Coaches, athletes still questioning NCAA regional-qualifying format for track and field

by Erik Heinonen

Unless you were paying close attention, you probably missed Kayla Mellott at the NCAA Track & Field Championships in Sacramento.

She wasn't among the favorites in her event. She didn't run on a high-placing relay squad, nor did she score key points to vault her team onto the award podium.

In fact, the University of Oregon runner wasn't on the Alex G. Spanos Sports Complex track much longer than the 1 minute, 1.23 seconds it took for her to finish fifth in her preliminary of the 400 hurdles.

For Mellott, however, it was the culminating moment of her collegiate career: four years of hurdling sessions, sprints and overdistance workouts, weight room sessions and indoor and outdoor racing — sandwiched around a serious ATV accident two years ago that caused 50 facial fractures, required four operations and left her with 12 metal plates in her face.

Mellott's NCAA appearance was also a highly significant moment — at least symbolically — for proponents of the NCAA's current system for advancing athletes to the national meet.

"I guess," says Mellott, "you could say I'm the poster child for regional qualifying."

Indeed.

When the NCAA moved to regional qualifying for the national track and field championships in 2003, it was in large part to reward athletes such as Mellott who lacked a top mark but proved themselves capable of beating higher-ranked athletes when it mattered most.

Three years in, however, the successes of athletes such as Mellott haven’t been enough to win over approximately one-third of NCAA coaches, who say regional qualifying has met few of the other goals laid out by its proponents and is proving increasingly costly to boot.

The NCAA steps in

The first proposal for regional qualifying — albeit for the NCAA indoor meet — appeared on coaches’ desks in 1991. Drafted by Boston University coach Pete Schuder, the plan was summarily rejected. A subsequent regionals proposal was voted down later that year, 41-110. After coaches rejected a third proposal in 1995, discussion of the concept faded, and many within the coaching ranks began to lobby for the creation of absolute qualifying standards.

The NCAA, which wanted to keep participation capped at the national championships, had other ideas, and in 1997 the collegiate athletic association’s management council and championships committee approached the NCAA track and field committee with a mandate.

“They told us they wanted to go to regional qualifying in all sports across the board, and it was for our outdoor championships,” says Ralph Lindeman, president of the NCAA Division I Track Coaches Association, head track coach at the Air Force Academy, and in 1997 a recently-appointed member of the NCAA Track and Field Committee. “We said, ‘Wait a minute, we thought this was going to be for indoor championships,' and they said, ‘No, we want it for the outdoor championships.’”

A 12-member ad hoc committee, composed of administrators and coaches, and formed by the NCAA track committee and coaches association, then set about drafting a regional qualifying system, which was later pitted against absolute qualifying in a 1999 survey of coaches.

Absolute qualifying won by one vote, 198-197, and the ad hoc committee submitted the results to the NCAA championships committee.

“They came back and said, ‘You didn’t hear us, we can’t have an absolute qualifying standard,” Lindeman says. “There are those coaches who say we never voted for it. That’s true, we never voted for it. It was a survey first of all, and I think the NCAA championship cabinet felt that because there was this level of support that it was going to fly.”

A new system

Qualifying based on a descending-order marks list, the method used by the NCAA until 2003, was relatively simple.

All athletes who met an event's automatic qualifying standard advanced to the NCAA meet in addition to as many athletes who met a provisional qualifying standard as were needed to fill an event field of between 18 and 21. But, written into marks-based qualifying were several immutable inequities.

Coaches at smaller schools were particularly disgruntled with the system, which clearly favored big-budget programs that could afford to fly their athletes all over the country in search of favorable conditions and good competition.

Even at schools with the financial resources to "chase marks," some coaches began to worry that the intrinsic value of head-to-head competition was being forsaken. Others felt they were forced to compromise athletes’ preparation for the end of the season to have them ready for key qualifying opportunities as many as eight weeks before the national meet.

"The previous system was unfair and did little to ensure that those athletes who were ready to compete in June were at the championships" says Kirk Elias, the head cross country coach and an assistant track coach at the University of Nevada-Reno. "It was a great system if you were ready and peaked in April — and could get to the right races.”

In 2003, a regional qualifying system based on the ad hoc committee’s plan made its debut in conjunction with an expanded NCAA championship, for which Lindeman, who had become head of the track coaches association, had fought hard.

Athletes meeting a regional qualifying mark equal to the 100th-best performance from the previous year and all conference champions advanced to one of four two-day regional meets — West, Midwest, Mideast, and East — held the final weekend of May.

The top five finishers in each event at regionals automatically advance to the NCAA championships, with six to eight athletes nationwide who didn't finish top-five at regionals added to each event based on their season best. Three teams automatically advance in the relays from each region, with six to eight more added later. Athletes competing in the 10,000, decathlon and heptathlon continue to advance via a descending order list.

