Can someone explain me how a NCAA T&F season work?

1) What are their season like? From when to when? What are the 'meets' for?

- The joke is typically that the season runs form the fourth week of August until the third week of the next August. In practice, however, XC runs Sept-Nov, Indoor from Dec-Mid March, and Outdoor from Mid-March until early June. The "meets" are typically solely opportunities to improve times and/or marks for field events. Most are in the invitational or open format, though dual meets (to determine team wins over one another) are gaining in popularity. Championship meets are run in typical invitational format, with points being assigned to top finishes that then produce a team "champion" from the whole field.

2) I thought all you need to do for the championship is to run a qualifying time, so what's the rest of the reason and rankings and points for?

- With the exception of the NCAA Finals outdoors, yes, all you need to do to make 99% of the championships is to run a time either past a set standard or above a certain percentile. That exception, of course, is that you have to place top-12 in your NCAA Prelim event to get to the NCAA Finals. Rankings and all the associated hoopla is simply an invention designed to prolong the relevance of track beyond the time immediately before and during championships. The general public hasn't shown itself particularly impressed with kids winning an event at the local Open Podunk meet (rightly so), nor with the fact that a kid ran a personal-best qualifying time while placing 15th at a big invitational - but, throw in rankings, then they can see that Texas A&M is the dominant team in women's track and field, and so it becomes a boon to coverage if the local team is able to say that they beat an Aggie athlete in a given race.

3) What's an All-American?

- The rules have changed over the decades, and have again this year, but the intent has always been to provide top athletes the recognition that they deserve for being the best in their chosen discipline. In recent years, the criteria has been to finish in the top eight in your event at the NCAA Championships, or to be among the top eight American citizens also at NCAAs. Beginning this year, track and field will begin using the "Second-Team" and "Honorable-Mention" designations everyone else has been using for years. To be an "All-American," you have to finish top-eight. To be a "Second-Team All-American," you make the finals of an event but finish outside the top-eight. To be an "Honorable-Mention All-American," you simply have to qualify for the NCAA Championships (indoors) or the NCAA Finals (outdoors).

4) How much do they train? Do they get special treatmemt?

- How? They train hard. Lots of miles and speed workouts for the runners, lots of weights and throws/jumps for the field kids. The second part, you both have to define special treatment and realize it all exists on a continuum. Compared to football players, track and field athletes get squat. Compared to the normal yokels or the 25-stone kid huffing his way through a jog to the snack machine, yeah, they get special treatment. Their calf hurts, they get the sports medicine people to look at it and prescribe treatment. A civilian's calf hurts, they go home, take two aspirin, and limp through work the next day.

5) Do they get laid a ton? Women look pretty and fit (I've seen pics of Texas A&M chicks I liked what I saw)

- Everyone can find someone who'll sleep with them - it's just a matter of willingness to ask and work to find the person with the appropriate kink. And yes, many of the women on every team are fine young representatives of their gender.

Thanks man! This is very good stuff. Just to clarify, by "special treatment" I meant with respect to academics. For instance I noticed that the invitational this weekend in NYC at the Armory is on Friday-Saturday, so I was wondering if they don't have class on Fridays, or worse mid terms etc.

Aha - depends on the school and the professors, really. My understanding i that at the vast majority of schools, they might miss the day of class, but in return they're responsible for turning in whatever assignments or taking whatever tests before they leave (at the very least, offering to do so so that the professors can agree or postpone). So in that sense, they'd have it harder than normal students.

That's not to say that there aren't schools where kids can breeze through on minimal effort. Or schools (think the FSU cheating scandal of a few years ago) where people do things for them.

Blathering Blatherskyte wrote:

Aha - depends on the school and the professors, really. My understanding i that at the vast majority of schools, they might miss the day of class, but in return they're responsible for turning in whatever assignments or taking whatever tests before they leave (at the very least, offering to do so so that the professors can agree or postpone). So in that sense, they'd have it harder than normal students.

That's not to say that there aren't schools where kids can breeze through on minimal effort. Or schools (think the FSU cheating scandal of a few years ago) where people do things for them.

Also, at many of the big-time schools, due to Title IX, many of the academic perks for football players get passed on to all athletes. For example some schools have tutoring programs and special study labs for athletes only. Most schools don't have the tutors actually taking tests for athletes (Another FSU reference for you)