On unit names: Whatever, in this case. For feet and inches (or pounds), Imperial or Customary are identical. The sport itself tends to use either imperial or english conversion as the term. Since the Brits always get mad at "english" conversion, I used imperial. When there are gallons, bushels, tons involved, I make the distinction between Imperial and Customary. You can't show progressive records in imperial. Records are metric. You can show progressive imperial approximate conversions of real data. The sport needs to get over the pretense it still measures in imperial. It needs to REQUIRE posting of the metric result to audience and media and allow supplemental imperial conversion. It should also use a single conversion algorithm, as a reflection that it is approximate and supplemental, not four different rounding algorithms (there are two competing algorithms for long throws). Finally, it should have a time-bounded plan for dropping that single conversion and using the real (metric) results exclusively.
--- On Sun, 4/1/12, Martin Vlietstra <[email protected]> wrote: From: Martin Vlietstra <[email protected]> Subject: [USMA:51577] RE: College Track & Field To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Date: Sunday, April 1, 2012, 8:46 AM Try creating a chart using EXCEL showing progressive records for field events such as putting the shot, javelin, high jump, long jump etc using feet and inches. Now try creating the same charts using metres. Which is easier? BTW, world records in imperial units are not recognised. Oops sorry, apologies the American hosts of this website – I should have written “customary units”, or should I have used something else? J From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of John M. Steele Sent: 01 April 2012 12:58 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:51576] College Track & Field Well, college Outdoor Track & Field is underway. It is time for the annual rant about a sport which is entirely metric internally but emphasizes feet/inch conversion to report to the audience and the media. NCAA-sanctioned meets MUST measure the field events (jumps and throws) in metric (to the lsser whole centimeter), but they require posting the imperial conversion to the audience and media, but allow supplemental posting of the REAL measurement. As a result, event coverage varies widely. As an example, three articles from the same meet at Georgia Tech (I have no connection) show the variability. Georgia Tech is a model of good reporting (well, the feet/inches COULD be dropped entirely). They have a link to the official results at the top of the article, and report field events in primary metric, with (supplemental imperial conversion). In the official results, it is MUCH easier to understand the bar progression for pole vault and high jump. Each athlete's best performance is converted to imperial by the sport's strange rounding ruules. Kudoes! :) http://www.ramblinwreck.com/sports/m-track/recaps/033112aaa.html Official results: http://www.ramblinwreck.com/sports/m-track/stats/2011-2012/yellow-jacket-results.html Middle Tennessee State reports the imperial in the primary position, but at least adds the (metric) for field events. :| http://www.goblueraiders.com/content.cfm/id/60087 University of Georgia, Athens: Metric? What's that? Isn't that some measurement system used by Communists? It is particularly sad on long throws (discus, javelin, hammer) as two or three centimeter marks convert to the same inch mark, so you can't recover what the athlete really accomplished, or even who won in some cases. Brickbats :( http://www.goblueraiders.com/content.cfm/id/60087 When the Olympics start this summer, we can look forward to NBC providing the same approximate conversions to us, and hiding the true performance.
