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I am looking for support, solutions, or help on what we can do about this issue. Please respond, is there anything we can do about it?
So as a division 1 coach I have a problem with the Regional format, in the high jump and pole vault once they get down the the final 12 or whatever it is the competition is stopped and nobody is allowed to continue vaulting.
I have a problem with this for several reasons. Especially as a pole vault coach at a small division 1 school for the following reasons!
1- Peaking #1- I as I am sure a lot of coaches set up the training plan for my athletes to peak in the last 3-4 weeks of the season. Jumping at PR heights is important for confidence, breaking records, qualifying for USATF championships, etc., etc. Since we aren’t allowed to continue vaulting that means we get to jump 1 time as high as we can go. That being the national meet. We have a week off before regionals, regionals we must stop once they have the final 12, weekend off before nationals, then nationals. So in the final 4 weeks, during our peak time of the year we get one chance to jump as high as possible!

2- Peaking #2- Being at a small school we don’t get to travel to California, Arizona, and Texas like a lot of other big schools do. So not only are we going through the hard part of our training, but most likely it will be cold, rainy, and windy in the beginning part of our schedule. Since we are paying money to travel to texas, 14 hours away for us. Shouldn’t we get the chance to take advantage of the great weather, atmoshphere, and opportunity? Our beginning meets, there isn’t great completion, where at regionals you have the best in the region. Why not jump and see who is the best that day? Let guys get on their bigger poles, jump at higher heights, etc.!?

3- Qualifying for USA’s and records. So everyone at Regionals can qualify for the USA championships or the Olympic trials except pole vaulters and high jumpers. Everyone else can break school, records, NCAA records, etc. But we must stop!! Last year I had a boy and girl who were both jumping the best they had all year and they had to stop!! My guy was one bar away from 18ft and had just got on the biggest pole he had ever made, and made 17’8.5 easily. It only took 18’0-18’2 if I’m not mistaken to make the Olympic trials that year. My girl had cleared 14’2 and was on the bubble because people in California were having 2-3 competitions on the same day. So they essentially knocked her out, even though there was a lot of controversy surrounding that situation. But the pro’s get to have 2-3 competitions in a day. And we can’t even jump at the next bars, we have to stop? To take away from a college athletes the opportunity to possibly make the Olympic trials is absurd to me!

4- The fans! All of the people who come pay money to see people run 10.0 in the hundred, or break 4 minutes in the mile get to see that. Everyone who paid to get to watch the pole vault or high jump gets the short end of the stick!!

5- Nobody has to continue. Once you have made the top 12, I feel you should have the option to continue, or stop and save it for nationals if you desire. Giving athletes one chance in the peak of their season to jump as high as possible seems completely unfair, especially since every other athlete at that meet has the opportunity to set a personal best or compete there hardest.

6- I know I used my personal situations, but this affects every coach at the regional meet pole vault and high jump alike. If you have an athlete who has the potential to PR and go to nationals, this affects you!!

I am trying to not make this to long, so I probably left some stuff out. Is there anything we can do about this??

I took this to a high authority with the NCAA a couple of years ago and was told no changes in the near future so just deal with it. I like the indoor method. What a great Indoor National we had this year.

Regionals isn't, according to the NCAA, a meet. It's the qualifying round for nationals and in qualifying rounds the comp is stopped once the qualifiers weed themselves out.

Only in the good ol US of A!!! Don't they understand the nature of our sport???

It's like the US Government, NO COMMON SENCE!!!!!!!

I have heard many say, well its a preliminary round for the NCAA's, that's dumb considering you still have to go back and train, vault, lift, sprints, etc...
I think I and everyone else would understand if the finals were 2-3 days later. But it's 2 weekends!
Do they stop the competition once they have their 3 at the Olympic Trials? Does everyone stop vaulting at the trials and save it for the olympics?

KYLE ELLIS wrote:Do they stop the competition once they have their 3 at the Olympic Trials? Does everyone stop vaulting at the trials and save it for the olympics?

They do during the qualifying round...

I agree with you that the current regionals system is stupid, and that vaulters and HJers get the shaft, but it's not completely illogical, it's just a poor decision IMO.

Another crazy thing to me was one of the reasons first given for regionals was so athletes had to compete to get to nationals not just chase a mark. They said this would help make track more appealing to fans and promote the sport. Hoping for a march madness to track. Now they come back and stop once you get to 12 which can not be appealing to fans and certainly does nothing to promote the sport.

The original regionals format was an actual regional championship meet but many of the top programs complained that they didn't like having their athletes compete at a high level two times in a row so they petitioned the NCAA for the current format.

The main problem lies within the non-scoring nature of NCAA Track and Field in the first place. High school meets are far more competitive than college meets for the sole reason that they are scored. Because of this, teams actually care about winning the meet or the invite. There is a lot of pride on the line and you end up having entire teams rooting for a single athlete since that athlete's performance is paramount to winning the meet. At the end of a high school meet, everyone is buzzing about the upcoming 4x400, in college most of the athletes don't even know the 4x400 is happening unless they are in it. There are constant scoring updates over the PA in high school meets so that the athletes and fans are more motivated to pay attention to the current event to see if their team can make up some ground.

In College, the only meets ever scored are conference and nationals, and there are rarely dual meets between rival schools, or rivalries at all. Everything in college is about qualifying for regionals/nationals which isn't fun for the average spectator except when that event is actually happening. And a single event final might make up only a few seconds of a 3 day meet soooooo...

To top it all off, this prevents bad coaching from becoming apparent to the fans so the job security of a track coach is better than almost any NCAA sport. Coaches can flaunt their one or two good athletes to make themselves appear competent, when in actuality they are terrible coaches but no one knows it since the meets aren't scored!