>If we are going to move the centerpiece of our outdoor track & field season >(read relay meetings) as suggested,then we might as well move the Boston >Marathon to the day following the NCAA outdoor championships in June.
And there we have a significant part of the problem with our sport in the United States. CENTERPIECE of the season? ya gotta be kiddin me! A lot of college basketball teams (and high school too) play in Christmas holiday tournaments. Do you think they call that tournament the centerpiece of their season? Of course not. Their objective is 1. win conference 2. make playoffs 3. go as far as they can in playoffs 4. win national championship (or win state, for high schoolers) In other words, the pinaccle is the END of the season, not the middle. Everybody wants their basketball teams to operate at peak efficiency toward the END of the season, not the middle. The purpose of a basketball 'regular season' is just to prepare the team for the playoffs. Track & Field focus should be the same. This should not come as a shock to college track & field athletes. They've all come up from the high school ranks, with 'getting to and doing well in the state meet' being the major objective for most high school athletes. They go through end-of-season qualifying rounds to get to the State finals. Sure, DMRs and 4x800's are 'fun' and a competitive diversion to keep things interesting, but they're NOT THE CORE OF THE SPORT. I repeat, the big relay meets ARE NOT THE CORE OF THE SPORT. For people in the northeast, I'll repeat it one more time (repeat after me) "The big relay meets ARE NOT THE CORE OF THE SPORT!" If they were, then Germany, Russia and Kenya would be total failures in athletics. I've never heard of the Nairobi Relays or the Berlin Relays or the Moscow Relays. Don't get me wrong, as a fan I love to watch meets like Mt. SAC or Penn (especially Sunday at Mt. SAC- basically an elite standard events track meet, with an occasional 4x2 or 4x8 thrown in if Scott can get Brazil versus U.S. or something- who wouldn't like to see Swiss versus Russia at 4x8 with 'the Buch' and 'the Borz' on the anchors?-unlikely April matchup, but we can always hope= we DID see U.S. versus Brazil with Gray, Barbosa and Cruz a few years ago). But if I had to choose between them, I'd say an Olympic Trials spectator ticket is worth a hundred times as much. A fan can only take some many years of Clemson versus Montana in a DMR (no offense to you Clemsonites and Montanians out there) How's this for a suggestion- forget moving the Relays to May. Leave them where they are. Instead, insert regionals AFTER the current conference week, and move the NCAA finals out a week LATER than they are now. To make room for it, move USATF Champs out to the end of July (where true track afficionados know it should be anyway). Forcing the latter change alone would make the whole NCAA regional thing worthwhile. RT
