geographical advantages in the NCAA [split]

[Cooter Brown]

The problem with the strict descending order list is the same one as the current, new regional system - no protection or meaning at all for the conference meets.

Take the top 16 to nationals based on the average of your best 3 marks - with one being your conference mark and at least one of the other two being away from your home track and homer officials.

[gh]

Problem with all descending order lists is the nature of track & field and its relation to weather. Schools in Sun Belt states and schools with enough money to travel to advantageous sites have an unfair advantage.

Going to average of 3 marks would only make it worse.

What I think would help a little--if you really wanted to go by lists--would be to go back to allowing indoor marks to be part of the equation.

[4hurdles]

unfair advantage?

There is a difference between fair and equal. It is not unfair that some schools are situated in better environments or have more money. It is just unequal. Kids choose what school to attend with free will. If they choose a school in Maine with minimal resources, then that is their choice. They can't then complain that they don't have what the Univeristy of Florida has. If they want that, they should have attended UF.

Same goes for coaches. You know where you work and what you have. If you don't like it, then find a new situation.

There is no perfect system. Someone will always be pissed. Some kid somewhere will always be left out.

The smaller and less competitive schools complain they want to be included. The big schools complain they don't want to have to earn it on the day if they have been good all year.

Some people like the US Olympic Trials, some people don't.

What I do know is that the good coaches and good recruiters will evaluate the situation and will find a way to be successful.

[4hurdles]

I though kids choose school based on alot more factors than just where they want to go. Yea Florida may have more resources than Maine, but If they aren't offered enough money and cant afford to go there, how is that their fault?

That is really your logic? So Florida has to offer big scholarships to all athletes so that track and field can be fair? And the NCAA Championships should be open to everyone regardless of talent?

It is their "fault" because they aren't good enough to get a big scholarship at a better school. They choose to take the big scholarship at a weaker performing lesser resourced school. And with that and every choice also comes consequences.

By and large the talent rises to the top, just as it will in any NCAA Championship qualifying scenario.

[gh]

oh hell, i screwed this up in trying to split the thread. All these had to be hand pasted here, sorry about that:

26mi235
Posted: 24 Sep 2009 06:44 Post subject:
4hurdles wrote:
Quote:
I though kids choose school based on alot more factors than just where they want to go. Yea Florida may have more resources than Maine, but If they aren't offered enough money and cant afford to go there, how is that their fault?


That is really your logic? So Florida has to offer big scholarships to all athletes so that track and field can be fair? And the NCAA Championships should be open to everyone regardless of talent?

It is their "fault" because they aren't good enough to get a big scholarship at a better school. They choose to take the big scholarship at a weaker performing lesser resourced school. And with that and every choice also comes consequences.

By and large the talent rises to the top, just as it will in any NCAA Championship qualifying scenario.


So, if you are not from in California you have an equal opportunity to be a low-cost partial scholarship T&F athlete there as someone who is? The differential funding of universities etc make a difference. Northwestern does not even bother to compete in XC T&F even for women because they cannot compete with the other schools in the conference with the walk-ons and partial scholarships. Explain how your position addresses these issues. Having a system that does not exacerbate them is not a bad way to go for the sport.


4hurdles
Posted: 24 Sep 2009 10:56 Post subject:
because is is SPORT. there are winners and losers. there is competition. not everyone gets a trophy and a pizza party in the end.

if the NCAAs were held on a farm in west Kansas with races run down a dirt road and field events held in a barn, the LSUs, TX A&MS, FSUs would still find a way to rise to the top.

if a school with few resources wants to make a dent, then they must COMPETE for the best recruits, and create results consistently. that is the solution.

Every team that is in division 1 starts the process with the same rules and same chances for success. the best programs create and maximize resources.


ATK
Posted: 24 Sep 2009 11:07 Post subject:
4hurdles wrote:

Every team that is in division 1 starts the process with the same rules and same chances for success. the best programs create and maximize resources.


You just contradicted what you said before. Schools definitely get an upper hand depending on their location. If each school had the same budget, and spent it on the exact same things, no matter what LSU is gonna have the upper hand against Maine just because of their location...


gh
Posted: 24 Sep 2009 11:32 Post subject:
As anybody who has ever lived close to the Canadian border can tell you.


4hurdles
Posted: 24 Sep 2009 11:35 Post subject:
nope, no contradiction. everey choice has its consequence. if you choose Maine, you choose cold, and you knew that during the decision process.

just like in cross country, the south gets the fewest teams to NCAAs each year because they don't have as many good teams. Why? Because good distance runners know to choose a climate that will enhance success.

Would it be prudent for the NCAA to mandate that warmer weather schools get some kind of extra enhancement to ensure they can participate in the skiing and hockey championships?

