So now that it's actually making an impact, anyone else outraged by these new conversions? Our team is now avoiding banked tracks because of it. Personally I have run much faster on a 200m flat track than the banked or over-sized ones I've run on. I'm going to miss running on them, especially Boston and the Armory.
GOOD. Start racing like the rest of DIII on real (flat, 200m) indoor tracks. The rest of the country doesn't have access to those kinds of facilities or the travel budget to fly to them and it's not fair for the other DIII schools to lose out to slower runners.
dsfadsfads wrote:
GOOD. Start racing like the rest of DIII on real (flat, 200m) indoor tracks. The rest of the country doesn't have access to those kinds of facilities or the travel budget to fly to them and it's not fair for the other DIII schools to lose out to slower runners.
You think they are that much faster?! You most certainly have access to over-sized tracks and budget is a useless argument.
banked tracks as of 2008
Albuquerque, NM Convention Center
Atlanta, GA Georgia Dome
Blacksburg, VA Rector Fieldhouse
Bloomington, IN Gladstein Fieldhouse
Boston, MA Boston U Track/Tennis
Boston, MA Reggie Lewis Center
Bozeman, MT Worthington Arena
Chapel Hill, NC Eddie Smith Fieldhouse
Fayetteville, AR Randal Tyson Center
Indianapolis, IN Hoosier/RCA Dome (previous comments have addressed the status of this track)
Indianapolis, IN National Institute of Fitness and Sport
Lawrenceville, NJ Lavino Field House
Lexington, VA Cormack Fieldhouse
Lincoln, NE Devaney Sports Arena
Long Beach, CA Long Beach Arena
Louisville, KY Broadbent Arena
Nampa, ID Idaho Sports Center
New Haven, CT Coxe Cage
New York, NY Armory Track & Field Center
Pocatello, ID Holt Arena
State College, PA Ashenfelter Track
ThsStks wrote:
So now that it's actually making an impact, anyone else outraged by these new conversions? Our team is now avoiding banked tracks because of it. Personally I have run much faster on a 200m flat track than the banked or over-sized ones I've run on. I'm going to miss running on them, especially Boston and the Armory.
It's an equalizer, not a penalty. Coaches shouldn't be avoiding oversized or banked tracks because of the conversion, they just need to re-adjust expectations. When we've raced on bigger tracks, we've just tried to run more aggressive times because we knew we needed too. If the competition is at the banked track, they should go to it. That's the real advantage I think many east coast schools have past....getting to race against D1 programs that aren't afraid to race against the D3. Many D1 programs in the midwest only want to race against D1, because it looks bad to lose to a d3 program.
14:30 gets you into nationals!? LOL
I think it's a huge penalty and you are going to see a lot of diii schools avoid banked and oversized tracks. The advantage of racing on a fast 200 m track is ridiculous now.
I'm betting all the people whining about banked tracks have never run on one. I've qualified for nationals on oversized, banked, and 200 meter flat tracks at different times in my career, and I assure you that there's no significant advantage in running on the first two over the third. Using tfrrs data to come up with conversions is so logically skewed that it's ridiculous that anyone's standing behind them and saying "Ha, fair now!"
A five minute mile has more time added on it for men than women, although it is the same speed. And walking a mile on a banked track in 20 minutes is penilized because you can walk slow faster on a banked track. The two men who came up with these conversions should admit their conversions are flawed so the NCAA can throw them away.
How many people qualify this year in each event for men/women?
ThsStks wrote:
Our team is now avoiding banked tracks because of it. Personally I have run much faster on a 200m flat track than the banked or over-sized ones I've run on. I'm going to miss running on them, especially Boston and the Armory.
My team is now avoiding banked tracks as well b/c the conversions are ridiculous. The tragedy is that DIII teams are now avoiding the best competition and avoiding running their best times because they know the times will be converted to slower than running on a flat track against inferior competition.
bunch of dIII and dII schools running flat track DMRs this friday at Tufts, will have good competition, so it will be an interesting test case for the conversions. if they all run low 9:50s then I think it prettymuch confirms the conversions are BS, if they barely scrape 10:00 maybe there's some merit to them afterall
I find it funny that Midwest schools are crying about budget. The majority of these schools have ten or more coaches, tons of facilities, and are state schools with huge budgets. Ask a tiny school in the East about budget. And, no, don't use Hopkins as an example.
Cambridge, MA Gordon Track Harvard U.
Wheres Waldo wrote:
I find it funny that Midwest schools are crying about budget. The majority of these schools have ten or more coaches, tons of facilities, and are state schools with huge budgets. Ask a tiny school in the East about budget. And, no, don't use Hopkins as an example.
