This is to follow up concerns regarding the perceived drop-off in the quality of the list. One of the issues i have as a non-US participant (I reside "down under"), is that track and field is not the major topic of discussion over the period Oct, Nov, Dec etc, as the list gets extremely US-centric and College X-C etc becomes the focus.
I have no particular problem with this, as I accept the majority of list members are interested in these comps. One issue for me (and perhaps others, i don't know), is that i don't actually have a complete grasp on the NCAA system. I don't understand what the purpose of Pre-Nats are - is it just to see the course/opposition or was there some value in performing in terms of qualification? In essence I have a series of questions that i couldn't find answers to very easily on the NCAA/collegerunning sites: 1. How do schools qualify for NCAA champs? 2. How do individuals qualify? 3. What is the role of divisional champs and how come some schools don't have a divisional alignment? 4. How do "at large" quals work? 5. Why are there no rankings/predictions of individuals' race results/rankings similar to the Team rankings? Background to my interest/questions and an example you might use to illustrate your explanation: an old clubmate of mine Marty Fedmowski is at Butler in Indianapolis... they don't seem to be in a conference... but they beat a couple of the ranked schools at Pre-Nats... what do they to qualify And he finished 9th in his Pre-nats Race and probably 25-26th overall... does this make any difference to his chance of running at Champs? Thanks in advance to anyone who can remedy my ignorance/confusion... And maybe this might serve as a reminder that not all on here are from the US and that your systems are far from transparent... (Other topics i might raise in the future include "what the hell is NAIA basketball and why would we see it on cable here?") Oh, and i love GH and Malmo's jokes... they lighten up what can be dreary reading... Thanks, Andre Sammartino A cog in the wheel of the Bayside machine 1999-2000, 2000-1 State League (Men's) Champions "Are you hip to our funky groove?" http://surf.to/bayside
