Texas A&M coach RIPS NCAA regional system.

This current situation was the brain wave of Pat Henry and Sam Seems. Every coach out there knows that. Now Henry is crying foul.

The Regional system can work. Head-to-head competition is what track is all about. Someone please do the (math) on the 5k and 10k to see who on the "national" descending order list (top 24) did NOT make it to Eugene. I bet there were a bunch of guys and that's only two events. Rewarding performances done 7-8 weeks out from a national meet is wrong. eg a Notre dame javelin female thrower was 49th on the east list and finished 12th and advanced. What is so awful about that? This girl beat people when it mattered and I bet there were many performances like this.

The little guys better watch out cause henry, Vin etc will use all their power to block you out of the meet.

Again, our sport is all about beating people. The best track meet in the world in the US Olympic trials because it's all about beating people. No one cares that you're the World Champ, world recordholder, etc. If you can't get your shit done on the day, you stay home.

Wake up NCAA coaches. get your shit together. A 6-7 week season will be the demise of a ton of programs. Do not allow the "power" schools to run the show. Speak up before it's too late. Write to the NCAA. Talk to your AD. Talk to whomever will listen. NOW.

Yeah I'd hate to have the schools that actually give a crap about track and put some money towards the program have more power than those that are one bad financial year away from axing it. That would totally reward the wrong behavior.

Ah yes... To those schools who misuse tax dollars to bloat their athletics budget goes the power... sounds like a terrific concept... this just in, track did not start with blowhards pat henry and vin lananna...

You all suck and are looking for someone to blame....why not blame the successful coaches... Vagina's

Pat Henry is a great coach, no doubt about it. But he and several other coaches from the BCS schools hate a regional or any type of playoff qualifying format. Last year The Big XII conference even had the nerve to send a letter to the NCAA committee stating that the regional system was a waste of time and they should not be subject to competing against inferior competition in which their athletes could get injured.

Regionals are not a bad idea. They can be implemented a lot better. The regional or playoff format was not a bad idea, just ask the numerous athletes that didn't enter the meet ranked in the top 12 and made it to the semi-final in Oregon. Descending order lists are a bad idea. They are a bad idea indoors and outdoors. Smaller schools with smaller budgets can not travel all around the nation to run on oversized or banked tracks every weekend indoors and can't do the same outdoors to go to Stanford, or travel to the states of Texas, Arizona or Florida for warm weather in March and April.

The problem with the old 4 region system was that the number of schools assigned in each region was not equal. Top 5 from each region and 8 at-large bids seemed fine to me. The qualifying standards were not that hard and conference champs were included. The system was fair in that it gave smaller programs a chance to go head-to-head. It also allowed for top ranked athletes to still get in the national meet as long as they finished in the top 12 at the regional, which shouldn’t be that difficult for someone in the top 12 in the country.

Collegiate track athletes are used to competing head-to-head. In high school they qualify for the state meet through a district, regional or sectional meets. Even as little kids in AAU and USATF Jr. Olympics they advance to nationals by competing in state or regional meets. The kids are used to qualifying; it’s the big time college coaches that don't like it.

If the regional goes by the way side, I suggest the following possible qualifying procedures;

1) Don't use a descending order list. Establish a qualifying standard. That way you eliminate chasing a moving target of trying to be top 18 indoor or 48 for outdoor regional meet. As a coach you are hoping that someone ahead of your athletes does not declare and your kid gets in the meet. With a qualifying mark, you will already know if your in. The current auto and provisional system used indoors is a joke. It’s just a plain old descending order list of the top 16 or 18 national marks.

The qualifying standard should be a 10 year average of the 18th best, 28th best or whatever field size you want for the national meet. (for the women’s vault use a 3 or 4 year avg.)

2) Use a descending order list, with a field size of 32. Use the top 20 marks in the nation as auto qualifiers and fill the remaining 12 spots with conference champions that meet the qualifying standard. If 12 conference champions don't meet the standard, continue going down the descending order list to fill the field.

Regionalfan wrote:

The best track meet in the world in the US Olympic trials because it's all about beating people.

And qualification for the "best track meet in the world" is almost entirely based on performance lists.

We can negotiate the numbers. A combo of auto entires and best times/marks from the conference champs only. Whatever. But we all know the regionals are gone after next year at the latest.

But what makes the meet great is the head to head competition as a qualifying process to the Olympics.

I've never heard of an exciting descending order list.

Regionalfan hit the nail right on the head. Good analysis.

