Regarding David's post, note the following:
1. USATF (then known as TAC) did have "under 23" competition as an
additional division of the Junior National meet in the early 1980's. It was
discontinued because of lack of entries.
2. The USATF Youth Athletics championship has the same age groups as the
USATF Junior Olympics. there are two meets largely because TAC inherited two
meets from AAU (which also still has two meets, by the way). There were
attempts to reduce it to one meet in TAC in the early 1980's but those
attempts were always defeated (once by a single vote according to my
recollection);
3. The youngest official USATF age group is the Bantam division for athletes
not turning eleven in the current calendar year. Some Association and
Regional meets have Sub-Bantam events for athletes not turning nine in the
current calendar year, but this does not appear in the rulebook and those
athletes do not advance to the national meet;
4. The oldest age division (Young Men's/Women's) is actually more than a
two-year age group. It covers athletes who turn 17 or 18 in the current
calendar year plus any other 18 year old who will not turn 19 before the end
of the national meet.
Ed Koch
-----Original Message-----
From: david honea <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Saturday, July 21, 2001 4:08 PM
Subject: t-and-f: USATF age groups and HS coaching
>On the question of USATF age group ranges for national championships:
>
>There is no under-23 competition in the US, and it doesn't make sense to
put
>USATF resources into it since the age range would have virtually 100%
>overlap with collegiate competition. Even if U-23 world championship were
>created, the US could easily fill a team from the top eligible performers
at
>the senior championships.
>
>Right now the Juniors correspond with the age rules for IAAF juniors.
>
>I am assuming the the Youth championship age groups are the same as for
>Junior Olympics - that is what is implied by the previous posts. These
>groups are in two year age groups by birth year, starting with the
>sub-bantam (can't turn 9 during the year) and going through young men and
>women (17-18 yo). But the young men and women have the additional ruling
(at
>least in JO) that as long as you don't turn 19 before July 1 you are
>eligible. This allows virtually all recently graduated high schoolers to
>participate, when otherwise at least a third of the class would probably be
>too old (because school year does not align very well with year of birth.)
>Thus people up to 18 months too old for "youth" status internationally can
>compete.
>
>This makes no sense to me. Having worked at a regional JO meet, I can tell
>you that participation in the upper (high school age) age groups is woeful.
>Assuming that changing the age limit to 17 (i.e, born 1984 or later, for
>this year's meet) eliminated two-thirds of the participants in the young
men
>and women division, it would still be on the order of 2-3% of the total
>participation. And every one of those kids would be someone who just
>completed a high school season. The best ones are eligible for the junior
>meet. The point was made that our age groups are different than those in
>Europe because of the high school and college system in place here. What
>does that have to do with anything? Juniors is already a mix of high
>schoolers and college freshmen. Why does the youth meet need to provide for
>every single high school athlete? The real point of the youth program is to
>get the kids who are not yet in high school involved. Say what you want
>about high school track (I will in a second) but it does a great job of
>getting lots of kids to track meets. High school age kids should be at most
>a secondary consideration in USATF youth programs.
>
>Suggestion: Bump the whole thing down in age so the top group aligns with
>IAAF youth standards. Go in two year age groups down from there. Whether
>they should lower the lowest age group by a year, or reduce the number of
>age groups by one, I don't know. But at least then there will be a fairly
>sensible delineation between youth and junior programs, with very few
>youth-eligible kids good enough for junior competition. And there would no
>longer be two full age groups that are entirely over-shadowed by high
school
>competition.
>
>Having said all that - why is there both a JO program with levels of
>qualifying meets for the nationals, and a youth national championships for
>the same age groups with entries based on meeting a qualifying standard?
>Either is legitimate; even combining the two (say, letting kids with good
>marks in high school or other competition skip the early qualifying meets)
>makes sense; having the two as separate entities is silly.
>
>
>On high school coaching:
>Anyone who thinks that a school with a 4:10 1600-meter runner is
>representative of the typical high school coaching effort is seriously
>out-of-touch with reality. I regularly see results in our paper - from
>schools with 1500+ students in the largest and richest school system in the
>state - in which the boys 1600 is won in over 5:00 and the girls high jump
>is less than 4'4". Girls qualified for the state meet in the state's second
>largest class (800-1200 students) with discus throws of under 85 feet and
>1600 meter times over 6:00. And those results - in Raleigh, and among the
>kids reaching the 3A state meet - represent ABOVE-AVERAGE coaching here.
>Things are improving locally, enough that one of my former athletes at NC
>State who is now coaching heard one of his peers complain "I had a 4:50
>miler this year, and he didn't even score at the conference." My response
>would have been, if your best boy runs 4:50, you don't have a miler. Get
him
>a discus - or a coach.
>
>The JO coaches are not necessarily that on-the-ball either. While working
>the meet I heard constant whining from one about how she lost all her
>distance runners to cross country when they got to high school. I think I
>was supposed to express sympathy, or outrage, or something. She could not
>understand at all that I could not see a single reason for a distance
runner
>in high school to run JO. High school runners are almost invariably
>over-raced as it is. They have full cross country and track seasons, with
>daily
>practices and much better competition, with their high schools. Why on
earth
>they should add to that by running JO's after the track season ends is
>beyond me. Yet another reason why structuring JO age groups around high
>school classes makes no sense. The only kids who need USATF youth programs
>after they reach high school are the ones who are good enough that they
>don't get much competition during the high school season, and could benefit
>from the (possibly) better technical coaching in a USATF club.
>
>david
>
