College T&F Should Downsize
Over on Jesse Squire’s Track and Field Superblog today, he writes about problems with college track and field. Jesse lays down some interesting solutions to growing problems at the collegiate level. He offers up the idea of more dual meets, a true NCAA Team Championship and a few other pieces that really get the mind churning.
So in response to his article, I’ve come up with a solution of my own, which can be applied to collegiate track and field. Are you ready? Here you go…
GET RID OF INDOOR TRACK AND FIELD
Honestly, what purpose does it serve? You can sit there and tell me all day long it’s a separate sport (which I believe it is…kinda), and that sprinters, jumpers and throwers use it to hone their skills before outdoor, but is it honestly needed?
The indoor season goes from December through mid-March, then outdoor goes from March until mid-June. Count up the months if you will. Say a team even opens up competing in January…that is still a six month season. Very few sports that I know of go on for six months. Cross country lasts three and a half months, college basketball lasts five months and college football plays their games over four months (four and a half if you include bowls I suppose). Six months of competition is ridiculous!
Now you might be saying, “But track and field athletes don’t compete every weekend all year.” You’re right, they don’t. That isn’t the point though. The point is two-fold. First, how do you make collegiate track and field better for the athletes? Second, how do you make collegiate track and field more exciting for fans of the sport?
Cutting the season to 16 weeks or so (March thru mid-June) makes the schedule a bit more manageable, not just from a training/competition standpoint, but from a financial standpoint. Track programs have been cut like a bad habit the past few years. By eliminating indoor competitions a school would save costs, which is always a plus for AD’s.
However, the main purpose of this post today is to view this from a fans/marketing standpoint. I ask you, does indoor track and field really get your heart pumping if you are a collegiate track and field fan? Honestly, how many collegiate track and field fans are there that don’t directly participate in the sport or aren’t a few years out of college? Small numbers my man!
Getting rid of the indoor track and field championships means there is only ONE national championship in our sport. Reducing the schedule from six months to four months makes competition that much more intense. It’s pretty evident that indoor track and field has died the last two decades, pretty much fading out of every region in the country outside of a little Arkansas city called Fayetteville and the Northeast. In order to save the sport from complete decline in the general public’s viewing eye our sport needs to cut some of the fat from its edges (yes our sport is getting fat…and old), re-organize and move forward.
If the NCAA and its’ schools focused all of their attention on just outdoor track and field I honestly believe the sport would be better off. I believe our athletes would perform better, meets would grow and become more intense and more people would genuinely be attracted to the sport.
Well that is all I have this time.
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February 13th, 2008 at 5:34 pm |
Great post..I agree who heartedly…
February 14th, 2008 at 8:03 am |
I agree, too. As a collegiate distance runner, the indoor season went so late (mid-March for us) that it felt like outdoor was almost over by the time it got started. I’ve noticed recently how many programs have a lot of success by either training through or totally ignoring indoor meets. The only problem with starting outdoor in mid-march is that for lots of the country, it’s often still windy, snowy and freezing at that time of year, so a lot of early meets might end up being canceled.
February 14th, 2008 at 9:44 am |
To add another voice of assent, the very top athletes will often use their fitness from cross country to pop a qualifying mark the first couple weeks of December, and then pack it in until conferences. Certainly takes a bit of the shine off a sport when it’s best folks aren’t competing for much of the season.
February 14th, 2008 at 10:44 am |
I have to disagree with you. I love indoor track as a spectator.! There’s so much going on in a small space, it’s exciting! I also marveled at the distance competitors ability to run around the track twice as many times and still run fast! The banked tracks were much more fun to watch, too. I agree with Jesse Squire though about dual meets and a “true” NCAA Championship Meet. My kids ran 2 meets per week in high school and only ran 2 - 3 meets a season in college. Even though they weren’t tapering for all the meets in high school it should made them work on race tactics and they were race sharp when they got to the championship meets and tapered. They began to look scared in their college meets because they didn’t race often the stakes were really high at those meets.
February 14th, 2008 at 2:43 pm |
I totally disagree on this one. Indoor is great when it is used properly by coaches and doesnt over race the athletes (and I would say most D1 coaches at least do use it properly).
I think the way to go is each team have one or two duel meets between colleges that are close, build rivalries etc. (Michigan / OSU, Kent State / Akron for instance) which is exciting for fans as well, and one or two big invitationals for fast time, also exciting in its own right, conference and nationals. That is a slim schedule that has everything.
As Mark Wetmore, the coach, once said (and I agree) “cross country is like woodstock, indoor track is las vegas, and outdoor is like carnegie hall)”
–ben
February 14th, 2008 at 8:35 pm |
There was a time when indoor track was exciting. Pretty much no one under 40 remembers it, though.
The first NCAA Indoor Championships were at Detroit’s Cobo Hall, and they were held there every year through the early 80s. It was on one of the old 160y banked board tracks that basically no one runs on anymore.
Under those conditions, everyone understood that indoor track wasn’t real track. But it was great fun for the spectators, because you were right on top of the action.
I only know this because I went to the very last Cleveland Knights of Columbus meet. I took two college buddies with me to Gund Arena and we had pretty good seats on the backstretch. Back then I hated Said Aouita the way Buckeyes hate Wolverines and everyone hates the Yankees–and I was so close to him I felt like I could spit right on him (I resisted…barely). My two friends had a great time; it was the first track meet they’d ever been to.
You’re exactly right, though. Pretending indoor track is a separate sport is an exercise in pure semantics. Giving in NCAA Championship status is as ridiculous as doing the same for spring football.
February 14th, 2008 at 11:27 pm |
Well, I am glad there are strong supporters of this piece and others that completely disagree. That is exactly what Runnerville was meant to do. Thanks for your thoughts everyone!