tipped him off to this and who didn't give him all the facts about the situation.

Can someone post the article or link to it?