NCAA may force college meets to stop allowing unattached athletes

Look, this is not going to drive interest in the sport AT ALL. If you wanted the score to matter, you'd have to fundamentally change the nature of college track, making it team-based (i.e. team qualifying to nationals). That would probably be interesting for spectators, but I don't see anything in the proposal that does that.

Plenty of meets are scored already. My college coaches were big on that, and all our home meets were scored. The students didn't care, the athletes didn't care, nobody really cared, because in the end the winner of the meet was meaningless.

As a former D-I All American (NCAA XC, 16th, 1996), long time competitive post-collegiate runner, and current assistant coach at a D-I school (Seattle U), here are my thoughts:

This proposal, if enacted, will kill most competitive post-collegiate track in this country.

It will widen the gap between big / rich schools and those who have an annual travel budget of less than what Oregon spends to go to the PAC 12 meet. Why should the Jav thrower from Oregon get 6 or 7 chances to get a qualifier, but the JV thrower from Seattle U gets only 1 or 2, because that's all we can afford in terms of attending "qualifying" meets? If he throws 230 at a small meet, why should he stay at home and some 215 thrower gets to go?

Requiring meets to have ALL events, and thus last for 4 hours, does nothing to attract more spectators.

And here is what nobody has mentioned yet: MOST NCAA schools contract the officiating out to their local USATF association officials. So, without USATF officials there would be no collegiate track meets!!!! All the UW meets are all run by PNTF officials, who get a SMALL fraction of the entry fees for their services. At Oregon the meets are run by (Oregon association) USATF officials.... So for the NCAA to say we don't give f**k about post-collegiate track and field, is naive at best. If in response to this USATF officials would say "if you don't let open athletes compete in collegiate meets, and we have to put on meets for our members ourselves, then we won't have the time to officiate at your meets. After all, we are all volunteers and we have our own families and lives...."

Sorta moot now that it's April 2014. Nearly all of the track schools in major market towns will be leaving the NCAA in 2016 as part of the Power Five League.

ugv, You act like all comers meets are in every town in every city. I am from Colorado Springs originally, I know of 1 that happens there currently, not including the state games. I went to college in Utah...all comers currently race at the collegiate meets. USATF is pretty week there. There is an additional state games there as well. I am currently in Arizona, there are the state games in Phoenix and not much else. If you live in Cali, sure SD has a bunch of them. The fact of the matter is most of the country does not have the same access to true all comer meets. You ignoring this fact annoys others posting on this thread. I doubt I am the only one.

ugv wrote:

nocturnalrunner wrote:

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.

"Not cheap" is an empty statement. You're just assuming things. State an actual number and stop being biased.

Your own statement just discredited the biased point you're trying to make. The local club CHANGED venues. They didn't TERMINATE the series. So obviously they could afford the rates that the new venue was charging.

This would kill postcollegiate track, reduce the # of spectators at collegiate track meets (the postcollegiates would not be there), worsen collegiate and elite American performances, eliminate the chance for top high school athletes to compete against the best competition, and reduce support for collegiate track by killing the interest of the postcollegiates. Aside from some areas, like New York and northern and southern California, where there is a healthy club track presence, there would be virtually nothing left. A few other places that I've lived have had only one open meet a year and the quality of the competition has been so low and the attendance so sporadic that there was no point in competing. The fact that collegiates couldn't run qualifying times with pros or postcollegiates in the meets would have a major effect on non-collegiate meets as well. These plans need to be voted down. Scoring collegiate meets is easy to do without expelling the other athletes, and while they might get some budget increases by saying that meets need x number of athletes, they will also kill numerous programs where university presidents are already primed to knock them out already, because they are money losers and the presidents don't want to have to spend more money on them.

Did NCAA even think this through? I understand the appeal of a scored meet, but why would they not want to also allow qualifying marks from professional meets. I would think it would be good for the NCAA for people to see college athletes competing with the pros, but that won't happen as much anymore if they have to run somewhere else to get qualified.

I seriously question how much the NCAA thinks through. Remember Jared Ward last fall?

Hogtown wrote:

Did NCAA even think this through? I understand the appeal of a scored meet, but why would they not want to also allow qualifying marks from professional meets. I would think it would be good for the NCAA for people to see college athletes competing with the pros, but that won't happen as much anymore if they have to run somewhere else to get qualified.

They should take it even further and ONLY have team scored meets, period. NO timing of anything except for the purpose of determining place/position. Only teams from conference/regionals qualify (like XC) for Nationals. I don't think individuals should qualify for XC either - don't need a "winner", only a first place as it relates to the team.

Secondly, streamline Track to include only these events - 100m, 400m, 1500m, 200mH, HJ, LJ, SP, JT and Multi (made up of these 8 events). All other events are superfluous, boring or redundant - no one cares about distance runners!!

The only meets are those that are scored like dual meets to accumulate points possibly for at-large team qualification (like in XC). No unattached athleetes, or foreign athletes not on eligible teams (like Canadians polluting meets at Notre Dame, etc. - don't they have their owns meets to attend?).

As for post-collegeiates - this should be the responsibility of USATF to organize their own meets, and not leach off the backs of the NCAA. Anyone moron can officiate a meet - get HS volunteers or whomever to help replace USATF officials if necessary. Timing systems no longer necessary because only place counts, easy to address ties, etc. Use a frickin stopwatch as that is good enough to time.

This would be a much better system, and would put track back on the "team is the priority" footing as it should always have been - it is now mostly about the individual and their performance. No wonder no one cares about track, everyone cheats as an individual because there isn't the onus on being part of the team. Shouldn't be any individual awards at all, only team awards.