Proponents of the regional system saw potential to effect positive change on several fronts.

• With role of the national descending order list de-emphasized and modest regional qualifying marks, athletes would not have to spend the season chasing marks.

• Freed from the need to chase marks, coaches would be able to peak their athletes properly, and fewer nationals slots would go to burnt-out athletes.

• Regional meets would produce exciting do-it-on-the-day, head-to-head competition, attracting fans and give the sport a meaningful method of qualifying for the national meet.

So far, the goals laid out for regional qualifying have gone largely unmet.

"We are getting more people to the NCAA meet, but I think this could have been done without regionals," says Gary Wilson, head women’s track coach at the University of Minnesota. "I am not sure that [regionals] are a bad thing, but they have not done what we were told they would do."

Chasing, chasing, chasing

"When we had marks-based qualifying the standard in the 5,000 was around 13:53, and I usually had one or two guys who needed to go chase that time," Colorado head track coach Mark Wetmore says.

In search of optimal racing conditions, Wetmore took his top athletes to early-season meets such the Mt. SAC Relays in Walnut, California, the Stanford Invitational, and if needed, last-chance qualifying meets in the final week before the NCAA championship field was set. With regional qualifying, Wetmore is still traveling to Mt. SAC and meets at Stanford, but bringing much larger contingents of runners.

"Now, with the regional mark at 14:15, I have five or six guys I need to take somewhere to chase it," Wetmore said. "It's the same at lots of other school where it might be sprinters or field-event athletes."

Rather than reducing mark chasing, regional qualifying seems to have coincided with the intensification of the practice.

To wit:

• In 2003, the first year of regional qualifying, 63 men broke 14:16 for 5,000. In 2005, 133 bettered that time.

• Women's distances (60 under 16:52 in 2003; 116 under in 2005) and other disciplines (54 women’s 200 meter runners under 23.96 in 2003; 99 under in 2005) are producing similar numbers.

The increased depth is not so much at the top, but farther down the list of performances, where times have become increasingly packed around the regional qualifying mark.

• In 2002, the final year in which athletes qualified via the descending order list, 41 women ran 4:23.78 or faster in the 1,500. This year, only 38 women bettered that mark, but the 100th best mark was 4:27.72 compared to 4:31.00 in 2002. Three-plus seconds is no insignificant difference. In 2005, one second separated the 33 final regional qualifiers in the 1,500.

• In 2002, 40 men ran 3:44.89 or faster for 1,500. In 2005, 48 did, but, whereas the 100th best mark in 2002 was 3:50.00, 139 men bettered 3:48.21 this spring. One second separated the final 36 athletes under the regional qualifying standard.

"It's changed in that they're not [chasing marks] all the way up to nationals, but people do it a little earlier, and they're chasing the mark for regionals," Mellott says. "It's just shifted the focus."

The uptick in mark chasing is especially evident in distance events, with athletes converging on a handful of meets, namely the Stanford and Cardinal Invitationals in Palo Alto and the Mt. SAC Relays.

Of this spring's top 40 times in the men's 5,000, 37 were run at a meet hosted by Stanford, the Mt. SAC relays, or the Oregon Invitational. The five meets produced 77 of the 100 fastest times.

"We had twice the usual number of 10K entries for women at the Stanford Invitational and a large amount more in the 5K," says Stanford cross country coach Dena Evans. "The second and third heats of the 5,000 were a bunch of coaches shouting '81, Perfect!'"

Eighty-one second laps yield 16:52 for 5,000 and — no coincidence — a regional qualifying time dead on.

While improved depth of performance, regional proponents note, is an encouraging development, the means by which it has been attained has proven costly — and no more avoidable than under the previous qualifying system.

"We are still chasing marks, perhaps more than ever, trying to get more kids to regionals," says Mark Napier, a University of Wisconsin assistant coach in charge of field events. "It's a long season, and I believe that the end of the year is for the elite. The conference kids had a great year, and now it's time for the best of the best.”

Further cause

While bettering regional qualifying marks isn't much of a challenge for top athletes, the NCAA's reluctance to part ways entirely with marks-based qualifying has reinforced the need for even the very best to search out optimal conditions.

In its first year of existence, the regional system added between six and eight athletes per event to the national field based solely on the descending-order list. In the wake of several suspiciously bad performances by high-ranking athletes, the NCAA tightened its qualifying protocol significantly after the 2004 season.

To be considered for an at-large berth, an athlete now must finish in the top eight in his event, or move into the top eight because an athlete — or athletes — that finished ahead of him at regionals did not declare for the national meet in the event.

