Track Regionals...whats the deal?

The rupp analogy is meant to show that some runners have already proven they belong throughout the ENTIRE season. If you can't prove you belong during the however many weeks you get why should you get one more. The peole getting through the back door into nationals from regionals likely won't win so their inclusion does not really benefit the meet, while it allows the risk that the top guys will be left out.

I honestly hope this is really not your philosophy on track & field and even more so, your philosophy on life. You are in for some major failure in life if you fully believe that only the winner matters. So much about sports is the underdog succeeding, which doesn't always mean winning. I was much more excited a couple of years ago watching Davidson and Stephen Curry kicking butt in the NCAA tournament than I was about the winning team. Did Davidson win? No. Did they create a lot of excitement for many fans. Absolutely. It is no different in track & field. It is fun to watch Rupp win races, but there are a whole lot of other races going on within the race. For you, maybe it doesn't matter who took 7th. Too many of us, that does matter and obviously to that 7th place finisher, he and his school will be very proud of what they accomplished. The key is they earned it, by running well at the end of the year, not in March at a meet that their school maybe couldn't afford to send them to.

Clearly people who are not the champion can be happy with their races, not everybody at the ncaa championships has a real shot to win, but can still race well. I dont disagree with that, but it is the job of the NCAA committee to have a system that picks the champion, not give little small school a chance to sneak an athlete in.

For example, this year the important thing was that Rupp, Derrick, Mcneil, bethke were all in the 5k. Above all else the system ensure the top performers get to square off against each other. The people who didnt make it out of the final can easily be interchanged with other people that didnt make the final. For them im sure making ncaa's was cool, but no big deal either way if they dont make.

As far as davidson goes, sure its exciting when a team like that catches fire, but that excitement, and their victories by no means shows they are a better team, rather they got lucky for a couple of games. There is an entire regular season that shows us who the top 8 or 10 teams are, it is unfair to those teams to let 65 teams play for the championship. The regular season should matter.

The same thing applies in track, if u cant run one of the 20 or so times of the year, how can you really say you will make an impact at the NCAA meet. And dont say the small schools in the east are at a huge disadvantage, I competed for four years at a small school in the east, and while most of those teams dont have people that merrit a trip to the ncaa's there are opportunities to find a fast face within a reasonable distance.

Actually, this is NOT regionals anymore. It is now the first round of the NCAA championship. So, if somebody doesn't make it through from this meet, it's the same as if they don't make the final in past years of the NCAA meet. This is not regionals, it's the NCAA first round.

The athletes who make this meet are picked based on the descending order list. Top 48 go to the NCAA first round (NOT regionals). Your whole argument is based on the regional system which DOES NOT EXIST ANYMORE. This system is exactly what you want. The best people from the list go to the NCAA meet and it's up to them to then advance to the finals and get their chance to win in that final.

Actually, this is NOT regionals anymore. It is now the first round of the NCAA championship. So, if somebody doesn't make it through from this meet, it's the same as if they don't make the final in past years of the NCAA meet. This is not regionals, it's the NCAA first round.

The athletes who make this meet are picked based on the descending order list. Top 48 go to the NCAA first round (NOT regionals). Your whole argument is based on the regional system which DOES NOT EXIST ANYMORE. This system is exactly what you want. The best people from the list go to the NCAA meet and it's up to them to then advance to the finals and get their chance to win in that final.

Excellent Clarification and great point!!!

A real DI coach wrote:

I'm sorry, I really try to be polite in my life, but are you *&&^^%$$ kidding me?

Sorry for the rant.

I’m not trying to be impolite either I just disagree with your position. As far as the rant goes I think it's awesome when people are passionate about track and field.

Point #1 regarding high school state qualifications. I will admit I have not looked up every state in the union but when I went to high school in New Mexico we had an automatic qualification time for each event that if you ran it you would be automatically entered in the state meet. There was also a provision that allowed for the top 2 in each district to go if they had not qualified on time. I would be curious to know the numbers of states that hold it based on time vs. place in meet. Now that I think about it an at large meet held at say 5 regional’s only for the runners that you are trying to "give a chance" i.e. ran reasonably fast but not fast enough to qualify on time would be a great idea. This meet could fill out the last 5 to 10 slots at nationals there by achieving your goals and allowing the best runners in country to have a more productive season over all. They would be exciting meets if you had to win or get top 2 as a last chance to go to the big dance, just a thought anyway.

