To: WVSSAC Track Activities Committee

Purpose: To develop a more equitable method of qualifying athletes from the Regional meets to produce a more competitive field at the State Meet.

Proposal: To reduce the automatic qualifiers in the running events to the top three in each region. The final four slots would be chosen from the fastest times from any of the four regions. If a tie exists based on time the highest placing team would advance. If a region does not fill its automatic qualifying slots the fastest times from other regions will be used to advance to the state meet.

Strengths of Proposal:

• As the data shows there would be a more competitive field while insuring regional representation.
• The automatic qualifier insures that if poor weather conditions persist that a regions best athlete would not be denied qualification.
• Reduces the pressure of balancing the regions from a number of team’s standpoint. A region that has a number of strong teams will not be penalized for being in a difficult region.
• With each regional meet utilizing the FAT timing system and all weather facilities Track and Field has the luxury of incorporating a method of qualifying the best field of athletes regardless of where they are located.
• Improves the status of the State meet by having the ability of culling the slower times. The state meet is only special if it is drawing a field of the best athletes in the state.
• Drastically reduces the chances of a relay or individual not qualifying when the time they produce would place at the state meet.
• By producing a more competitive field it reduces the chances of slower runners in the longer races from interfering in the race. There are too many examples of individuals and relays getting lapped in what is suppose to be West Virginia’s most prestigious meet. This proposal would produce a field with much more comparable times.
• With current technology athletes and coaches could know the following day who the qualifiers to the state meet would be.

Data:

• The following spreadsheets provide the 4^th place times in all classes, boys and girls, from each of the four regions. 5^thand sometimes 6^th and 7^th places are included to determine the number of instances a place lower than 4^th would have been fast enough to qualify in another region. This proposal would advance those time shaded in gray in place of the times that are in bold print.
• The data seems to indicate the greatest inequality exist in AA girls with many of the athletes from Region I unable to qualify but having one of the top 16 times in the state.

• Two examples from each class are provided to show how the proposal would improve times at the state meet based on the data from this years regionals.

Class Event Current Qualifier Proposed Qualifier

A Boys 4 x 800 12:08.35 9:28.93

A Boys 800 2:18.24 2:10.61

A Girls 300 IH 58.75 51.59

A Girls 1600 7:28.92 5:56.04

AA Boys Shuttles 1:10.53 1:03.59

AA Boys 4 x 400 4:29.68 3:41.32

AA Girls 4 x 200 2:17.56 1:52.30

AA Girls 400 1:13.23 1:04.52

AAA Boys 3200 11:12.2 10:25.65

AAA Boys 800 2:08.77 2:02.56

AAA Girls 400 1:05.85 1:01.57

AAA Girls 3200 13:55.94 12:03.05

• This proposal seems to do a very good job in getting a more deserving field of athletes to the state meet than the current method. In three instances (AA boys shuttles, AA girls 800 M Relay, AA girls 400 M Relay) a team that did not qualify for state ran a time fast enough to place at the state meet.

Conclusion: We are asking that the committee give this proposal a trial method for the 2006 season. Unlike other sports we can alter our regional method of qualifying only slightly to achieve a much better representation that we send to the state meet. Because of the foresight of developing qualifying standards in the field events this proposal would only affect running events. From this years data there were 43 relays and 77 individuals that did not get to experience the state meet even though their regional times were one of the 16 best in the state. That accounts for 249 athletes being affected negatively. We believe that this year’s data is a representation of what has happened to athletes each year. Many of the athlete’s times that are currently not qualifying are just off pace of the top six places as is shown in the data. As with any proposal there will be what ifs, but we believe the overall improvement in our sport will more than make up any shortcomings. We are hoping this committee will be progressive in their thinking to improving Track and Field by putting this proposal in place that will increase the quality and fairness of the state meet.

Sincerely;

Rick Haught Ted Vanscoy

Boys Track Coach Girls Track Coach

Ritchie Co. HS Ritchie Co. HS