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

In this instance, I can understand the bureaucratic position on the issue because the premise of the meet is the limited number of athletes in each event. It wouldn't be a good precedent to allow this entry with no change in procedures to prevent the same thing from happening in the future.

While it won't do Nick any good, seems to me that the solution for the future is to build more redundancy into the entry software. (The less polite term would be "idiot-proofing" and I don't mean that as a knock on the coach.) After the entry has been made a prompt (or more than one) should appear asking "are you SURE you want to enter your athlete in X EVENT." If the bureaucrats won't go to that minor trouble and expense to solve what they know is a problem then I think they could fairly be criticized on that score.

When did the athlete post the qualifying mark?

Go to the meet anyway.

Jump out of the stands and into the race as soon as the gun is fired.

Run the race and defeat all attempts of officials trying to pull you off the track.

Don't trip any competitors en route.

When the race is over, run through the line and get out of the stadium ASAP. Have a car waiting.

Whether you cross the line first, last, or anywhere in between, it makes for a way better story in 30 years than saying "I qualified but my coach screwed up so I didn't get to run."

It will be better than having entered the race properly without the coach's error.

ummm....I would think the official would fire is gun 2-6 times for a re-start without him in that scenario

If this is a cost issue as some have suggested, let's ask the NCAA how much it takes to pay for this athlete to go to the meet. What is the total cost for flight, entry, hotel, gift, dinner, etc? Then we can raise the funds to send him to the race. I know several athletes, including myself, who sympathize with this athlete and would be willing to give some money to send him to this important meet that he deserves to go to. I don't know if this is feasible at all, but I just wanted to raise the point in the small chance it will work. What do you guys think?

Joe Schmoe wrote:

When did the athlete post the qualifying mark?

Nick End Sr Carnegie Mellon 30:38.13 3/24 Raleigh Relays

I would donate. I sure others would as well.

Many of you seem to be missing the point. Sure, there are rules and strict qualifying standards. However, there are also regularly exceptions to rules. A standard analysis is balancing out the intended purpose of the rule (in this case allowing only those who have run a time fast enough to qualify to compete in a national championship) versus the prejudice to the person affected by the violation (which is substantial, the kid ran his butt off, qualified, and is now being prevented from going to the meet because of a clerical error committed by somene else). It seems to me that if the NCAA would bother to exercise the smallest amount of discretion, it would let the runner compete - not in place of another runner - but as an addition to the field. That would be the most equitable, and the right, thing to do. The point is the decision is a no brainer, its just that the NCAA can't be bothered. What sucks is that it is their job to be bothered in situations just such as this. To the runner - I'm sorry, you don't deserve this. Perhaps if you passed an edited version of this post on to someone at the NCAA who (a) has decision-making authority and (b) will be bothered to exercise such decision-making authority (and there is someone), it may help. Good luck.

Here is the reply I got from my email to NCAA. Any coach out there feel like giving her a call and expressing your interest in the case?

ksteckmesser@ncaa.org

I am currently out of the office attending the Division III Women's Lacrosse and Division III M/W Outdoor Track and Field Championships and will return on Tuesday, May 30.

If you need immediate assistance you may reach me on my cell phone at 317/966-6441.

Thank you and have a great day!

Why can't his school step up and help with the NCAA. If he coach made a mistake, the AD and even the school President should step up and contact the NCAA to get it resolved. They have more pull and credibility then he coach or the runner. The school President should get on the phone with Miles Brand and get it resolved and let this kid run. If not, the schools attorney should contact the NCAA. Why is his school not helping? They have the resources and connections to help.

Nick,

You might have already done this or it has already been suggested but have you had your athletic Director get involved?I would also contact the President of your school?

You could also contact the local media?Hard luck story, athlete gets screwed etc.You could also post the contact info along with a form letter which we could use as a refernce when e mailing the D-III office.You could also get this site letsrun to post a article on your circumstances and then they could release it to the media along to D-III office.You have to keep in mind none of this places your coach in a good light but he sounds like a good coach and a decent person who just wants the best for you.

On a personal note I once made a simliar mistake, it was one of the worst days of my life as a coach.

Good luck!

wizard of ahhs wrote:

Can'tBe wrote:

Can't be true. No one can be a senior in college and be unable to write complete sentences.

