Indiana Wronged Athlete for Arcadia 2026

Don't join the program/organization if you don't like the rules. I hate the 3 pointer in basketball. I hate the 1600 in track. I hate that I can't compete forever in college. I am going to complain about the rules of organizations for which competing in is a privilege.

The TOP 4 OLY medal univs are in L.A. No zhit

Your post made sense except for the above. The Arcadia meet director should simply let in any and all HS runners. Some kid from Indiana running against Indiana rules isn't going to jeopardize the eligiblity of runners from other states.

Ineligibility isn't contagious.

I can give even further details on this because I coached an athlete from Indiana who competed at Arcadia with Fendel. Both my athlete and Fendel completed the waivers, and they were approved, much like Seitz this year.

It wasn't until the Monday after Arcadia that the IHSAA retroactively rescinded the waiver and suspended both Fendel and my athlete. Appeals were made that day, granted that day, and the suspensions were lifted.

But yeah, the IHSAA has a long history of ambiguity about when and how it applies its own rules.

Does allowing ineligible runners not have any consequences for the meet director or the meet itself? If not I don't see why the meet director or any meet director in that instance would ever worry about if a runner is eligible or not.

Quit your job and move your entire family because the organization that governs your state's track and field rules are incompetent.

If little Johnny's HS athletics are more important than your job or community, you need to evaluate your priorities.

Some states have rules that prohibit competing against athletes who are not "high school" athletes. The meet director is guaranteeing to the competitors that everyone complies. If he doesn't bother to check, a kid could have gone pro or violated some other rule that another state would hold against their kid.

I understand where you are coming from, but this is actually one of the parts Rich got exactly right. Here is why.

Let's define where Arcadia stands in regards to NFHS record eligibility.

The Arcadia Invitational is not a club meet. It is not a post-season showcase. It operates as an NFHS-sanctioned, high-school-only competition. That is what makes Arcadia different from highly competitive meets like New Balance Nationals or Nike Cross Nationals, where athletes compete as clubs or unattached. At Arcadia, every athlete must represent their high school and compete in their school uniform. Rich states this at the very top of his meet info page and has for over a decade.

That NFHS sanctioning is what allows NFHS records to be set at Arcadia. There were 38 of them going into this past weekend. The NFHS sanctioning is also what makes the meet legitimate in the eyes of a ton of state athletic associations. I mean there are so many state associations sending athletes to Arcadia (35 states I believe according to Rich). Under NFHS rules, the sanctioning process is a cascading, multi-state approval system. Every participating state must independently approve their schools' involvement.

For a national record to be recognized by the NFHS, the State Association Executive Officer must endorse that the meet was sanctioned by the home state association and conducted in compliance with NFHS rules. The state association must also confirm the meet was sanctioned, and that the host school is a recognized member. If any of those links break, the performance is invisible to the NFHS record book no matter how fast the clock reads

So what happens if Rich lets Calvin compete after the IHSAA has explicitly pulled approval?

He now has an athlete in his meet whose state association is on record saying they did not authorize his participation. That is a broken link in the chain. If someone in that race sets a national record, it is NFHS record invalid. Not just in the 3200m, also for the 400m, the 100m, any and all events contested at the meet. On top of that, other schools can even potentially be punished by losing their state association membership for a year.

Rich is not being difficult. He is protecting 691 schools from 35 states, the national records, and the entire framework that makes Arcadia the number one high profile in-season meet where records actually count under NFHS rules. If he starts making exceptions for athletes whose state associations have explicitly denied approval, he puts all of that at risk. Even if the athlete is a national champion indoors.

With that, the focus should probably go back to the state association and revoking their waiver approval one week before the race, then going silent. Indiana didn't even know their rules, and unequally enforces them as history shows.

Unc P has a great reply above, but just bumping this to the top, and agreeing/confirming that by some state bylaws (I'm way more familiar with Indiana's than anyone would ever want to be), it is absolutely spelled out that it is a violation of your own state's rules to compete against non-sanctioned athletes (meaning you can compete against other State's kids, but NOT if they are not approved by their own federation).

The issue is that the IHSAA Commissioners don't know their own rules, don't have a track background, and now they aren't applying the rules fairly and rather than just admitting they messed up and telling Calvin "okay you can race this time since we let it slip by, but not next year" - they revoke their approval weeks (or it sounds like months?) later.

Yes, potentially every kid in the meet from California (not sure about other states) would be ineligible for their seasons if they were in uniform competing for their school and competed against an athlete that wasn't representing their school.

It appears looking at his races from his sophomore year that he ran all of his races unattached. Which would jive with being allowed to run Arcadia last year. He would have had to forfeit the rest of his season and not run for his HS correct? He did not appear to run for his HS at all after the 2025 Arcadia meet. So it would appear that they knew the options they had. Still not sure why Indiana did him so wrong this year but rules are rules.

Interesting. The facts are that he competed there last year and then did not compete for his team thereafter. The facts are that he did not compete at Arcadia this year. Two anonymous posters provide a bunch of hearsay on Letsrun but the facts don't back it up.

Oh please, there you go again, trying to paint people as liars for absolutely no reason.

He did not gain approval.

Are you omniscient? Do you know for a fact that IHSAA did not approve a waiver on Feb 3, 2026 for this young man to compete at Arcadia?

I would guess that if Rich decided to not follow the state association rules, that the state association's would just decide to never sanction his meet again. That would kill the meet. So, he is not going to risk that. Rich is going to follow the rules of sanctioning with each state association and do his best to make sure that ineligible athletes don't compete in the meet.

Arcadia is an incredible event, Rich and his team conducts itself impeccably. Rich did not wrong this particular athlete.

At least four other indoor national champions from Indiana this winter did not compete at Arcadia. Did IHSAA deny a waiver for those four runners? Or did those runners' schools not even try to get a waiver to compete in this great, great event?

(BTW, the weather conveniently cooperated, raining only after Friday night competition and throwing down cats and dogs Sunday morning, while I was on my way to the Hollywood/Burbank Airport)

Are you omniscient? Are you claiming that a waiver was approved on 2/3? Pleases share it.