One Quick-Fix Solution For The Regionals

[gh]

Eliminate the relays, which will remove 75% of the bitching the coaches have about too much doubling and tripling for their sprinters. One of the major reasons for going to the Regionals system was to promote honest competition during the year, rather than just running for marks. But the one area where there has never been any lack of real competitive running is in the 4x1 and 4x4 (can you say Texas, Penn, Drake, etc., etc.?)

Simply choose the 16 fastest schools after the Conferences weekend and they're in, just like the 10K and multis.

[tafnut]

Re: One Quick-Fix Solution For The Regionals

Plus you cut down on the 'unlucky' baton drops that keep the best teams from the NCAA final. I always thought that really was NOT a function of practice, but just bad karma on meet day. I've seen the best drilled squads come up empty for inexplicable reasons.

[Cooter Brown]

Re: One Quick-Fix Solution For The Regionals

Are there auto qualifiers this year like last year to make sure the top few still make it to nationals? If so, get rid of auto-qualifiers also.

I'd even consider requiring that your conference mark meet the regional standard. All of a sudden, conference & regionals would take on a lot more significance.

[tandfman]

Re: One Quick-Fix Solution For The Regionals

>I'd even consider requiring that your conference mark meet the regional standard.<


Bad idea, considering the possibility of very significant differences in weather on a given day.

[Trackshark]

Re: One Quick-Fix Solution For The Regionals

Case in point was the Miami of Ohio women's 4x100 meter relay. They won the Mid-American Conference title, but was .02 seconds away from the regional qualifying mark. It was raining and very windy during the race and I'm sure they would have hit the mark, perhaps, if the weather was cooperating. Either way, they still qualified for the regional meet since they won the conference title.

[RMc]

Re: One Quick-Fix Solution For The Regionals

>Are there auto qualifiers this year like last year to make sure the top few
>still make it to nationals? If so, get rid of auto-qualifiers also.

I agree that they should be very limited, e.g., top 5 or 3. But we still need to give a free pass to the very top athletes for the season. Even in high schools that use this system, that's the most common complaint, that a top athlete misses out for an odd reason.

I'd
>even consider requiring that your conference mark meet the regional standard.
>All of a sudden, conference & regionals would take on a lot more
>significance.

No, that suppresses one of the great charms of the conference meets--an unknown athlete can put it together on the day of the championship and qualify for the next round no matter what their mark. The conferences should be about winning, not performance. Also, if the regional Qs are tightened up, as suggested elsewhere, than it would be even more difficult to move on from the conferences.

BTW, name the NCAA champ last year who would NOT have qualified for the meet under the old system....