NCAA may force college meets to stop allowing unattached athletes

ShackShock wrote:...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...

Skiing is another sport that has a lot of NCAA competition happening with non-NCAA athletes. In the EISA (Eastern Skiing...Dartmouth, UVM, Middlebury, etc) all meets except NCAA Regionals are open to non-collegiate racers. On the Nordic side, for some meets it is a small group of non-college racers, approx. 6 out of a field of 70 or so for each gender. But usually 1 meet per season is in essence an open meet with a college race start group. Those latter meets are part of the national Super Tour series or the regional Eastern Cup series. You might have 250+/- of each gender competing, with the same 70+/- college racers. The open racers that compete in the non-Super Tour/Eastern Cup meets are often US Ski Team members or top regional club skiers. In the Super Tour/Eastern Cup races you'll have these same top racers as well as high school racers, masters, Canadian racers, etc.

In the RMISA (Western Skiing), I think a lot of their meets on the XC side are in conjunction with national races like US Nationals (when the timing works) or Super Tours. I've been out of that sport for a few years so I'm not 100% up on what they did the last couple of seasons.

My point is that different things work for different sports, and it's a challenge to keep all the reasons why we have college sports in mind when decisions like these are made. If your perspective is that college sports should stand on their own for competition in that point of life you might make a different decision than if your perspective is that college sports exist primarily to promote athlete development or if you think college sports should be about how much money they can make.

San Diego has both a Summer and Winter Track series. Hosted by local high schools with profits going to the hosting schools track teams. The races can be very competitive and have the legitimacy of being backed by the local USATF chapter and the San Diego Track Club. That being said I personally try to run in at least a few college track meets every year and would miss the opportunity to do so in the future.

Edward Teach wrote:

http://trackandfieldnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1872

good way to kill the sport ncaa

I'm all for not allowing unattached runners. All too often you see that an unattached runner won some big college meet. That's crap. Should be for college runners who are running for their school in a varsity capacity only. We don't allow the public at large to run in middle school meets.

College runners should get to test their ability against ONLY their peers.

Who sits down at the NCAA and decides this is what's best? Who, by name, thinks this is a good idea? Do they have track and field people who understand this stuff offering any input?

And often collegiate runners gain valuable experience running with the post-collegiate/pros.

The great thing about track is competing with people of your level regardless of your age or school situation.

It was great for Mary Cain, who still hasn't made it to college.

The college system is the only thing that really keeps the elite system going right now.

And the elites add value to the college meets.

Scored team meets are pretty useless when the total number of schools are small.

Even schools with the budget aren't legally allowed to give enough scholarships for a complete team.

It's an awful sport for team competition.

But great at the individual level, especially when you let everyone in.

Why wouldnt we want to score EVERY meet and show genarel public WHO WON THE MEET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ask yourself......Would the NCAA basketball tourny be any fun if it wasnt scored? Let just get together and play two 20min halfs and not keep score and the public and debate who won and who lost.

Great model we have for the sport of track and field.

We run a bunch of all-comer meets as it is now. There is NO point to even have the athlete put on a school uniform if you dont compete as a team and are not scored like a team.

Flagpole wrote:

I'm all for not allowing unattached runners. All too often you see that an unattached runner won some big college meet. That's crap. Should be for college runners who are running for their school in a varsity capacity only. We don't allow the public at large to run in middle school meets.

College runners should get to test their ability against ONLY their peers.

Brojos, you're trying too hard lately with the Flagpole persona. Tone it down and it won't be so obvious that you are really Flagpole.

Something I find particularly peculiar about the "additional events" is that if you want to run one additional event, you must run ALL additional events. This includes 10k. So, any meet that wants to run a 10k must also run ALL the relay events (SMR, DMR, 4x1500, 4x800, Shuttle Hurdles, 4x200, etc). Yet, the NCAA regionals and finals have a 10k without having the additional event.

The proposal also requires that a 5k be run at every outdoor meet. That will make for some fun dual meets, eh? 3k is not an option, and isn't even listed on the additional events.

As for the person that related the NCAA track meet to the tournament, the difference is that Track is classified as an individual sport. Even if they went to team qualifications, there still has to be individual qualifying opportunities (like XC).

series like this are great but only exist in larger cities/metro areas. people not living in those places who rely on college meets for track comp would be SOL.

SDFASTGUY wrote:

San Diego has both a Summer and Winter Track series. Hosted by local high schools with profits going to the hosting schools track teams. The races can be very competitive and have the legitimacy of being backed by the local USATF chapter and the San Diego Track Club. That being said I personally try to run in at least a few college track meets every year and would miss the opportunity to do so in the future.

