More than two competitors per event?

[rt20]

The IHSA is all about getting more competitors to the state meet. Does anyone think they will ever go to a qualifying system in track where if you meet a certain qualifying mark you would be eligible to compete in sectionals even if you are third or fourth best on your team like they do in college.

I know of a class A team that had two individuals that had thrown qualifying marks, one in shot and one in discus, who were watching on the sidelines because the two in front of them were state finalists.

It would certainly add a new dimension to the state meet.

[irishcc]

I like the general idea, but what I would do is make a "sectional qualifying time" that anyone that wants to compete at the sectional needs to reach. For example, the Class A 3200 could be around 11:00. That way if a team has 5 runners who can all run under 11 minutes, they can all run. And if a team doesn't have anyone who can run under 11 minutes in the 3200, they can't enter anyone. I think it would make the sectionals more competitive and allow for all of the best athletes to compete to go to state regardless of which team they are on.

[tc]

That's a pretty good idea. I also like the idea where in college you can hit the qualifying mark anytime and be qualified. It doesn't have to be at sectionals.

[shavinbytomorrow]

i like the idea of having to run at least a certain time in order to run at sectionals regardless of how many guys you have on the team in that event. it gives more people an opportunity to compete.
this would mean that any qualifying marks would have to be clearly documented wiith official's signatures, as a result it would solve the problem of coaches fudging seeds b/c the seeds would all be documented beforehand.
one problem is that at smaller meets in the middle of the week with two to three teams someone could hit the qualifying mark and it wouldn't count b/c there was no IHSA official to record it. maybe it would mean that you could only hit the time at major invitationals, and would it have to be FAT?
would this mean that teams can have more than one relay squad???
another problem would be if someone, let's say the state champ from the year before, was injured the entire season and did not compete at all the entire season but was gradually getting into shape for the sectional, would he or she be allowed to compete even though he/she did not hit a qualifying time? who knows, maybe they pop off a race and hit state qualifying time as a result of their injury recovery training... it's a good idea and i like it, however there are several kinks that would have to be ironed out

[hoggin88]

Well in my opinion if you were to do a sectional qualifying standard, it would be a standard to qualify extra guys - not keep other people out. What I'm saying is I would do it so each team still gets their two entries per event but then other people who have hit a "sectional qualifying mark" would also be able to compete even if there are two teammates in front of them. This would help the situation talked about in the previous post about injured runners. It wouldn't be perfect, but the current system isn't perfect either.

The problem is that...yes the meets should be F.A.T. in this hypothetical system (although they should be in real life anyways) and since we have seen that a lot of schools are too greedy to spend on track, that wouldn't be happening soon. And if you only counted results from invites - there are a lot of schools particularly down south that have far fewer invite opportunities and that would not be fair.

[irishcc]

The only problem with using a sectional qualifying time for just to add extra participants is that you would only be adding more runners in each event at the sectional. But by also eliminating some runners who haven't run that time during the year, you would keep the number of runners in each event at the sectional about the same, only they would be faster and the quality of races would improve.

[hoggin88]

The problem with getting rid of sectional qualifiers is that there are some schools who would have a tough time getting more than a couple people to sectionals. If you get out of the suburbs and into the corn you find there are a lot of teams that struggle year in and year out and would suffer from a rule like that.

I realize it would create a problem with too many sectional runners though if you didn't get rid of people, and I don't have an answer for that.

[winnebagodiscus22]

i know what it's like!!!!! i think it's a great idea to have a sectional qualifying time/distance, because i'm a state qualifying discus thrower who never gets to throw at any big meets....

[starz74]

Indiana has a qualifying standard that will allow three or more competitors in a sectional event if they have hit the standard during the year in a meet. So normally 2 competitors, but will allow as many kids that have hit the qualifying mark on one team. The standard fluctuates from year to year due to, it is the distance or time of the last scoring position at the previous state meet. So #9 position at the state meet which in IN is normally 54' and 160.

[killer1600]

when you have big teams its harder to get everyone down to state. you could have 5 guys who all run state times but you can not enter more then two per event i would like the upgrade to 4 or so into an evnet there as to be a limit but two is a very low number.

[dbandre]

The easy solution is a qualifying standard for a teams 3rd or more competitor in an event and only two can score at the sectional and state meet. Although I think all should be able to score, it would allow for the easiest resistance to implementation as most coaches would rather have more qualifiers to the state meet over getting extra athletes that score points. In AA it would almost be possible to see an almost only Lanphier, Cahokia, and ESL lineup in some open finals races and 5 members of Nequa Valley in the 3200m fast heat and maybe some more in the slow heat.

The biggest problem to scoring 3 or more athletes is that some schools will only focus on certain events rather than actually building a complete track and field team.