Even with the rule change, the safety net a good mark provides is still enticing, and the result is a double-whammy of sorts: athletes may have to chase marks early and then hold on late through both a conference meet and regionals.

"My vote is to have it be all or nothing," Wilson says. "That eliminates all the at-large baloney and it also lets coaches peak their kids a the season’s end because so much more would be riding on being ready at the end."

Where's the excitement?

With a few exceptions, regional meets have lacked both for drama and attendance. Many top athletes, viewing regionals as more of a nuisance than anything else, do just enough to qualify.

"For the person who is probably going to win [NCAAs] or be in the top three or four, it's sort of a waste to have to run all these rounds," says former University of Miami sprinter Lauryn Williams, who won the 2004 NCAA 100. "I liked the descending order list; you run something at some point during the year, [and] you're in."

With five athletes automatically advancing to nationals per event — and the possibility of being an at-large selection for anyone who makes the final — lane races lack the drama of Olympic Trials finals in which eight compete for three spots.

Fields that are too large or too small have also cut into the potential for regional-meet drama. The West region had 31 male discus throwers and 31 female pole vaulters, making for lengthy competitions. Meanwhile, only eight athletes entered the men's 200, leaving just three athletes to be eliminated.

Weak events vary from region-to-region and year-to-year, but the West and Midwest, in particular, tends to suffer, with far fewer schools falling within their bounds. In 2005, 34 schools in the West region sponsored men’s track at the Division I level and 39 sponsored women’s track. The Midwest had slightly more, with thirty nine men’s teams and 41 women’s team, but far fewer than the Mideast (73, 90) and the East (115, 123).

“When we split regions in 1999, we felt like there had to be vertical lines,” Lindeman says. “We looked at qualifiers that were getting under the old system on a five-year basis on plotted it all on a map... We felt like the number of schools was irrelevant. We had to separate the regions so there was some level of consistency in qualifying [for nationals]. People say the west is sprint weak, but it’s not at top, and that’s what we have to look at: the quality of the field and who’s getting to nationals.”

Even the strongest proponents of regionals acknowledge that scoring the regional meet has become absurd.

"I don't recall hearing a team score announced at our regional until 30 minutes after the 4x400" Wetmore says. "We were already at the bus."

With regionals coming just two weeks after most conference championships, at which athletes are asked to double, triple or even quadruple, few coaches are willing to load up. Extra rounds at the NCAA meet, necessitated by expanded fields, also serve as a disincentive to enter multiple events at regionals.

Neither do regional scores reflect the performances of athletes whose specialties are the 10,000 or multi-events, disciplines which still qualify via a descending order list and are not part of regionals.

Despite having competed at regionals three times, Mellott was never quite sure what to make of the meet.

"I have a harder time getting excited for the regional meet than I do for the Pac-10 meet, even though, technically, it's a bigger meet," says Mellott, who finished fourth in the 400 hurdles at the conference meet. "I feel like people just don't put as much emphasis on it or the fans don't really know what it is or how important is. The energy isn't the same."

Crowds, generally, have reflected the regionals' muted — and slightly confused — feel.

Oregon drew crowds of 3,513 and 4,649 for the West regional meet, setting a two-day West record by more than 5,000, but numbers like those of Mideast regional are far more common. Hosted by Indiana University the meet drew 701 paying fans on the first day and 750 on the second.

"The supposed fan support was nothing but parents, coaches and athletes for the most part, just like most meets," Napier says. "The environment is dead and the kids are burned out. The better kids do the minimum to qualify, and the others are trying to piece themselves together to get to the NCAA meet."

Money matters

While college football will continue tinkering with the oft-criticized Bowl Championship Series — or give up altogether and move to a playoff system — finances don't figure to be a problem. Post-season football is a profit-making venture for most participants.

The same can't be said for track and field.

Regionals are expensive. Expensive for hosts. Expensive for participants.

Oregon spent approximately $50,000 hosting the West Regional, according to the U of O Associate Athletic Director Gary Gray, with the NCAA contributing $3,500. Manhattan, the East Regional host, reported similar figures.

"Simple math tells you that leaves you with a gap of about $46,500," Gray says. "For regional championships, the host school does get to keep the gate revenue. For us, that did offset much of our expenses. I am not sure that would be the case at most regional sites. Other sites may incur more expenses such as paying to transport and house officials that we are fortunate not to have to do." Gray says the NCAA may increase its support to closer to $10,000, but that still may not be enough to entice bidders.

"I am not sure the NCAA would ever admit to having problems finding host schools," Gray says, "but I wouldn't be surprised if that is the case."

Traveling to the regional meet is proving nearly as costly as hosting one for some teams.

"We are spending near $50,000 for both men and women's teams to stay over and perform at this meet," Napier, the Wisconsin assistant, says. "I can't believe the administrators are not all over this from a financial stand point. We have one of the biggest budgets in the country, and we feel the impact. I would like to know how the smaller budget schools feel about this."