Yes, imagine an NCAA final track championships with only two teams facing each other.

You'd have most of the top athletes in each event not there.

You can't even begin to compare track to basketball.

Forcing track to look like other sports is dumb.

SDFASTGUY wrote:

San Diego has both a Summer and Winter Track series. Hosted by local high schools with profits going to the hosting schools track teams. The races can be very competitive and have the legitimacy of being backed by the local USATF chapter and the San Diego Track Club. That being said I personally try to run in at least a few college track meets every year and would miss the opportunity to do so in the future.

In California there are all comers meets? I'm so surprised.

I think there was one in Michigan one time. About 15 years ago. I would go to it but I don't want to reveal too much junk in my split shorts getting into my delorean.

When people talk about the NCAA often the tone is that it is some sort of entity, but the NCAA is comprised of its member institutions--colleges and universities.

The committee that will vote on this rule is made of college coaches, not just some administrator who is not invested in the sport. I tried for a few minutes to find who is on the committee, but I only found old information. At one point a Division III coach was chairman of the committee.

The NCAA's mission deals with collegiate athletics. It really is not concerned with competition outside of college (except as it might relate to eligibility). So perhaps the college coaches are just looking at what is good for college track. It might be short-sighted, but it could also lead to change for the better.

The new American Track League could be bolstered by this.

Can someone provide an example how an Unattached distance runner ran in a college meet and this resulted in 1) Sponsorship and 2) a spot on the Olympic Team?

We need to deal with reality. You have 4 years to prove your mettle on the track. NO ONE becomes a 27:40 guy on their own running the streets of the local cities.

My point was that clubs can't host all-comers meets independently because they don't have their own tracks. Therefore they would be compelled to rent university facilities for the meet. And that is an expensive endeavor unless you can defray your cost with high participation numbers. I don't see much incentive for a university to host an all-comers meet itself.

ugv wrote:

Arishole wrote:

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.

The only person who is an idiot here is you. There are all-comers meets nearly every weekend from winter to fall that have few or no NCAA athletes running in them. Very opposite from "far and few between".

Nothing adds excitement to a four team scored meet more than 6 girls lined up in the 5k with seed marks between 15:55 and 19:30 and just before the 4x400m.

Bullet the Blue Sky wrote:

My point was that clubs can't host all-comers meets independently because they don't have their own tracks. Therefore they would be compelled to rent university facilities for the meet. And that is an expensive endeavor unless you can defray your cost with high participation numbers.

I don't see much incentive for a university to host an all-comers meet itself.

How do you know that's an expensive endeavor? Is that statement based at all on fact or are you just determined to believe that small all comers meets are impossible? They're not by the way. Like I and others have said, they occur about every weekend during track season. Also, the venues are not limited to university tracks. High school tracks have all comers meets too. There's one next week in fact in my city.

ShackShock wrote:

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.

Indeed, but this is an individual sport first, no matter the NCAA wants to try and make it. Track as a team sport is completely artificial, with cross-country being only slightly less so.

ugv wrote:

Bullet the Blue Sky wrote:

My point was that clubs can't host all-comers meets independently because they don't have their own tracks. Therefore they would be compelled to rent university facilities for the meet. And that is an expensive endeavor unless you can defray your cost with high participation numbers.

I don't see much incentive for a university to host an all-comers meet itself.

How do you know that's an expensive endeavor? Is that statement based at all on fact or are you just determined to believe that small all comers meets are impossible? They're not by the way. Like I and others have said, they occur about every weekend during track season. Also, the venues are not limited to university tracks. High school tracks have all comers meets too. There's one next week in fact in my city.

My old HIGH SCHOOL charges a decent hourly fee to use their track. I don't know what it is, but it was enough to make the local club change their summer track series to a different venue, and those meets only last 2-3 hours. That's a high school, imagine what a college must charge. You also have to hire officials and a timing company. Not cheap.

Furthermore, how competitive are these "all comer" meets? I've seen post-collegiates go run with college kids at Boston University and break 4 in the mile for the first time in their life. I guarantee you whatever meets you're talking about, they're not as competitive as the ones club/unattached athletes are able to run with college kids now. This will hurt the athletes.

This is not the same as baseball or football where there are clear winners and losers.

Combining college with non-college runners at the same level provides depth that leads to a quality race that would otherwise be difficult to attain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ_JMdDeaFI

You get the Kyle Merber 3:35 with other guys chasing US and IAAF qualifiers, working together in the same race.

That's the beauty of this sport.

That's actually a good thing that separates it from other sports.