All Relays to Be Taken Out of the NCAA Championships!

[cands1]

cands1:

The conference meets that you are talking about taking place that early do not apply to all of the country. The timing of those meets would be fine up here -- if they were held indoors. Adding the regionals has had the result of cutting some of the few general meets that are help up north.

Hey Dr. Marathon,

I looked at the current calendar and can't find what you're referring to. The big four conferences are all on the same weekend of April 13-15 and this is the latest date that conference championships take place (that qualifies four teams) and the regionals are all on the same weekend of May 27/28 (these also qualify four teams.) It seems like this system actually helps teams from smaller conferences who compete earlier by allowing them more preperation time.

But maybe I missed your point. Perhaps you could provide an example of where this doesn't work.

[26mi235]

cands1:

The conference meets that you are talking about taking place that early do not apply to all of the country. The timing of those meets would be fine up here -- if they were held indoors. Adding the regionals has had the result of cutting some of the few general meets that are help up north.

Hey Dr. Marathon,

I looked at the current calendar and can't find what you're referring to. The big four conferences are all on the same weekend of April 13-15 and this is the latest date that conference championships take place (that qualifies four teams) and the regionals are all on the same weekend of May 27/28 (these also qualify four teams.) It seems like this system actually helps teams from smaller conferences who compete earlier by allowing them more preperation time.

But maybe I missed your point. Perhaps you could provide an example of where this doesn't work.

What I am referring to is that the Big Ten outdoor meet is in the latter part of May and cannot easily be sooner. April meets up here are really to early to count on good weather. There are some big HS April (albeit early April) meets that are indoors, and Michigan just had a big indoor HS meet. Sorry if I was not very clear (and I am really fatigued right now, taking a break before doing one last hard thinking task).

[mcgato]

When I read the editorial in TFN, I thought that gh was daft. I am not immersed in college track and field, but my points on the subject would be:
--top teams in NCAA get there by having a number of athletes who score in more than one event. Distance runners doubling or tripling, most jumpers do two or three of the jumping events, hurdlers sprinting, etc. There may be specialist teams, but they typically aren't high on the team list.
--who is stockpiling specialists for relays? The only ones I can think of are Baylor in the 4x4 and maybe TCU in the 4x1. And Baylor has such a woeful history of producing top 400 men.
--where are the deserving field eventers who don't get scholarships? The only event that may get shorted due to its overly specific nature would be the pole vault, but I see tons of them getting recruited. I could probably argue that there are more scholarships available in the NCAA than there are deserving (and willing) American athletes.

[tlb747]

Answer: just ONCE, in 2001, Tennessee was tied with TCU at 49 points with the 4x4 left. TCU had no 4x4 team in the final so all Tennessee had to do was carry the stick around four times, which is what they did, taking last place in order to receive the coveted one point. Where's the excitement in that?

If only Kim Collins would not had FS'd in the 200m finals.

[Quarter Horse]

Besides, I like when a track meet comes down to the 4x400m to see who wins the Team or meet title. That's when we see some our best 4x400m performances.

Then you must HATE the current set up.

Going back to 1992 on the men's side (as far back as I have records) how many times has the 4x4 decided the team title at the NCAA meet?

Answer: just ONCE, in 2001, Tennessee was tied with TCU at 49 points with the 4x4 left. TCU had no 4x4 team in the final so all Tennessee had to do was carry the stick around four times, which is what they did, taking last place in order to receive the coveted one point. Where's the excitement in that?

In fact if it's head-to-head competitiion that gets you excited, in the 2005 NCAA meet Arkansas ( who took 1st) faced Florida (who took 2nd) in only 3 event finals (out of 21) – the 200m, 1500m, and 4x100m;

In the 2004 Men’s Outdoor: Arkansas (1st) faced Florida (2nd) in only 2 event finals (out of 21) – 110m Hurdles and 4x100m.

That's why it's better to move this relay to a real team competition and reduce the incentive to stock up on 400m specialists to the detriment of field eventers.

OK, I understand your argument for a NCAA team meet and you have some very good points, but why sacrafice the number of scholarships a team can put into a specific event? Let's keep in mind that the current WR holder in the 400m and 200m (some guy name Michael Johnson) was a relay guy while in college. Had Baylor not been putting so many scholarships into the sprints, MJ may not have gone to Baylor and developed into one of the biggest names in our sport (and the same can be said for a number of distance based programs). Now don't get me wrong, I love a good team competition...but not as much as I love to see individuals given the opportunity to develop and grow into elite athletes. Now if the college system wasn't our only system to develop elite athletes, I would feel much differently.

My question is, if there are programs out there like Baylor and Stanford that put a majority of their scholarships into sprints and distance, why aren't there programs out there that put a majority of their scholarships into field events?

[gh]

My question is, if there are programs out there like Baylor and Stanford that put a majority of their scholarships into sprints and distance, why aren't there programs out there that put a majority of their scholarships into field events?

Because the coach only has a dozen scholarships. Faced with the choice of a high jumper who can compete only in the high jump, or with a sprinter who can run teh 100, 200, 4x1 and 4x4, or a distance guy who can do teh steeple/5/10, which way would you go?

[Quarter Horse]

My question is, if there are programs out there like Baylor and Stanford that put a majority of their scholarships into sprints and distance, why aren't there programs out there that put a majority of their scholarships into field events?

Because the coach only has a dozen scholarships. Faced with the choice of a high jumper who can compete only in the high jump, or with a sprinter who can run teh 100, 200, 4x1 and 4x4, or a distance guy who can do teh steeple/5/10, which way would you go?

Well it would depend on where my strengths are as a coach/coaching staff. If I have great field event coaches who are constantly developing athletes who are scoring points at Conference, NCAA Championships, and going on to break records and win medals as elite athletes, then I keep putting scholarships into the field events. Now if the athletic director approached me and stated that our approach as a University is to evenly distribute our scholarships to all events so that we could win some titles, then I would have to change my approach.

[Trackshark]

One program that comes to mind in the field events is Virginia Tech. Not one male posted an NCAA Regional Qualifying mark outside of the field events last year. Here were their 2005 regular season rankings, athletes and events who qualified:

14 Brian Mondschein 5.35m PV
71 Adam Bingaman 5.05m PV

70 Jason Fludd 15.18m TJ
80 Idikoro Eradiri 15.14m TJ

13 Sven Hahn 19.16m SP
27 Ryan Norwood 18.52m SP

14 Sven Hahn 57.76m DT

1 Spyridon Jullien 72.68m HT

4 Jacobus Smit 74.00m JT


They also added Mohsen Anani and Matej Muza this year in the hammer throw.

Virginia Tech scored 21 points at the 2005 NCAA Outdoor meet last year and finished 13th overall and finished 6th at the 2005 ACC Outdoor Championships.