Redshirting while running one meet

I know that you can redshirt even if you run a meet (or maybe two), but I am under the impression that this meet has to be very early in the season. No bringing someone out for districts to keep a top guy fresh for nats!

If you really are a D-I coach, you should not be coming to this board for advice with NCAA rules. Doesn't your school have a compliance officer? How about a handbook with the NCAA rules? Would you really take the advice of an anonymous poster (myself included) on here that could jeopardize an athlete's eligibility?

Of course, someone on here could point you to specific rule someplace online, but my suggestion would be to use the advanced search on google.com and search the ncaa.org site.

Calm down, CarlC. I happen to know that you can redshirt anyone as long as they don't run the National Meet... No worries, Dude!

The best advice is in fact to go to your compliance officer. Do you really want to put your athletes at the mercy of the people on this board?! Yes it is possible to redshirt if you compete in less than a specific % of competitions, BUT it has to be for medical hardship reasons. That is not to say that everyone who has redshirted after competing has in fact been injured; just that the rules require a hardship waiver (which as you can imagine are sought and granted at different rates across institutions).

just a follow-up to your question. Go to rule 14.2.3 in the NCAA manual:

"Any competition (including a scrimmage with outside competition) regardless of time, durin a season in an intercollegiate sport shall be counted as a SEASON OF COMPETITION in that sport" (Cap.s added)

section 14.2.4 then provides the hardship waiver, which basically states the an incapacitating injury or illness has to occur prior to the completion of the first half of the season, the athlete has completed in less than 20% of competitions. There are 9 separate criteria employed in administering the waiver, which is granted through the institutions conference.

There, much more than anyone really wanted to know, but I'm bored (and didn't want to see misinformation spread).

Thanks for putting the rule up since I would have done the same thing. This rule is the most ignored one on the books for cc & track. Redshirting and hardship is not the same thing but so many coaches think it is. Redshirting means that an athlete can't compete at all. The real issue is that if some other coach can prove that you ignore this rule then your athlete will forfeit the year of eligibility and you might forfeit your job for violating NCAA rules. The NCAA generally rules that if there is a competitive advantage gained it is then a major violation. And running a athlete in a meet or two, and then trying to say they were injured is indeed trying to gain a competitive advantage.

Good rule of thumb - don't try to run your athlete in one race - the price you will pay is high (I could put some names on here of coaches who tried and lost their jobs but that wouldn't be very kind).

If the athlete run in a meet, he can "redshirt" for an injury only, serious injury. But it's not actually redshirting, it called medical hardship or something. To get the medical hardship the athlete has to have competed in less than 10% or so of the competions and NO chapionship competitions (e.g. conference, regions, nats).