Point #2 As far as gaining tactical experience the runners that are beating us internationally are not practicing at home (Kenya/Ethiopia) for the championships they are racing in Europe on the circuit. I'm just saying it makes a long year to do what essentially amounts to 2 track seasons in 1 for our guys.

Point #3 I hear this point over and over again that small low budget schools can't get to fast meets and are therefore at a disadvantage to big schools that can afford to fly there athletes all over the country. I have to disagree with this for 2 reasons.

Reason 1: Everybody in the country is capable of running the same times. Everyone has access to the same size track and a stopwatch to yell out splits. Everyone also has access to other runners on their team that can rabbit for a friend for half the race. Also the best runners in the country often run their fastest times of the year by themselves without help from rabbits.

Reason 2: I think virtually all the schools that claim they can't get to fast meets can if they work at it. It might take some careful planning of the schedule but it is possible. Consider going to small local meets most of the year and one or two fast ones. Or take a bus vs. a plane. I know that there are fast meets run on the east coast as well as the west coast. Also most small schools only have a few kids that are really in the that bubble league you are talking about maybe just send them not everyone one on the team. The reason I make all of these suggestions is that I went to a relatively low budget school that didn't give a hoot about track and yet somehow every year my coach found a way to get everyone who had a shot and a few of us who didn't a chance to run against fast people and do our best. Sometimes it was only once or twice a year but we had a shot at least.

sameolstuff wrote:

Actually, this is NOT regionals anymore. It is now the first round of the NCAA championship. So, if somebody doesn't make it through from this meet, it's the same as if they don't make the final in past years of the NCAA meet. This is not regionals, it's the NCAA first round.

The athletes who make this meet are picked based on the descending order list. Top 48 go to the NCAA first round (NOT regionals). Your whole argument is based on the regional system which DOES NOT EXIST ANYMORE. This system is exactly what you want. The best people from the list go to the NCAA meet and it's up to them to then advance to the finals and get their chance to win in that final.

Excellent Clarification and great point!!!

That is not a great point at all. You can call it the first round of nationals, but the entrants are determined by geography and there is no guarantee of equity between regions, er, "first round sites". In a championship meet first round, entrants are balanced between heats to create a fair process of qualifying. How is it fair if the 48th time in the west 100m is 10.9 and the 48th time in the easy 100m is 10.6? You might as well have two "first round sites" that are based on uniform color.

In addition, there are no schools that are willing and able to host a meet of that size. You're are talking about 20+ events with 96 athletes per event. That's over 2000 athletes at one site. Are you kidding me?

On top of all that, the system is going to change again next year. They might as well leave it as is and make the change they want next year without going through this ridiculous experiment that will change whether it is a success or failure.

injury wrote:

Actually, this is NOT regionals anymore. It is now the first round of the NCAA championship. So, if somebody doesn't make it through from this meet, it's the same as if they don't make the final in past years of the NCAA meet. This is not regionals, it's the NCAA first round.

The athletes who make this meet are picked based on the descending order list. Top 48 go to the NCAA first round (NOT regionals). Your whole argument is based on the regional system which DOES NOT EXIST ANYMORE. This system is exactly what you want. The best people from the list go to the NCAA meet and it's up to them to then advance to the finals and get their chance to win in that final.

Just because you call it a different name (nationals vs. regionals) doesn't change the fact of what you are doing you are still holding 2 separate meets correct? Therefore all the same issues still apply. All you have done by changing the name is made it essentially meaningless to be a "national qualifier" in the same way it means nothing to have qualified for the NCAA D1 basketball tournament because that only means you are in the top 64 teams in the country.

There may be valid reasons to argue against the super regional, but number of competitors is not one of them.

Matter of fact, there were more than 48 runners in many events in the East regional last year.

2000 athletes is not that large a number. We run meets of over 3000 athletes without a tenth of the resources the regionals will have.

