NCAA may force college meets to stop allowing unattached athletes

R.I.P. Beer Mile Invitational.

I'm sure this will result in a bunch of phony engagements.

I think this is a great thing! It will force clubs to put on more meets outside of the collegiate calendar. Track should be a summer sport anyway, not a spring sport, especially on the east coast, and mid-west. It will also encourage more walk-ons to join clubs in the off season to be able to race.

If the NCAA were banned, there would be a for real club system with the best coaches in the country, and everyone could run for prize money too.

Most "track" clubs do nothing but road races most of the year.

I can't imagine how this would be a good thing. Is there going to be more interest in college meets if there are fewer pros in them? No.

If this were to pass in its present state it would not allow JC's and NAIA schools in meets either. I understand the idea behind the proposal but this would be bad on many levels.

It also means no split squads to meets like stanford. Have to have 14 compete in a meet.

That would be the dumbest thing the NCAA has done in at least a couple months

HardLoper wrote:

That would be the dumbest thing the NCAA has done in at least a couple months

This is humorously accurate.

In all seriousness though this decision would 100% kill post-collegiate track running for pretty much everyone but a handful of runners with the sponsor money to fly to Europe in the summer. There is a zero percent chance that any running clubs could put together a full season of track races competitive enough to be worth racing without any college athletes.

dfasfsd wrote:

There is a zero percent chance that any running clubs could put together a full season of track races competitive enough to be worth racing without any college athletes.

this^100

And where do these clubs host their meets? I don't think universities are going to open their facilities for free. Not to mention other expenses like timing equipment. Putting on a meet is challenging. Getting enough quality athletes to put on a competitive meet is even tougher.I don't see how this could be anything but detrimental to track & field athletes in the US.

finally!! wrote:

I think this is a great thing! It will force clubs to put on more meets outside of the collegiate calendar. Track should be a summer sport anyway, not a spring sport, especially on the east coast, and mid-west. It will also encourage more walk-ons to join clubs in the off season to be able to race.

Bullet the Blue Sky wrote:

And where do these clubs host their meets? I don't think universities are going to open their facilities for free.

What does finding a place to host a meet have to do with universities opening their facilities for free? Have you never heard of all-comers meets?

ugv wrote:

Bullet the Blue Sky wrote:

And where do these clubs host their meets? I don't think universities are going to open their facilities for free.

What does finding a place to host a meet have to do with universities opening their facilities for free? Have you never heard of all-comers meets?

Hey idiot, under this system these "all comer" meets that have club athletes, unattached athletes, and college athletes would be GONE. The pure "all-comer" races you're speaking of are very far and few between.

This rule does a lot of things. It widens the gap between the haves and have nots. If you are a school on the East Coast with one or two quality kids in distance events, you can probably find it in your budget to go to Washington indoors or Stanford outdoors. But if the requirement in the rule that you must take 14 to each meet is held up, that same school probably can't afford to fly 14 kids and coaches to the west coast. And even if they could afford it, can all those kids get accepted into the meet?

And if they ban pros or unattached runners, are there alternatives or exceptions? Does this mean no more collegians in the Wanamaker Mile at Millrose? Can you host a USATF sanctioned meet and invite collegians and have those times count towards qualifying?

I've heard one argument that no other college sports allow its athletes to compete against pros. I understand that, but track is also a lot different from basketball, football, baseball, etc. Swimming is probably the best comparison, and I wonder how they do it? Could Michael Phelps compete at a "college" swim meet? I honestly don't know the answer to that question.

Even if they allow a meet director to have separate "pro/unattached" sections, that could also lengthen the time of meets, which is antithetical to one of the possible goals of having shorter meets. And can most meets get enough quality unattached athletes for their unattached sections to make it competitive?

This may be a great opportunity for USATF and TFAA to get together, patch things up and work collaboratively to try to strike this down for the good of the elite athletes.

And who enforces these rules? One of the items in the proposal is for meets to follow the same schedule of events. Who is going to enforce it if a meet director runs the 4x400 first instead of last? Or if a team doesn't run the minimum number of athletes as required by the proposal? Does that invalidate the whole meet or just the team that broke that rule? NCAA checking up on every meet doesn't seem practical.

The college coaches need to contact their conference reps to get this proposal struck down.

see Stanford 10k

This is a dumb rule and it won't help the sport at all. The NCAA already sucks but this just makes them look worse.

They are all but killing the sport with this stuff

Who care if people are paced by pro's, we want them to run fast...

This is directly against distance runners and it's a dumb idea, if those other people don't get to race and it's an open race not a closed duel meet, they will go away and NEVER come back.

The arguments against this move all seem to center around what is best for individuals. That is what the NCAA is trying to correct. They want team contests/meets (games), not dunk or shooting contests, which is how they view sending one athlete to Stanford.

I posted the following on another thread, but it seems more appropriate here:

My understanding is that club athletes could still run in the collegiate meets, but they will have to have their own 'club only - no NCAA' heats. If there are not enough club athletes to fill the heats, was it ever really an issue in the big picture to start with?

I have not thought about the ramifications enough to have an opinion. I am trying to put myself in the place of the NCAA thought process, or lack there-of.

I also think this rule would be bad for the sport, but some of you guys need to learn to read.

The 14 athlete minimum only applies to scored meets, as does the only NCAA athletes rule. Therefore the big relay meets like Mt. SAC, Texas, Drake, Penn, etc. Should be unaffected, except for maybe having to add one or two events.

Also, it does not limit where college athletes can compete, only where they can qualify. My guess is that if someone is invited to be in the Wanamaker Mile, he would already have qualified for NCAAs.

Looks like they were at least smart enough to let kids that are redshirting compete unattached, but I still think this should be voted down.

That is correct about the scored/non-scored meets and the minimum number of athletes from each institution. But meets like Stanford, Texas Relays etc will have to decide if they want to become a scored meet and disallow unattached or if they want to let them in and then add those additional relay events. The meet director then also has to ensure that those additional relay events meet the minimum number of teams competing.

One other thing to consider is that there is no such option indoors. All indoor meets must be scored and there is no listed option that would allow the trade-off of adding events and unattached.

And as for athletes competing at a meet like Millrose, consider these two scenarios. Lawi Lalang ran only one mile race before NCAAs, which was at Millrose. That was his qualifier. On the women's side, Emily Lipari qualified at Millrose as well. She had run a mile previously, but not fast enough to qualify for NCAAs.

http://www.tfrrs.org/athletes/3297221.html

http://www.tfrrs.org/athletes/3224872.html

And if the focus is on team competition, why not have TEAMS qualify for NCAAs instead of individuals. The way things currently work would be akin to the top 68 basketball players qualifying for March Madness rather than the teams.

[quote]Hogtown wrote:

I also think this rule would be bad for the sport, but some of you guys need to learn to read.

The 14 athlete minimum only applies to scored meets, as does the only NCAA athletes rule. Therefore the big relay meets like Mt. SAC, Texas, Drake, Penn, etc. Should be unaffected, except for maybe having to add one or two events.

Also, it does not limit where college athletes can compete, only where they can qualify. My guess is that if someone is invited to be in the Wanamaker Mile, he would already have qualified for NCAAs.

Looks like they were at least smart enough to let kids that are redshirting compete unattached, but I still think this should be voted down.[/quot

In reading the proposal, this is the only accurate interpretation I've seen. So what does it really mean? Championship standards will be a little easier, all meets that are currently going on will continue to go on with very few exceptions, and several large invites will have to add a couple of events and move to a 2-3 day format. conference championships will become a little more meaningful with people running for time rather than pulling doubles and triples. In short, coaches may actually have to think outside the box.