Not in D3. Most state schools are at least D2 whereas most D3 schools are private colleges.
the original research done wrote:
observerofthings: Did you even bother to read the report? If not then you shouldn't speak.
Scientists always argue about findings and this is no different. Let me put it really easy to understand. This system that is going into place is the BEST system we have ever had. It is so much better than the crap we had before which was done by folks who had little idea of what should happen. All you have to do is look at how the flat tracks were treated. For a three year period in DI only about 2.5% of all NCAA qualifying performances came from a flat 200 track, yet 68% of ALL tracks in the US are flat 200 tracks. At least now there is a chance on a flat 200 track!
I would suggest you come up with a better one if you do not believe the data.
Garbage. How many competitive meets are held on flat 200 tracks and how many are held on banked or oversize tracks?
East coast schools are being penalized for going to competitive meets. The big east coast meets for the indoor season are: SPIRE (300m), BU Valentine (200m bank), BU Terrier (200m bank), NYC Gotham Cup (200m bank), conference championships (some on 200 flat), ECAC's (200m bank).
Midwest schools - if east coast schools are being "pussies" by insisting on going to the competitive meets (which are held at banked/oversize tracks), I suggest you have a taste of your own medicine and cease going to competitive meets yourselves. See how much that helps the sport.
From now on, any national qualifying time (in any part of the country) can only be run on a flat 200m track with little or no competition, and we can all become time trialers instead of racers. That is unless anyone wants to try hosting a competitive meet on their flat 200m track... anyone interested in losing a lot of money?
Wheres Waldo wrote:
I find it funny that Midwest schools are crying about budget. The majority of these schools have ten or more coaches, tons of facilities, and are state schools with huge budgets. Ask a tiny school in the East about budget. And, no, don't use Hopkins as an example.
You obviously have no clue about budgets of the midwest schools. While some may have several coaches, most of the assistants are making $500-1000 for the year...much less than if they were coaching high school. And budgets many be bigger than a small private school, but when you have 50+ guys and 50+ girls on a team, the money doesn't go to far. I don't know if it's still a rule, but when I was competing, I know WIAC schools were restricted to meets that boarder the state...if a school competed outside that zone would have to fund raise the money to pay for it.
I don't know first hand about the budget situations of east coast schools, so I'm not going to comment on it. Since you don't know the situation at schools in the midwest, you shouldn't make baseless speculation either.
ignorance is bliss wrote:
You obviously have no clue about budgets of the midwest schools. While some may have several coaches, most of the assistants are making $500-1000 for the year...much less than if they were coaching high school. And budgets many be bigger than a small private school, but when you have 50+ guys and 50+ girls on a team, the money doesn't go to far. I don't know if it's still a rule, but when I was competing, I know WIAC schools were restricted to meets that boarder the state...if a school competed outside that zone would have to fund raise the money to pay for it.
I don't know first hand about the budget situations of east coast schools, so I'm not going to comment on it. Since you don't know the situation at schools in the midwest, you shouldn't make baseless speculation either.
I don't how this issue of team budgets came up, but it doesn't really have anything to do with the point of this. I would contend that the east coast state schools have no advantage over the midwest when it comes to funding or travel expenses. Private schools are a toss up - there's no way you can say every east coast private school has more priveleges/$ than the midwest schools. Let's just table that portion of the debate because it's irrelevant.
I think we can agree on this - east coast schools should not be penalized for going to the competitive meets. Yes, some conversion is warranted. But, as another poster brought up, would running a 5k on a flat track and opposed to a banked track really cost you 9 seconds? If someone were to run a 14:30 at BU Terrier with great competition, is that really only worth a 14:39 with the SAME competition on a flat track?
The conversions need to factor in which national qualifying times are run at which meets (with what level of competition) and on which tracks, and they need to be logical, not just mathematical.
the trashman wrote:
But, as another poster brought up, would running a 5k on a flat track and opposed to a banked track really cost you 9 seconds? If someone were to run a 14:30 at BU Terrier with great competition, is that really only worth a 14:39 with the SAME competition on a flat track?
To reiterate: if you placed the same field that averaged a 14:30 at BU Terrier on a flat track, would the field average 14:39? Seems ridiculous to me.
how close are the d2 and d1 conversions? to my knowledge these divisions converted flat track times to banked track times. and it was about the same amount of time subtracted from a flat track that would be added to a banked track in d3.
so either way it's essentially the same thing.