They're feeling it, too. Like their big-budget counterparts, small schools on the semester system have to pay as much as four weeks of holdover money to athletes competing at regionals, as well as transport athletes to the regional site and feed and house them once there.

"Just for Miami University to take 12 athletes to LSU last year cost us about $25,000," says Miami (Ohio) University head coach Rich Ceronie, who is also head of the Women's Intercollegiate Cross Country Coaches Association. "Start adding that up. If every team in the NCAA — 330 — spent that much on average, and you add all the teams in, we are spending a million dollars to qualify a few people."

And therein lies the linchpin of regional opponents’ argument: the system is not sending a dramatically different group of athletes to the national meet than it did with marks-based qualifying.

Even with the new top-eight requirement for at-large consideration, on average 5.9 female athletes ranking in the top 28 nationally in an individual track race other than the 10,000 failed to advance to the national meet. The women's 200 produced the smallest number of top-28 non-advancers at two. The 5,000 saw eight fail to advance, the highest total, but had so many of its top athletes choose other events that Ohio State's Nicole Gliem, who had run the nation's 63rd fastest time heading into regionals, became the 28th best performer.

On average, 7.6 men failed to advance to nationals in the nine individual races excluding the 10,000, with a low of five in the 400 and 5,000, and a high of 12 in the men's 1,500.

A total of four women and nine men ranked in the top-10 nationally prior to regionals failed to advance in the nine individual track races. Conversely, an average of 5.4 women and 5.6 men whose season best put them outside the top-28 qualified via the regional meet.

With schools spending tens of thousands of dollars on regional meets and receiving no remuneration at all from the NCAA, which pays for first round participants in most team sports, coaches such as Ceronie are asking themselves, “Is this worth it?

"When the discussion first started about track regionals I was one of the biggest proponents," Ceronie said. "I thought it would be great to finally have a chance for the small-budget teams to line up against the big-budget teams head to head and see who would win. That really was the major problem with the previous system, it rewarded teams that had the budget to fly around the country and place their athletes into the best possible scenario for qualifying. Small-budget teams that did not have the same opportunities for travel were at a disadvantage.

"I no longer think the cost is justified."

Lindeman hopes to render the discussions of finances moot by making regionals more affordable for participants — and soon.

“We were able to get the numbers increase [for the NCAA meet] through, so the next step is getting regional qualifying paid for,” the Air Force coach says. “That may be at hand. It’s probably the second priority for the coaches association behind getting the NCAA indoor championships paid for.”

Is it enough?

Despite some significant shortcomings, regional qualifying retains an ardent group of supporters, who see success, or at least a silver lining, in what others deem failure. Depth of performance is improving in most events. The NCAA has a more tangible method of qualification than it did in the past, and one which Lindeman believes will be simplified with further tweaking of the at-large component in the years to come.

“The system is going to continue to evolve,” he says, noting that a 2004 survey presented to the coaches association in December showed approximately 70 percent of coaches felt good about the direction regional qualifying is headed.

Small schools, despite the cost of competing at regionals, do have a better chance of advancing an athlete to the NCAA championships. Top athletes, at least based on anecdotal evidence, don’t seem to be suffering from the addition of regionals when the summer season arrives. Williams, Jeremy Wariner, Darold Williamson, Otis Harris, Sanya Richards, and DeeDee Trotter all medaled at the last August’s Olympics, and the U.S. squad for this summer’s IAAF World Champions could feature as many as 18 athletes who competed during the collegiate season.

Most importantly, fewer athletes whose fitness is sliding are moving on to the NCAA meet and more athletes who are competing well at season’s end are advancing.

"The least we should be able to ask of athletes that stand ready for a starting gun at nationals is that they are ready to perform better than other individuals that have not qualified," Elias, the Nevada coach says. "The former system left us no assurance that this would be the case. The present system at least has a much better chance of putting sharp, healthy athletes on the starting line."

Athletes like Mellott, the Oregon hurdler, or Lauren Blankenship, a 5,000 runner from Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama.

With a season best of 16:56.55, Blankenship only qualified for the Mideast Regional by winning the Ohio Valley Conference 5,000. In Indianapolis, Blankenship ran a 40-second personal best of 16:16.43 to take second. At nationals, she ran 16:16 again in the preliminaries and then placed ninth in the final to earn All-America honors.

"Her 40-second improvement was because she was in a good meet with good competition," says Samford head coach Glenn McWaters. "Without the regional, she would not be competing in the NCAA Championships."

Whether stories like Mellott's and Blankenship's will be enough to make regionals a worthwhile investment remains to be seen.

(Posted on June 30, 2005)