So once we legistlate fairness with weather conditions, then what? "Wait a minute, their school has more budget money then we do, that's not fair." Ok so we legislate budget sizes, then what? "Wait a minute, your coach is a better recruiter than our coach, that's not fair." etc, etc, etc,


ATK
Posted: 24 Sep 2009 12:28 Post subject:
4hurdles wrote:
nope, no contradiction. everey choice has its consequence. if you choose Maine, you choose cold, and you knew that during the decision process.


Like I said before, you cant just say, "Oh I wanna go to LSU" and your guaranteed to go. Yes you can apply there, but it is the schools decision to have you run with them or not...

[lonewolf]

I think I just posted on the NCAA thread that belongs here.

[4hurdles]

ATK, you make my point for me. you don't just get to go to LSU because you want to, and you don't just get to go to the ncaa championships because you want to. both have to be earned by being amongst the best.

[26mi235]

4:

Your underlying starting point is flawed. People start in locations that place them at a disadvantage [for the same given talent, drive etc]. This disadvantage makes it harder to go to various places, especially those outside the sate that they are in.

We do not have to adopt a system that exacerbates the advantages and disadvantages of that system. Further, we do not have to let a (small) subset of schools dictate what the rules will be just because those schools have more 'BCS' clout. Reiterating what you have said before does not address these issues, although honing your writing might help some.

[4hurdles]

I didn't know I was such a bad writer. I am sorry. Even though I wanted to go to an Ivy League school, I just wasn't good enough. Or maybe the system is just unfair to me? I guess I should blame my public elementary school and the teachers I had. Or perhaps I should blame the genes I was given by my parents. It is just not fair to me that other kids got to go to private schools and had smarter parents

After all, I swear I have the same drive to write well as the English majors at Harvard. Damn that school for taking the kids with the 1600 SATs over my 1040.

Forget that I went to school for 12 years like everyone else, and forget that there was a standardized test that I was inferior in. Certainly there must be some way to create a system that would allow even me to go to Harvard because I really want to go. Oh yes, I don't want to pay for it either.

[26mi235]

I didn't know I was such a bad writer..

I owe you a bit of an apology on that one; there were a couple of posts by you and then a pasted post by gh that included multiple posts, many by you, that I thought was a long, confusing post by you. [Computer problems have limited me to quick peeks at threads that I make when the opportunity arises and it leads to a bit of disjointed reading.]

[ATK]

ATK, you make my point for me. you don't just get to go to LSU because you want to, and you don't just get to go to the ncaa championships because you want to. both have to be earned by being amongst the best.

Im so confused as how you don't understand this simple logic...You make it seem as if everyone who ever wanted to go to a top athletics school has the same opportunity to from the day they were born....

as 26mi235 said

People start in locations that place them at a disadvantage [for the same given talent, drive etc]. This disadvantage makes it harder to go to various places, especially those outside the sate that they are in.

[gh]

I though kids choose school based on alot more factors than just where they want to go. Yea Florida may have more resources than Maine, but If they aren't offered enough money and cant afford to go there, how is that their fault?

That is really your logic? So Florida has to offer big scholarships to all athletes so that track and field can be fair? And the NCAA Championships should be open to everyone regardless of talent?

It is their "fault" because they aren't good enough to get a big scholarship at a better school. They choose to take the big scholarship at a weaker performing lesser resourced school. And with that and every choice also comes consequences.

By and large the talent rises to the top, just as it will in any NCAA Championship qualifying scenario.

I have no idea where you live/hold "allegiance" to, but if you can convince me you're not in a Sun Belt state and/or at a powerhouse, I'll find your arguments more solid.

[4hurdles]

one of the ten smallest division 1 schools in the country. but in the south.

and in fact i do believe everyone has the same opportunity at birth. i don't believe everyone does or should have the same opportunity after high school performaces are evaluated by those whose profession it is to evaluate them.

[KevinM]

I know I asked this in the past, and I don't recall if I got a solid answer, but is there any evidence that:

a) The regional system ended up with more non-Sun Belt athletes at the national meet (or, in that specific year, athletes who wouldn't have gone off the descending order list anyway); or

b) More small-school athletes at the national meet

It seems to me that many of the arguments on both sides, but particularly for the regional system, are WAGs. Certainly information from the 7 years of regional competition paired with pre-2003 nationals fields has been compiled. Does anyone have access to such? "Higher Ed"?

[HigherEd]

what defines SunBelt

I know that in the past the question of SunBelt vs. North has been discussed. The problem is what does one consider SunBelt these days? Is Missouri a SunBelt state? Is Tennessee? We would have to figure out what states are actually SunBelt before we tried to look at numbers. I guess anyone could get the past NCAA results and do that.