loudoun valley has 11 boys out of 24 in the state 3200 championship

Most states only allow 2-3 qualifiers per event. I wish our state allowed more than 2 because our team routinely would have at least 5 qualifying in the distance events. We have had 4:20 kids only running a leg on the 4x8 and 9:40 kids sitting in the stands.

Yes. And your son is a cheater for running fast in the B heat.

Congratulations, Coach. The Hunter family ascension has been stunning and fun to watch.

I guess I just don't understand this at all, having grown up in Virginia. Definitely not in the kids' best interest and makes me sad. 4:20 milers definitely belong at the state meet, at least in most states! And if you have a few of those, it seems wrong for them to stay home while slower kids make it. I know you can't completely avoid that when you have regional qualifying meets where place matters (and weak regions vs strong regions) but having a qualifying time evens the field. Our sprinters who wouldn't make it out of a strong sprint region get to go to state on their regional place, and same with distance runners from weak distance regions. I think it's good to have both ways of making it to state- times and regional advancement.

LRC Whiner #4 wrote:

Yes. And your son is a cheater for running fast in the B heat.

So I've been told by folks here on LR. Ah well, it made for an interesting weekend of debate at least!

Most states only allow 2 entrants per school. So if one school in the region has 4 guys who can run 4:20 and the next best kid in the race has a best of 4:30, it is a bad situation that we deal with every year. There ends up being a handful of kids running over 4:30 at state while a 4:18 kid didn’t even get to run at the regional.

I don't think most people are penalizing Loudoun Valley for sending so many kids.

But I am going to continue to penalize the 6-class system. Making it three classifications would not destroy small schools. We have plenty of very small schools in Pennsylvania and only 3 classifications despite 4 million more people. Those schools get by just fine. Qualifying for states isn't the end all, especially for very small schools.

I've also never heard of only letting two per school compete at the state meet. I don't think that's super common. Anyone who runs under the qualifying time should get to run at the state meet.

ThatAverageRunner wrote:

But I am going to continue to penalize the 6-class system. Making it three classifications would not destroy small schools. We have plenty of very small schools in Pennsylvania and only 3 classifications despite 4 million more people. Those schools get by just fine. Qualifying for states isn't the end all, especially for very small schools.

I am not a fan of the 6 class system either. I thought 3 classes was fine, but 4 classes might be better. We have schools with enrollment of 200-300 kids all the way up to schools with 2800 kids. Those little schools definitely need to be in their own classification. As it is now, our largest classification has a fairly large range of enrollments, from about 1900 to 2800. That seems like a wide range to me. I don't know the answer, but 6 classes is too many.

Coach Joan Hunter wrote:

I guess I just don't understand this at all, having grown up in Virginia. Definitely not in the kids' best interest and makes me sad. 4:20 milers definitely belong at the state meet, at least in most states! And if you have a few of those, it seems wrong for them to stay home while slower kids make it. I know you can't completely avoid that when you have regional qualifying meets where place matters (and weak regions vs strong regions) but having a qualifying time evens the field. Our sprinters who wouldn't make it out of a strong sprint region get to go to state on their regional place, and same with distance runners from weak distance regions. I think it's good to have both ways of making it to state- times and regional advancement.

appreciate your opinion Ms. Hunter, love your son Drew as well. You guys play within the rules so its fair play. coming from illinois, i just find it crazy to have so many divisions though and the diluted talent. we used to have only 2 divisions and then they switched to 3. but only 2 individuals can make it per event at the state meet,so it just seemed ludicris to me that you guys had 11 out of 24 spots of the 3200 lol

Back in the day their was only 3 divisions and top 6 from each region went to state.

Not sure why they have 11 in state final as it must be time based which is unfair. My regional race was on a 11 lap per 1600m track. I mean the Ashe Center wasn't the fastest.

It seems that with the 5 divisions everyone is a state champion which is great I guess. I loved the fact that I came from a small school and beat all the northern VA schools at their best back in the day. Champions are everywhere!

Coach Joan Hunter wrote:

We had 15 boys run 10:01 or faster indoors this season. They met the 4A state qualifying time which was 10:02 . In Virginia, if you meet the qualifying standard, or place top 3 at regionals, you qualify for state. Should I have left some at home simply because we had so many qualify and it might be 'unfair' to other teams? I'm glad our state allows kids to make it by the stopwatch and not just place at regionals.

