Netters:
I still don't know for sure exactly what happened in the team
scoring at the USATF meet, but I surmise this scenario:
Nike had more than the allotted number of scoring places running and
benefitted in some way from this, possibly due to failing in the Hy-Tech
scoring system
I can tell you thisd: When we run into A and B team situations in HS
meets in NJ---it can't happen on the varsioty level as our meets allow only
one team entry there---the HyTech system in use scores the first five =,
then the next five, etc. It has no way of distinguishing between the A and B
entries.
The solution seems simple. Enter the first team as Nike, the next
team under a different name, etc. Then there would be no confusion,
Computers do only what you tell them to do,. The failure is not the system
but the people running the meet.
And what's the big deal about having to do the scoring on a computer
in the first place. It shouldn't take that long to do it the old way and, if
that's what it takes to get it right, go ahead and do it.
After all, the meet is not like a HS meet with 25 races to score.
You are dealing with, at most six races---two senior and one junior for each
sex and, I believe, the two senior races are on different days.
Anyone who regularly, as I have, HS, college and open competitions,
knows that the last two can't begin to match the efficiency of the first. or
heaven's sake, they are still scoring the biggest Eastern meet largely by
hand---the Manhattan Invitational, not that I would recommend it. At the
Shore Coaches meet in NJ, with about 25 races, some with as many as 300
entries, as the announcer, I have full results in my hands less than 10
minutes after the last runner crosses the line. What it takes is getting
teams that work together smoothly and of course, a first class computer
group.
As far as Nike's failure to react properly to the situation, the
following story might be of interest
At an upstate NY meet several years ago, Two perennial rivcals were
in competition for the team title. One team "won", but had one of those
silly HS rules called against it and the other team got the the trophy.
The now winnig coach accepted the award, but when he got back to the
school, he held a meeting with his boys and asked them if they really wanted
to win that way. Asb he expected, they said, "No" and the trophy was quietly
delivered to the other school a day or so later.
When Iwas told the story, it didn't surprise me a bit, having known
the gentleman----and I do mean gentleman--for some 50 years. No one who knew
him was surprised. Too bad there isn't someone like him at Nike.
Ed
Grant
PS: I don;t want to enbarrass him by giving his name, but there
is at least one member of our list who knows whom I'm taking about since he
was the one who told me the story,
