This is just not correct. In 2022 for example, 3 of the top 10 boys pole vaulters were from Texas. California and Texas had 2 each in the top 10 for boys discus and shot put. Texas had 2 boys in the top 10 in the long jump and high jump, it was the only state to have more than one athlete in either one of those. Texas had 3 girls in the top 10 in high jump, pole vault, the discus and 2 girls in the top 10 in the shot put. I could go on, but as I dig through the high school rankings for the last couple of years in the field events my point is made even more clear, Texas is the only state regularly producing top 10 nationally ranked high school athletes, in every single field event. In fact doing this kind of changed my mind about Florida, I see Georgia, Pennsylvania and Ohio more regularly with athletes in the top 10 in the field events than Florida.
So that's that, we should hold our national high school championships in Texas.
The thing is that was last year. If you look at current results Texas has a few but most field events and running only have one kid in the top 10. Considering the size of Texas you would think they would have more kids.
I'm not sure what argument you are trying to make, most states have only been competing in outdoor Track and Field for a couple of weeks, whatever the national rankings currently are is meaningless. I looked at the end of season rankings for 2021 and 2022, and the story is basically the same. Texas dominates the field events, and is more than competitive in the sprints and hurdles when looking at the top 10 or 20 marks nationally in each event, that's 3/4 of all the Track and Field events! They have at least 1 athlete in the top 10 in every event, girls and boys, except most of the distance races. According to Google, Texas accounts for 8.99% of the US population so based on population, statistically, they shouldn't even have 1 kid in the top 10 in so many events, and yet they do, and as I pointed out previously there are quite a few events where they have 2 or 3.
Not looking at the numbers is how the decision makers in this sport consistently make bad decisions, and how we end up with national caliber meets in crap places like Greensboro, NC or Eugene, OR. I'm certain that people at Adidas and Nike are still scratching their heads over this one. If you want to have a national championship caliber high school meet, and have it well attended (unlike Adidas Nationals or Nike Outdoor Nationals last summer), you could, I suppose, pay for athletes to travel to your meet like Brooks does, or you could just host the meet closest to where the most national caliber Track and Field athletes reside, and right now that's Texas. Texas has the added advantage of being fairly centrally located, there are lots and lots of direct flights to Texas from every major city in the US, very much unlike Greensboro and Eugene.
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