> In a message dated Fri, 4 Jan 2002 6:23:20 PM Eastern Standard Time, Ed and Dana Parrot <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > >.... Ideally what I'd like to see is this: > > 1.A series of "local" meets, possibly 57 of them, hosted by the USATF associations. .... > > 2. Six regional meets, 2 weeks before nationals. > > 3. Nationals. 18 athletes come from regional meets - top 3 from each. The rest of the field is filled based on performance> > gh wrote: > I can really see the value in such a system, but unless you can convince the powers that be to make the Nationals >later (as they should be!) (and as the Oly Trials prove they can be) I don't see it working. Just too much clog on the >schedule earlier.
Amen to that. No way this works with a meet that's before the second or third week of July. Although, in the rosiest of visions, collegiate athletes become a less significant part of the meet as more opportunities and support open up for post-collegiate athletes. And I could see some mechanism to advance NCAA Div I top 5 or top 8 directly to regionals, saving them at least one extra meet. > Numbers can always be tweaked, of course, but qualifying 18 through Regionals and adding more would already be >viewed as a no-fly deal, I fear. The field event people are already getting screwed to the tune where not every event >even has 18 competitors allowed now. (don't believe me? check out the field sizes in jumps and throws in Eugene >last June) We could start with one or two from each region, but to make the regional meets what they need to be, there probably need to be three people qualifying eventually. Funding issues aside, I see no reason why a 4-7 day meet can't handle 30+ competitors in every event. Funding, of course, is one of the biggest sticking points - the other being resistance of various parties to change. I don't have an easy solution. But if we started from the premise that this is where we want to go, at least we have some direction for seeking funding. - Ed Parrot