More to the point, there actually were no incomplete sentences in the original post. So, in addition to being a d i c k, Can'tBe is just plain wrong.[/quote]

Yes, they are all complete sentences. But I'll go even further and say that the prose in the original message is actually pretty clear. It's not formal, but it is standard English and entirely readable, especially for a venue like an internet forum. Can'tBe is an enourmous ass.

As for the NCAA issue, the appropriate response for them would be to say to the coach: "We've already set our fields and our budget. But in light of the fact that no possible competitive advantage could happen as a result of this mistake, we will add him to the field at your expense." Would that be so hard for them to do? Apparently, yes...

Based on my understanding of the situation, I thought that it might be worth pointing this out: there were three scratches from the meet (in the 100, 400, and 10,000). I'm nearly certain that one (if not all) of these scratches happened on either Monday or Tuesday. The NCAA was clearly aware of End's situation on Sunday morning.

In other words, the NCAA had the opportunity to put End into the meet as a replacement for one of the scratches, without any additional cost to themselves. They chose not to.

That the NCAA wouldn't let him into the meet on Sunday morning is ridiculous; that they wouldn't let him in when space became available is completely asinine.

Perhaps someone can clarify.

I just want to say as a former college coach and one who has had to battle a few times with the NCAA, the college system, etc. it's time for the athletes and coaches to take the sport back.

I can tell you the very thing that would set a standard and show what the sport is all about.

I would strongly urge the young men who are running in the 10,000m to not start the race unless Nick End is allowed to start. I promise they will not hold the meet up because it will such a black eye.

Sometimes authority needs to be challenged.

We are people, we are the athletes and coaches who work to make the sport go on. Nick end ran 30:38 and rightfully qualified to be in this race. That is the bottom line and I promise that each of those other young men in the 10,000m field feel the same way.

Distance runners are a hard core breed and I think these guys have the guts to stand against the NCAA and only run this race if Nick is allowed to start.

Who cares if the NCAA recognizes it or not, the race is not for them is it?

It's a complete crime if the NCAA gets away with this.

CMU, as a university, cares extremely litle about athletics. Most of the sports are quite poorly funded given the research endowment of the university. I would be very surprised if the AD even knows about this situation, much less is motivated to actually do something.

Joel Anderson wrote:

Based on my understanding of the situation, I thought that it might be worth pointing this out: there were three scratches from the meet (in the 100, 400, and 10,000). I'm nearly certain that one (if not all) of these scratches happened on either Monday or Tuesday. The NCAA was clearly aware of End's situation on Sunday morning.

In other words, the NCAA had the opportunity to put End into the meet as a replacement for one of the scratches, without any additional cost to themselves. They chose not to.

That the NCAA wouldn't let him into the meet on Sunday morning is ridiculous; that they wouldn't let him in when space became available is completely asinine.

Perhaps someone can clarify.

I agree 100%. The fact that someone was scratched out of the SAME DAMN EVENT is completely ridiculous.

Here's what I recommend:

1) Contact the athletes and their coaches who are in the race. Get emails (or other written documents) from each of them saying they support allowing you to compete. Now the NCAA won't be able to say it's unfair to the other athletes to let you in.

2) Have your coach write out a clear statement of how he made the mistake that kept you out of the 10K -- no advocacy, just a clear statement of what he did wrong, without arguments about usability, fairness, etc. This will establish it's not your fault you're not correctly entered.

3) Make lots of copies of these documents.

4) Make plans to go to the meet and run.

5) Pay your own way. This will remove the NCAA's cost argument, since it will cost them nothing to let you run (save the cost of an extra bib number).

6) Contact every NCAA official and media outlet you can think of and put pressure on them to let you run. Ask them if they think it's fair that you should be kept out of your last college race because of a coach's mistake. Don't let them duck this question by raising hypotheticals about other coaches trying to get thier athletes into the meet using similar arguments.

This is a specific issue -- is it fair to keep you out of a meet you qualified for because someone else clicked the wrong button? The answer is clearly no -- hammer this point home.

Good luck.

the dude that lives next to me does some type of glass engineering, and after 2 years with the same company he is making over $100,000.

Hey guys,

Thanks for the support. My coach and athletic director both tried extremely hard to get me in. They both offered to pay for my trip but the NCAA just won't let me run. We've talked to all the people in the NCAA with the power to fix it but none of them will do anything because they followed the rules. It's alarming that the NCAA admits that this sort of thing happens all the time. If it is happening that often then they should change things to help prevent these situations.

Nick