geographical advantages in the NCAA [split]

[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.

[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]

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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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".

[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.

[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"?

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.]

[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]

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.