The rupp analogy is meant to show that some runners have already proven they belong throughout the ENTIRE season. If you can't prove you belong during the however many weeks you get why should you get one more. The peole getting through the back door into nationals from regionals likely won't win so their inclusion does not really benefit the meet, while it allows the risk that the top guys will be left out.

actually being in the top 64 does mean something as there are over 300 DI teams that play basketball. Tell the coaches who get a nice bonus for making the NCAA tournament that it means nothing!!!! must mean something to somebody.

Your attitude towards protecting the top 10% of athletes is dumb. Who gives a rat azzz about the top 10% if they are that good then they will get through.

Can you give some examples of athletes who did not make it through To NCAA's who would of been a National Champion because of the Regioanal system?

aint no humongus thang wrote:

Matter of fact, there were more than 48 runners in many events in the East regional last year.

2000 athletes is not that large a number. We run meets of over 3000 athletes without a tenth of the resources the regionals will have.

Your statement regarding field sizes is in not factual. There was not a single event last year in the east region with 48 athletes, men or women. In FACT, the total number of individual competitors at the meet last year was 1057. Under this year's guidelines, there will be 1608 individual qualifies. That's a 60% increase in meet size.

You should really volunteer to host the meet because no school with the resources wants this meet in the first place, let alone host it.

sameolstuff wrote:

actually being in the top 64 does mean something as there are over 300 DI teams that play basketball. Tell the coaches who get a nice bonus for making the NCAA tournament that it means nothing!!!! must mean something to somebody.

Your attitude towards protecting the top 10% of athletes is dumb. Who gives a rat azzz about the top 10% if they are that good then they will get through.

Can you give some examples of athletes who did not make it through To NCAA's who would of been a National Champion because of the Regioanal system?

Fist of all I would tell a coach that just made it in the NCAA basket ball tournement that it means nothing. It means your in the top 64 teams WOW. Who braggs about being 64th in the country? As for caring about the top 10% I would say most people care a lot more about them than the bottome 10% of the nationals field that you are so worried about. I bet you don't even know the names of the vast majority of the people you are talking about. If you want an example of someone who got screwed over by regionals thats easy Alistar Craig and the 5000m at NCAA nationals in I think 2004. A referee at regionals that didn't know what he was talking about told him and his coach he didn't have to toe the line at regionals because he had the fastest time in the country. The NCAA decided that he was DQ'ed because of it and was not allowed to run at nationals which was a race he would have won easily.

Wow, take an example from 5 years ago, that had little to do with the Regional setup, and more to do with an incompetent official, and use that as a argument position?

The numbers last year in events for the East were:

Men

100 - 32, 200 - 34, 400 - 31, 800 - 36, 1500 - 42, 5k - 35, HH - 35, Int. - 29, Steeple - 32, HJ - 28, Pv - 29

HJ - 27, TJ - 31, SP -33, Disc -25, Hammer - 29, Jav -29

Super regionals will increase most of the fields by another 1/3.

It should be a great meet.

Its about declaring a CHAMPION. If you cant run one of the top 20 times in the country you cant really make a case to deserve being in the championships. The top 20 percent at nationals are all the really matter in figuring out who is gonna win each event, now because of the team title a little more depth should be included, but its about the best of the best competing with everything on the line, not the second tier of athletes sneaking in and having a great day to get 7th.

If it's about a champion, don't sweat it because there will inevitably be one in any event in any format. I mean, someone has to win.

Might I ask this simple question to all those who seem to have an opinion on the NCAA First Round meet......

If you are not a coach at an involved in this meet with athletes....knowing what you know.....48 athletes per event per gender.....WOULD YOU ATTEND THIS MEET FOR 2-3 DAYS?

Secondly, knowing the ages of many of our countries top track and field officials.....can you actually expect them to work such a meet? Would you be willing to officiate at such a meet for 2-3 days for pizza and Subway sandwich? (typically the going rate...)

Those of my concerns.

another D1 coach wrote:

In addition, there are no schools that are willing and able to host a meet of that size. You're are talking about 20+ events with 96 athletes per event. That's over 2000 athletes at one site. Are you kidding me?

Nonsense, the University of Buffalo hosted the World Student Games and I recall competing there at the World Masters Championships where 5,000+ competed.