US Track is truly metric, run on metric courses. The field events (jumping and throwing) are usually measured in Imperial at the high school level, in metric at the college and above levels. In metric, they are measured in meters to two decimals (whole centimeters, any fraction is truncated), and in Imperial, feet and inches to the whole quarter inch (whole inch in long throws). So that is some progress, right? Not really, as the sport is trapped in a "culture of conversion."
This article is not about the problem, but illustrates the problem. A college athlete still thinking in feet and inches at the end of his college career. http://erstarnews.com/2011/07/09/elks-in-gopherland-theres-3-left-after-high-jumper-clauer-enters-workforce/ Pat and I have disagreed about conversion here. It may or may not be necessary in the process of metrication, but failure to complete metrication often involves becoming trapped in a "culture of conversion." True metrication involves getting past the conversion and USING metric. There seem to be several problems: *The use of Imperial at the high school level creates an annual band of new recruits at the college level who don't understand metric marks. *As illustrated by the article above, the athletes never become comfortable with metric marks and continue to think in Imperial. *The meet officials emphasize reporting the Imperial conversion over the measured metric mark to the audience and to the media, even though they are "secretly" recording only the metric mark in the meet records. *The audience and the media either don't understand that the Imperial marks are "fake" and rounded approximations (obtained by conversion) or don't care. For the media, it perfectly fits the AP policy of converting metric. The sport is reduced to MEASURING in meters, then running to the "Big Gold Book" (conversion tables) to look up and announce the "TRUE" result in Imperial. To further complicate the situation, they use three slightly different rounding rules for different events to determine the Imperial conversion, which I think CLEARLY shows they take the Imperial conversion more seriously than the true metric mark. Their metrication plan has failed and they are trapped in a "culture of conversion." How could they escape the culture of conversion: *First, they have to care. If they don't want to, they won't. *They have to encourage high school sports to measure in metric. If they won't, they have to get them to convert and report the metric conversion only. *They have to emphasize posting the metric result to audience and the media. *For one season only, they should adopt a single, simplified Imperial conversion rule and report that conversion as supplemental information. They should announce IN ADVANCE that the conversion will NOT be reported the following season. Most metrication failures do not involve a simple return to Imperial or Customary. They involve getting trapped in duality (both systems equally good) and a culture of conversion. The solution is that the two systems are not "equal." One is required, and the other is tolerated as poor quality supplemental information but discouraged, possibly forbidden. Break the cycle, USE the metric.
