Update: Big 10 1500 champ placed in next round of 1500 without even running a race!! Do two wrongs make a right?

He's in the start list for the next round of the 1500

Correct, he went to the start line with a long sleeve on. He had no uniform top on and apparently left it in the team tent (not close to the track as the baseball stadium is between the track and tent city). He tried to get them to allow him to race in the long sleeve but the officials denied this request. He shouldn't get through to the next round fresh because he screwed up.

Is that even legal? How can you advance without even starting?

If he was a descendant of Caucasoid-Mongoloid mixture a.k.a. European h would have been allow to run.

Totally agree, that's just robotic and weird. Concrete reasoning, especially because they know him!

I handed out all my bin numbers to athletes and tell them they must have them on to compete the night before the meet started. Had a girl come up to me 30 minutes before check in that she forgot hers at the hotel...hotel is 10 minutes away...gulf shores traffic sucks...I broke 17 traffic laws...set a world record for a 200 pound man getting up 4 flights of stairs...and almost killed a 97 year old man on a wheelchair scooter...but I got my girl that number cuz I know she can't compete without it! #sendingmichstmyresume

TheRomny wrote:

gahuga wrote:

Just because you work for a weird-ass, hyper-paranoid institution, doesn't mean that everyone should act that way.

Totally agree, that's just robotic and weird. Concrete reasoning, especially because they know him!

Lets try and loosen up this concrete reasoning.

Can you think of any places where it might be reasonable to have a policy like that?

Now can you think of any places like that which might also be associated with an institution of higher education?

Problem solving wrote:

Wojo with all due respect you are wrong. The athlete and his coach are well aware of what the rules are. It's inexcusable on the part of both of them that he did not show up at the line with his bib. We can't just always solve problems for kids everytime they screw up. It's ok for rules to be enforced and for a coach and an athlete to face consequences for something that was EASILY avoided. This is on them, not the officials.

While this is correct, this is also equally correct.

"He forgot his number. Official writes a number on a piece of paper. Paper gets pinned to uniform. Problem solved. Run the race."

Just show up with your bib, it's not that hard. If he can't pull off something simple as that, he doesn't deserve to race.

What if he had run and some other runner had protested afterwards?

The officials did the right thing. And if he got a free pass to the next round that's seriously messed up.

Looker wrote:

Ok one thing that needs to be pointed out: he didn't have his bib # because he didn't even have on HIS SINGLET. He was in a team-issued long sleeve. Absolutely no one's fault but his own.

Was his singlet at the hotel? We had to check in with the officials before a track race and I think they would check bibs then. I can't imagine making this mistake in a million years.

In high school I had a teammate forget his shorts. A JV guy without thinking took his shorts off and handed them to the runner. In college a guy left his spikes at home, and had his roommate rush to get them to the airport while the flight was delayed. Both close calls, but the singlet thing is worse.

Flipper Flipper Chicken Dinner wrote:

We also had a throw DQ'd for wearing shorts that said football on them. Dumb rules... But you don't see any other sport wearing gear from other sports. So I get it.

Some HS coaches are complete asclowns on power trips.

Ok... maybe it's just me. But how the heck did thy give him a hip number without making sure he had his bib and the number matched the start list?

My opinion- he shouldn't be able t run without his bib. But the fact that someone gave him hip numbers and let hi, check in is a technicality tha would probably be what they protested. He "was checked in" and should have been allowed to race. Based on a dumb error.

Good morning folks. I haven't read all responses yet I just have this to say. We live in a society of rules. Understanding of, acknowledgment of, and respect for those rules are essential to being a good citizen in all walks of life. I feel sorry for the kid that he couldn't run, but this will teach him to know and respect rules.

HGL wrote:

The bib is your proof of registration.

How would anyone know it's not an imposter?

Being Kenyan doesn't forgive you from being incompetent and irresponsible.

Ever heard of Obama?

I believe the NCAA has a new rule this year that everyone on the same team must wear the same uniform on any given day. They can be varied such as huggers or shorts or body suits. But if everyone is in green with white or black with gold.

If his team was wearing green with white and he showed up in white with green it is an NCAA violation now. However the only thing an official is suppose to do this year is give them a warning and give them a chance to fix it. They are not suppose to DQ this year unless the individual doesn't fix it when given the warning.

That's the new uniform rule.

Everyone should show up without a bib today, since the the policy is apparently to automatically advance anyone who does so.

I was at the meet, actually right over at the starting line, he really tried to get in and just run w/o the bib, and they were about to let him, but at the last minute they called it off, the kid was devastated.

We hosted NCAA D3 indoors one year and had some bib issues. For instance, a kid ironed their uniform with the bib still attached and the bib melted. Another simply lost theirs. They each came to the timing platform well in advance of their event and a new bib was issued. Things like that are easy to solve, but they must be done before their event. You can't have that type of stuff going on at the starting line.

Rules are rules and everyone is supposed to have their issued bib. The coach knows that and the athlete should as well. Although it sucks for the kid, I think the right call was made.

I do think one compromise that could have been made would have been to allow him to move to a later section. He was in the first section. Tell him he can run in the final section and he has that amount of time to go find his bib and put it on. If it's at the hotel, well, you have 15-20 minutes to get it. If you can't, oh well. Or maybe that would have been enough time for the meet directors to issue him a new bib number, get it into the system and move him to the final section.