This is my modest proposal.

wascallywobert wrote:

ugv,

You act like all comers meets are in every town in every city.

I am from Colorado Springs originally, I know of 1 that happens there currently, not including the state games.

I went to college in Utah...all comers currently race at the collegiate meets. USATF is pretty week there. There is an additional state games there as well.

I am currently in Arizona, there are the state games in Phoenix and not much else.

If you live in Cali, sure SD has a bunch of them. The fact of the matter is most of the country does not have the same access to true all comer meets. You ignoring this fact annoys others posting on this thread. I doubt I am the only one.

No, I'm not acting like all comers meets are in every town in every city. Nor am I ignoring any facts causing you to be annoyed. You are annoying yourself. In fact, I have done just the opposite of ignoring facts.

I have repeatedly pointed out that you guys aren't basing your statements on actual facts. You are just saying things. Here, you are doing it again by saying that "most of the country" does not have access to all comers meets. Where are you getting "most" from? Did you actually go through every state and city in the country before you arrived at that statement?

Furthermore, one meet in only the major cities of each state (pretending that your statement is actually true) doesn't sound so bad. So what you have to drive 1-3 hours to get to a meet. How is that any different than what college runners have to do? I see people going to the Stanford Invite from New York, and I see people going to the Penn Relays from California.

If you want to go to an all comers meet, they exist. Stop using these baseless arguments and start using facts.

6/10. Gotta give the devil its due - that was a pretty solid troll job.

Fine, provide me a list of all comers meets as frequent as college meets in all 50 states starting in Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. They should all be within 2 hours driving distance seeing as how I can drive to a major university in that time. Also please make sure the competition is as good as a collegiate meet. Keep in mind Utah and Colorado are distance heavy states so because of higher interest there should be more there than elsewhere. Good luck, let me know when you realize that they don't exist.

Because that's what Champions do.

HardLoper wrote:

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

I think you're giving them too much credit. With the NCAA, stupidity is measured in days(weeks at the most).

To offer some clarification about the proposed rule, this is a proposal that has come from the USATFCC Coaches Association. The intent is to bring back more scored meets, and standardize the meets. It has the potential to get administrative and crowd interest back in the sport, while forcing teams to have complete rosters (not just be a bunch of distance runners going to meets). After the rule has been proposed, the NCAA Track and Field Committees will then vote to approve or deny the rule change. It then goes to the Rules Committee. The sport needs the change.. Those that think that the NCAA is hurting the sport should realize that if it wasn't for sports sponsorship and the funding of CC/T&F championships with March Madness TV money,

the sport would be dead at the college level. Those that feel that the colleges should always include post-collegiate are wrong. Basketball teams don't open their tournaments to non-college teams, but we feel that track teams must or their being disloyal to the sport. That's not true. USATF's job is to take care of the post-collegiate. I've coached high school and college for many years, and I strongly dislike being at a meet for 8 hours with my school, and watching middle-age "sprinters" in speed-suits running 56 for the 400. The NCAA's job is to serve those college programs that sponsor the sport. This proposed rule would help to do just that.

The NCAA won't have any of the big city and big money T&F/XC teams in 2016 after they move onto the Powerful 5. Thus, the USATFCC may have their way. But nobody will care.

NE Coach wrote:

Those that feel that the colleges should always include post-collegiate are wrong. Basketball teams don't open their tournaments to non-college teams, but we feel that track teams must or their being disloyal to the sport. That's not true. USATF's job is to take care of the post-collegiate. I've coached high school and college for many years, and I strongly dislike being at a meet for 8 hours with my school, and watching middle-age "sprinters" in speed-suits running 56 for the 400. The NCAA's job is to serve those college programs that sponsor the sport. This proposed rule would help to do just that.

I've been to a lot of track meets, and I have never been to one where excluding post-collegiate athletes would drastically reduce the length of the meet. Perhaps the meets you attend are different, but based on my experience removing the sprinter you mock would just leave an empty lane in that heat. That doesn't reduce the length of the meet at all. Maybe an unattached guy runs 19 minutes and gets last place in the 5K. Saving two minutes isn't going to get you home appreciably earlier.

Most college meets are currently inundated with post-collegiates. The meets I've been to have only a handful. Note that I'm not referring to big meets like Mt Sac and Penn Relays - those meets are advertised as being for both college and post-collegiate athletes and will not be affected by this proposal.

It seems like you're of the belief that track athletes should be done competing after college. Personally I would have been very disappointed if my racing career had had to end at that point, and I'd be only slightly less disappointed if it effectively died now thanks to this. Where I live there are two "all comers" meets per year - one indoors and one outdoors. The fields at these meets are not competitive, and I do not see myself committing the time to training year round just to compete in them. Please re-think your stance.

Are you kidding me? This is the BEST thing the NCAA has done in 30 years for our sport!

Why should the NCAA subsidize pro-athletes?!

This will force USATF to get to work and establish a meet schedule.

Keep in mind- and this goes for a lot of you- that your wishy-washy ways has more than likely killed the sport- not some bureaucracy!

Yeah...neither do the regional meets or national meets. They can play out of the country at some points in the year. That is also disregarding the inherent differences in the sport that have already been discussed above.

NE Coach wrote:

Basketball teams don't open their tournaments to non-college teams

Why would the scores of these meets matter? If they wouldn't matter, then why would anyone care? And why are you pretending that the 1 middle-aged 400 runner is the problem, when the hundreds of 25.5 200m runners are the ones who eat up hours of time?