although I am not saying that a qualifing meet, a la Ncaa XC, would be the
best solution, it would certainly help some out. Those in the northeast
that don't fly to California (yes I am talking about my team) have trouble
qualifying for Ncaas. Most if not all of our meets come in cold and windy
conditions (can you say miserable?). It is common for the winning times at
our home meets to look like this: 1:54, 3:53, 15:10 (and our team has run
7:20 for 4x800 and 9:33 for DMR over the past two years).
You can bet that if we were running at Stanford our times would be much
faster. When was the last time a 5k went sub 14:00 during the collegiate
season in New England? what about 14:20?
If the Ncaa went to regional meets we would have different dilemmas, but
something has to change.
Dan
>From: "Ed Grant" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Reply-To: "Ed Grant" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: "track net" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: t-and-f: NCAA thiughts
>Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 16:43:20 -0800
>
>Netters:
> The last thing the already tight spring collegiate track and
>field season needs is those projected NCAA regionals. There simply isn't
>room for them on the schedule and there is no need for them either if some
>sensible qualifying marks were established and all subsidies to athletes
>competing eliminated.
>
> As things stand now, schools spend more money chasing qualifying
>times than they receive for their athletes' expenses. The qualifying marks
>are now and always have been ridicuously severe, not only in how strict the
>standards themselves are, but also how narrow the period of qualifying. I
>have, for example, never heard of anything so stupid as not allowing marks
>from any period of the current school year.
>
> The best thing, of course, that could happen would be to divorce
>track from this football, basketball-oriented oligarchy, which while it may
>no longer be the fascist operarion Walter Byers ran, is still, on the
>whole, a dttriment to our sport
>
> If you think that would be difficult, it wouldn't be., All a judge
>would have to hear would be the proaganda the NCAA itself put out in the
>days of war on the AAU when it said, time and agin, that no organization
>should control more than one sport.
>
>
>
> On a happier note, our household had quite a weekend at the
>various NCAA meets with my alma mater having its first qualifier in Div. I
>and my wife's its first champion in Div. III.
>
> Ed Grant
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