The NAIA decided to invent a new “No Watches” rule at the coaches meeting the day before the competition, then proceeded to DQ the top women’s DMR in the preliminary round.
I personally have absolutely no stock in the decision, but it just goes to show how completely incompetent they are at nearly everything.
NAIA’s time standards for nationals were shocking. Looks like a lot of schools have left that organization. Not a lot of depth or fast times.
Not sure why you would need a watch in a DMR race but still a strange rule.
Come on man wrote:
NAIA’s time standards for nationals were shocking. Looks like a lot of schools have left that organization. Not a lot of depth or fast times.
Not sure why you would need a watch in a DMR race but still a strange rule.
You don't need a watch. But most distance runners just leave a watch on all the time.
I was curious about this so I checked - this is in writing nowhere, as the NAIA uses NCAA rules, which ban only smartwatches. The NAIA reserves the right to make exceptions to the NCAA rule but you'd think it's in writing somewhere. Only mentioned very briefly at the coaches meeting the day before. Not enforced at our conference meet or any other meet this season. And I saw other athletes wearing them during the championship meet yesterday.
NAIA continues to be a joke in its unprofessionalism/lack of effort.
They didn't invent a new rule they just got lazy in the implementation of the NCAA rule. Instead of checking everyone's watch to see if they were smartwatches they decided to say no watches. The school in question that got DQed just had their head coach fired right before Nationals. so they have other things on their mind other than "did I take my watch off". Unfortunate situation for them.
Leave it to the NAIA to enact a rule that is absolutely pointless. The sooner the NAIA goes away the better.
Flying Faster wrote:
Leave it to the NAIA to enact a rule that is absolutely pointless. The sooner the NAIA goes away the better.
The NAIA is dying, but not many schools will leave that organization over a dumb rule. This isn't a big deal in track, even for distance guys, but for xc this rule would be terrible.