Problems with College Track

Much of Runnerville's Toni & Matt Show and its Runnerville Weekly is spent on Reavis' screeds against USATF's lack of skill in organizing and promoting the sport. USATF deserves the criticism, but the elite/professional end of the sport is far from the weakest link.

I regularly surf TV listings trying to scrounge up every tiny bit of track coverage on the tube. I look through CSTV, ESPNU, the Big Ten Network, and three different regions of Fox College Sports. There's just nothing there except a few conference meets, and none of them are live. College wrestling is supposed to be all but dead, but it's all over the Big Ten Network. I never thought gymnastics was a big thing in college either, but that's on all the time too.

Why? Simple. Dual meets. Dual meets are interesting and made for TV. None of the wrestling and gymnastics competitions on TV feature more than two teams. But the number of dual track meets this year between Division I programs can be counted on your fingers.

Instead, we're stuck with unbelievably boring all-day affairs. It's a 2-hour drive to Notre Dame for me, yet I wouldn't dream of going to the Meyo Invitational because it's just not worth my time. The reason we get these anti-spectator invitationals is the same reason we don't have dual meets. There's no incentive to do things any other way.

Getting an athlete to the NCAA meet is the number one way for most middle-of-the-road programs to garner some attention. Qualifying is based on marks and marks alone. So unless you've got a chance to run a fast time, there's no reason to run. Even worse, running fast is more important than winning. Collegiate milers would rather run 3:58 and lose than run 4:01 and win--and any sport set up this way is going to be boring, boring, boring.

But weren't the regional meets supposed to change all this? Unfortunately, the "at-large" system didn't end up changing a thing. After the automatic qualifiers get in, a few more are selected based on their single best mark of the season. This is not competition, it is not sport, it is bullshit. At the very first Mideast Regional, Lolo Jones did a face-plant in the 100H final, but ended up All-American at the NCAA meet. In what other sport can you bomb out in the post-season and still get to the championship?

Putting together a team that's good at dual meets doesn't get you anything, but basing your team around just a few athletes does. A team can be a "top 25" program with as little as a dozen points at the NCAA meet. So it's better to be a "big meet" (i.e., really good at two or three events) team than a "small meet" team (kinda good across the board).

It is entirely possible to change the incentive structure. For example, the NCAA team championship could be a separate meet from the NCAA individual championship meet. The top team at each regional that won its conference goes on to a four-team meet (two athletes per event, finals only) held the week between the regionals and NCAA finals. Under this setup, last year's men's championship meet would have been Florida State, Oregon, Oklahoma and Louisville in that order. If some traditionalists cry foul, I'd point out there are two NCAA championships, and the indoor champion would still be determined in the "big meet" style.

Also, the nationals qualifying system would have to change. The NCAA has floated various strange trial balloons on a nationals restructuring. Its obvious goal is to get the national meet
into a shorter window by allowing only 16 athletes per event, but still keeping the number of athletes who run at the national meet high. The solution is obvious: call the regionals the first round of the NCAA championship! (They do this in basketball.) Then qualify just 16 athletes to the national meet, and if at-large selections are made it must be done by a committee rather than a list.

With these two changes in place, there would be no reason to avoid dual meets. In fact, they would be attractive. When marks no longer matter, dual meets are a low-risk way of sharpening athletes' competitive skills. Get yourself on TV and the athletes (and donors) are quite a bit more interested in your program. Less invitationals mean more meets overall and therefore more home meets. Getting in the national rankings is not a function of the NCAA Championships but how you actually compete against teams in scored meets--and dual meets are easier to win than conference or regional meets.

Would this ever happen? Not in a million years. But one can dream, no?