Back in the day it was top 6 from the 4 regions but there was also only A AA and AAA. Wow 15 runners under 10:01 is a great achievement! Obviously a culture has been established.

Now here is an interesting stat for those that might find interesting. In 1987 in indoor state championships 1600m a runner in the B section won the state title by running a solo 4:19! Barry Maroney from Richmond I think Clover Hill High School!

oldstatechampionofVA wrote:

Back in the day their was only 3 divisions and top 6 from each region went to state.

Not sure why they have 11 in state final as it must be time based which is unfair. My regional race was on a 11 lap per 1600m track. I mean the Ashe Center wasn't the fastest.

It seems that with the 5 divisions everyone is a state champion which is great I guess. I loved the fact that I came from a small school and beat all the northern VA schools at their best back in the day. Champions are everywhere!

Why is time based unfair?

Even as far back as the 80's your coach could taken you to a FAT timed meet and you could have qualified by hitting the time standard; even by running outdoors counted and still does. It's winter track.

BTW there are 6 divisions vs 5.

Most states only allow 2-3 qualifiers per school and it isn’t based on time so if you run 4:10 but are sick on the day of the qualifying meet, you are out. Illinois has 12 milliion people and only 3 divisions. They only allow 2 competitors. In 2016, Sandburg had 1600 times 4:03, 4:05, 4:15, 4:16, 4:20. Only 2 of those guys could compete at state in the 1600.

In North Carolina, to address the issue of big spreads in enrollment within the four classifications, instead of putting 25% in each classification, 20% to 1A, 30% to 2A, 30% to 3A, and 20% to 4A.

OK, please tell us how many states do it this way and how many have time based qualification? I don't truly know how "most states" do it. VA used to do it by limited qualifiers, now they do it by time. (I am aware that some states have a hybrid system and use both).

2-3 typical wrote:

Most states only allow 2-3 qualifiers per school and it isn’t based on time so if you run 4:10 but are sick on the day of the qualifying meet, you are out.

Coach Joan Hunter wrote:

We had 15 boys run 10:01 or faster indoors this season. They met the 4A state qualifying time which was 10:02 . In Virginia, if you meet the qualifying standard, or place top 3 at regionals, you qualify for state. Should I have left some at home simply because we had so many qualify and it might be 'unfair' to other teams? I'm glad our state allows kids to make it by the stopwatch and not just place at regionals.

Its definitely fair under the current rules. VA needs fewer divisions, like 3 max, but one would be better, a true state meet. Then the time standard could be dropped to something respectable.

In GA when I first started running there were 5 classifications. Top 2 at region went to state. I remember 3 guys going 9:20 at region and one being left out. (Erassa)

Fast forward to my senior year and there is 5 classifications and top 4 go to sectionals then top 8 at sectionals go to state. I thought that change would be easy for me to qualify and it turned out to be way harder than the previous 2 qualifier system. The state meet truly had the top 16 runners and the talent level was evenly spread throughout the classes. 5a was almost always the most competitive race and 2a was the slowest race.

Fast forward to present time in GA I believe they have a 1a Private, 1a Public, 2a,3a,4a,5a,6a,7a. It definitely dillutes the state meet competition level in my opinion. I was ranked 8th and 10th my jr/sr years in hs. If I go look at milesplit now with the new classifications I would have been state runner up my junior year and 4th my senior year. There are definitely worse states than VA in my opinion.

Coach Joan Hunter wrote:

We had 15 boys run 10:01 or faster indoors this season. They met the 4A state qualifying time which was 10:02 . In Virginia, if you meet the qualifying standard, or place top 3 at regionals, you qualify for state. Should I have left some at home simply because we had so many qualify and it might be 'unfair' to other teams? I'm glad our state allows kids to make it by the stopwatch and not just place at regionals.

51 men ran in the qualifying rounds of the 5k for the Rio olympics

each country could only bring a maximum of 3 competitors

if time was the only qualifying standard with no qualifying meet or limit to how many athletes can be from 1 country, Kenya would have sent 17 men for the 5k and Ethiopia would have sent 12, based on the world leaders list for that season