geographical advantages in the NCAA [split]

[7-sided]

I agree with 4 for the most part (and FWIW gh, I'm not a sunbelt alum; ...Northeast).

This has more to do with ability than access; pretending that these "northern" schools don't have the climate and that they don't have the budget to go to races is just not true. Why? Because all of these schools seem to find a way to get to Stanford to run in the big distance races - and this is while the regionals format exists! (I'm sure that Oregon will be the next "big" distance corridor; I remember when Penn was the "it" distance race ...). Plus, the indoor facilities in the north (Notre Dame, Penn State;...NC's were held at the Carrier dome) can be described as an advantage that didn't exist before the most recent 'arms race' for BCS schools to have indoor facilities - for football.

Which brings us to ability. It really is a function of the mentality of distance-minded coaches, who tend to head northern programs. In a word: horrible; in two words; they suck! These coaches have biases against the field events, the throws, and the sprints - by throwing scholarship money at UNQUALIFIED (for an athletic scholarship) "distance runners"; they have this dream of producing the next PRE using training methods that have produced few exceptional marks, yet feel that they have a right to be at nationals. Wrong! They need to coach their athletes better and stop making excuses.

As someone who never went to a BCS school, I sincerely wish that the BCS schools would pull out of the NCAA's and run their own "Final Four" and other championships. Let the college presidents from schools that don't generate revenue make their own rules and have their own championships. But, the regional system should be disbanded for a strict performance list with zero allowances for "conference champions".

[donley2]

Whats been completely left out of this discussion is the issue of who is really ready to compete well at the end of the season. With the pure descending order lists people could put up a big mark early and be toast by the end of the year. Conversely those that were just rounding into shape (due to injury or whatever) at the end of the year often got left out. The four regionals forced people to be ready to perform at the end of the year. I would strongly contend that we ended up with a more competitive nationals field with the 4 regionals system (as it was done the last couple years). Two regionals is a total disaster for everyone as far as I am concerned.

[HigherEd]

are these all?

I did a google search for sunbelt states and this is what was listed in Wikpedia as the sunbelt states. Is this list what people would consider sunbelt?



Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Arkansas, Colorado, Utah, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Nevada, New Mexico, Tennessee, Texas, North Carolina and South Carolina.

[26mi235]

Re: are these all?

I did a google search for sunbelt states and this is what was listed in Wikpedia as the sunbelt states. Is this list what people would consider sunbelt?



Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Arkansas, Colorado, Utah, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Nevada, New Mexico, Tennessee, Texas, North Carolina and South Carolina.

Those mountain states are not 'Sunbelt' in my notion of the term.

[gh]

Nevada and Arizona need to be split in the middle because of altitude. While Las Vegas could be considered sun, Reno certainly wouldn't be. Similarly Phoenix/Tucson aren't on the same planet as Flagstaff, for example. So in a track sense, a whole-state model would be flawed.

[dj]

Re: are these all?

I did a google search for sunbelt states and this is what was listed in Wikpedia as the sunbelt states. Is this list what people would consider sunbelt?



Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Arkansas, Colorado, Utah, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Nevada, New Mexico, Tennessee, Texas, North Carolina and South Carolina.

I checked the wiki site (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Belt), and my feel for the Sun Belt follows their map, which cuts California and Nevada in half and excludes Utah, Colorado, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina.

I'd suggest that if one were to include the entire states of AZ, NM and TX, then it's only fair to draw the 37th parallel eastward from AZ and NM and include Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee and the Carolinas. And that excludes most of Nevada and all of Utah and Colorado.

[gh]

A lot of depends on a track sense vs. a geographic sense. I don't know where wiki cuts California "in half," but there's no Div. I school in California that everybody in the Big 10 or northern half of the Pac-10 wouldn't consider Sun Belt.