HS 4:02 and 2 mile best ever time not eligible for PA state meet?

Those are the rules

The Young brothers weren’t allowed to run HS track because they were racing against pro runners

Erriyon Knighton ran a 19.42 200m while still in high school. It's not considered the HS National Record.

What is so great about " the rules" ?

Total 1st world problem. The coach messed up and now everyone is trying to blame the meet officials. Typical victim mentality.

PA high school sports has always been antiquated when it comes to this sort of thing. For example, how runners couldn't compete at Foot Locker regionals wearing their high school jerseys until their senior year. Perhaps this rule has finally changed by now, but what point did it serve in the first place?

To the people saying rules are rules, yes, but are we forever bound by bad/pointless rules without any hope of them changing?

New Balance always messes things up...

We have similar rules. Someone should have paid more attention.

Seems like it would have been easy to jog in a 4:30 mile or something at the meet he had a 1:59 legal 800m time. Problem solved.

Dumb rule when the people who don't even care about the qual time are the ones benefitting from "illegal" pace jobs or collegiate competition, but this is a mistake on the coaches part for not even having him run a proper event.

That is unless NB explicitly claimed it would be a HS only race, but I doubt they would have foreseen this conflict.

Why does he (or his coach) care about a stupid indoor State title? Doesn't he have bigger fish to fry? Aim for NY or Boston and race against the best in the country. Anything else isn't important. Heck (given his 2mile) should be on the Nat XC team (no idea if he is or not) running against even better competition. This is why a kid like Myers is better than US kids - his aim is higher than silly State titles. Save that for the second tier kids for whom it is important.

They keep kids being high school athletes. Go pro if you don't like them.

"Rule are rules!" types have always annoyed me. My son is a lawyer and taught me about the "de mininimis" (probably not spelled right) principle, how the law will ignore minor acts that are technically transgressions but which are found not have harmed anyone. I'm thinking of all the coaches I've faced over decades who try to win a meet by getting the true winning team's top girl DQ'd for having a two-tone hair tie or something. There's also a legal principle out there somewhere about how if you accept something and then try to reject it, you've waived your right to reject it. I know I'm talking apples to oranges here but that's what I see in the fact the website listed his time for so long and only later tells everyone it doesn't count. They should have told him right away that it didn't count for state and why -- a 4:02 kid could jog any meet and likely qualify. This situation reeks.

Good point, but it was 19.49.

No, "Play by the rules" means understand what the current rules are and follow them. By all means, if some rules need to be changed, then work to change them, so in the future the rules are different. But you don't break the current rule, then ask to have your case considered as if the rule didn't exist, or "let's the change the rule for my athlete now, even though other athletes followed the rules". Well, you can try, but you look bad in the eyes of most people.

The fact that it was posted on the website means nothing. Websites pull times from all over and sometimes they are incorrect. Our state has one spot where coaches input best times to get a list of athletes eligible for the state meet.

Yes. I agree. This is literally the main rule of high school sports in Pennsylvania. It isn't like the uniform rule that somebody compared it to.

I didn't see anyone mention this, but it sounds like the race in question was a mile where the pacer was not a high school athlete. No mention of anyone else not being a HS athlete. If true, he might have a good argument to be let in. If there's a designated pacer, are you really "in competition" with them?

"No marks performed in competition against college or post-HS age athletes...will be accepted."

this is clear cut and obvious. he should have entered a high school race. there are plenty of them. this is 100% on the coach. these rules are not that hard to follow. as a high school coach, i know there are plenty of big races throughout the season that don't count towards state qualifying.

And, he is in!

pa.milesplit.com

PTFCA Changes Decision, Griffith Now Set To Race At State

John Davern

The PTFCA changed its decision on a runner\'s entry on Monday and will now allow Drew Griffith to run at the state championships.

Link:pa.milesplit.com/articles/344773/ptfca...