Why is some form of head to head competition always better. As I have stated for the last four years, giving small budgeted teams in northern climates a chance to go head to head with big budgeted teams from southern climates is why the regionals has been great. We have to look no further than Riley Masters from the University of Maine. How much quality training/racing do you think this young man gets? Anyone ever been to Maine in the spring? But when he was given a chance to get on the track and race all those athletes ahead of him what does he do? He was ranked 80th in the 1500 meters with a 3:45.40, but came out ranked 10th nationally with his NCAA qualifying 3:43.27. Riley deserves to be in the NCAA meet since he earned it. But guess what. Next year Riley won't be in the national championships if we go to a straight descending order list since he was 80th. The only way that he gets in next year is if they put the conference champs in and he has a fastest enough time.

Sadly, coaches like Pat Henry, Vin Lananna, Dennis Shaver, etc have sent college track & field down a spiraling free for all which will really hurt the appeal of what it should be all about......and that is going out and freaking racing, and seeing who has the biggest sack.

I say let's do a survey. Let's ask the fans who attended the Regional meets what they think...oops sorry, we can't do a very good survey with only 300-500 paying fans.

Space Cadet la la land said "Try telling the over 300 athletes who never would have made nationals without the regional meet that the event was boring or that it would have been more exciting or fairer to not have had the meet but allowed the descending order to automatically set the fields for championships."

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And how many of these 300 weren't on the descending list because they didn't bother to go to a decent race all Spring, instead saving themselves to qualify at their Sisters of the Poor Conference meet and then take one shot at the Regioal meet? No, this absurd Regional thing did nothing but play into one-shot athletes and empty stands. Descending list championships have always been popular, so let's go back. Thank god more sane minds than those such as la la land already have made th decision to scrap the mindless Regionals.

Dude, it's college. It's not the Fukuoka Marathon or Daegu 2011.

There could be an auto standard for nationals and then a preliminary standard. So all the autos go to Eugene but the provisionals have to race at a regional meet. This way someone like Matt Centrowitz doesn't have "to waste his time" while someone like Riley Masters, who is still peaking, can come out and race and make it to Eugene.

Then we're back to what we had before regionals. I.E. Mt Sac, Payton Jordan, and Stanford Invite. Perhaps the USATF associations outside of California, out in the rest of the country, should take the initiative and hold evening time trials in April like we do in California, so that it is affordable for schools. I know our meets and associations are massive orgs in comparison, but you guys in the Mid West put on a good show with XC every fall. So you DO have your shit together.

William Petersen wrote:

I say let's do a survey. Let's ask the fans who attended the Regional meets what they think...oops sorry, we can't do a very good survey with only 300-500 paying fans.

Hop a ride on the Lananna Wambulance!

A casual, or every day sports fan, would never watch this meet, there are no winners, no champions, not titles, nothing.

And it costs the schools tens of thousands of dollars to send and house and per diem the athletes to run there.

Stupid.

This system will not last.

I'll agree on one point: the system will not last.

To the loss of the majority of NCAA athletes and fair play.

Many people like to have the edge, they like the advantage.

What they don't like is an even playing field and equal opportunity of fair competition.

In my mind, I want to exert a positive influence on the sport. To me, the sport is the athletes who participate in it. They put their hearts, minds, and bodies into it and they are my concern. Not my resume, as some poster charged, nor my ego.

It didn't hurt any of the Aggies to run the regional meet.

Matter of fact, several of them got lifetime bests. It didn't hurt Centrowitz. It did give hundreds of athletes who would have been shut out by the descending order process the opportunity to fairly compete for a spot. Whether they got the spot or didn't get the spot isn't the end all. They got the chance to fairly compete, on the day, head to head. That's sport.

I say you do two things:

1. Auto standards, you hit and your in the ncaa meet.

2. Use the regional meets to fill fields. Worst case scenario the NCAA meet may have to be a little larger. If a magic number for the ncaa has been filled before regions you could still add a few more. What is one more round of 100 m qualifying or adding a few more to a 1500 or 10k going to hurt.

Just imagine if some of the top guys aren't in the region meets you would have guys going nuts to try and make it to ncaas.

Also you should have to qualify for regions, that would cut the field size down, and move the meet along.

Pat Henry is right on,in many ways,but the decending order of comparing marks is not the answer. If you ask the athletes, I believe they would say they had a great time at the competition. After all, the joy of competing is the hallmark of our sport. But serious ajustments must be made to the format. Coaches and the press should not determine the format to fit their desires but should make the athletes needs the primary motivating force.