Pat Henry thinks destroying the Penn and Drake Relays is good for the sport - what say you?

Each April, if you fly your team into John Wayne/Santa Ana airport and setup a

team HQ nearby, you can take the freeway to these relays/meetings: SCIAC Open, CA College, Legends, Big West Challenge, Cerritos Inv, RJ-JJK, PP Inv, Mt Sac, Twilight, PC Inv, APU Inv, Bryan Clay, Beach, Jim Bush, SCIAC Champs, Triton, Highlander, Steve Scott, USC-UCLA Dual. Could be more but that's all I can think of.

Eventually wrote:

"Penn may not be ideal for running fast but it's an event like the Belmont Stakes or Kentucky Derby."

When there's gambling, booze, bands playing in the infield, and chicks flashing, then it'll be an event.

You obviously haven't been in the stands at Penn on a Saturday. All of the above, plus drumming and a cloud of smoke from the Jamaican fans.

Ya, Mon!

There is also a significant amount of gambling, if you know where to look.

I've been saying this for years. Bring people together for some good competition and real spectator, participatory fun. People want to be engaged at.their leisure not sit around all day bored out of their skull waiting for something interesting to happen. Revolving gate policy. The fan zone could be a huge event bringing in a lot of money and additional interest.

I don't think anyone thinks Pat Henry's idea to run an SEC relay meet is a bad idea. But I think most people agree it's terrible to put that meet on the same weekend as Penn. we will neve have a perfect sport but Penn is one of the few meets that gets respect from non track media.

Why challenge that? What's his real purpose? Has he not won at Penn recently? Didn't he used to get a ton of Jamaicans at LSU? Does he not at A&M?

Let's just continue shoot ourselves in the foot. Great job track and field.

perspectivator wrote:

??!! wrote:

Haven't you realized yet that Pat Henry and several others in the SEC care nothing about the sport. Nothing! They have an agenda that kills the best meets that track has remaining. Those dinosaurs need to go so that track will have a chance.

penn and drake are the dinosaurs; overbuilt monstrosities living on high school relays and a few side shows like The Used to be v the World's margninals

this was true even in the 90's. Stanford was already becoming the place for good performances. Even Mt Sac has become a bloated con meet draining resources from mid major schools in the hopes of qualifying times.

Meets need to be regional and conference driven with NCAA the culmination of all areas coming together.

The NCAA is not track and field. It's a small piece of everything that rack is. Conferences are killing the true spirit of college football. Please don't let them do that to track. Saw some teams win COA at Penn. None of them looked annoyed at meet management.

Spring Thaw in Hollywood wrote:

Each April, if you fly your team into John Wayne/Santa Ana airport and setup a

team HQ nearby, you can take the freeway to these relays/meetings: SCIAC Open, CA College, Legends, Big West Challenge, Cerritos Inv, RJ-JJK, PP Inv, Mt Sac, Twilight, PC Inv, APU Inv, Bryan Clay, Beach, Jim Bush, SCIAC Champs, Triton, Highlander, Steve Scott, USC-UCLA Dual. Could be more but that's all I can think of.

well there is no "THAW" here

we train outdoors ALL YEAR AROUND 365 DAZE A YEAR

Carlsbad 5K

plus hundreds of funruns, marathons, tris, hs meets, masters meets, Youth meets, special Olys, ...................

Jersey Shore wrote:

The NCAA is not track and field. It's a small piece of everything that rack is. Conferences are killing the true spirit of college football. Please don't let them do that to track. Saw some teams win COA at Penn. None of them looked annoyed at meet management.

Big surprise that they didn't look annoyed at meet management when holding up an extremely prestigious trophy that many dream to win (including myself).

If Penn wanted these top college teams then they would accommodate them and address the issues the coaches have with the meet management and logistics. But again, it's about the high schools and pros. As much as I hated the click-bait headline based off a coach trying to promote a competition, I do think Penn would have been epic this year if the SEC schools went.

An idea I had: How cool would it be if there was a meet at the beginning of the outdoor season that consisted of the top 5 or 6 schools to last win an NCAA outdoor championship? For the men it would be Florida, Oregon, Texas A&M, Florida State, Arkansas, LSU. Women would be Arkansas, Oregon, Texas A&M, Kansas, LSU, and Arizona State. If the teams brought their typical "travel squad", I think it would be a great competition. Team scoring is a must in track. Too many meets without that team scoring aspect is what makes our sport seem so individual on the collegiate level.

So that meet you propose is better than the Penn Relays? Would it attract 50,000 people? Would excite every level of track and field, not just 5 NCAA schools?

Jersey Shore wrote:

So that meet you propose is better than the Penn Relays? Would it attract 50,000 people? Would excite every level of track and field, not just 5 NCAA schools?

Few things wrong here. You question if it would be better than Penn Relays. When I'm not arguing that. If that's your first thought to an idea of a good track meet then your list of good track meets must be short. Does it need to attract 50,000 people? You missed the part where I proposed it could be an early season meet. Not conflicting with Penn Relays at all. And I seriously doubt a meet like that would only interest the schools involved. You tried though!

Read the subject of thread then start a thread that doesn't involve anything in the subject.

Jersey Shore wrote:

The NCAA is not track and field. It's a small piece of everything that rack is. Conferences are killing the true spirit of college football. Please don't let them do that to track. Saw some teams win COA at Penn. None of them looked annoyed at meet management.

dude when i say ncaa im refering to the ncaa meet at the end of the year. if you are so literal then you aren't even comprehending the post you are just reading words. college football is bigger than it has ever been.

What's the point of two conference championships? Conference competition is merely a warm up for national competition. No one really cares about ict. The teams keep changing also. It's meaningless and not historicaly relevent. No one remembers conference champions. There's no history or tradition. The Penn relays is one of the best meets on the calendar.

Dazed & Confused wrote:

Jersey Shore wrote:

So that meet you propose is better than the Penn Relays? Would it attract 50,000 people? Would excite every level of track and field, not just 5 NCAA schools?

Few things wrong here. You question if it would be better than Penn Relays. When I'm not arguing that. If that's your first thought to an idea of a good track meet then your list of good track meets must be short. Does it need to attract 50,000 people? You missed the part where I proposed it could be an early season meet. Not conflicting with Penn Relays at all. And I seriously doubt a meet like that would only interest the schools involved. You tried though!

The penn relays are a scam that had a monopoly for a long time. Eat sht. I hope they go bankrupt. Go aggies

Go build a bonfire loser

Eventually wrote:

"Penn may not be ideal for running fast but it's an event like the Belmont Stakes or Kentucky Derby."

When there's gambling, booze, bands playing in the infield, and chicks flashing, then it'll be an event.

This is exactly what track needs.

There was no rivalry between NON-South Western spring training meets (aka

"relays") until Y2K when the internet came into our lives. Before the

internet, high schools, colleges, and elites entered a couple regional/local

relays, spent a few weekends at Mt Sac, Long Beach, and related overflow relays. I wish people would chill and appreciate the sport rather than engage in petty rivalries

Penn Relays are a great meet with many very good teams in attendance. The meet is successful largely due to the efforts of many volunteers. Hold your own meet if you want but impotent efforts to detract from the success of the Penn Relays are futile.