NCAA Regionals are a Good Thing

Track and field is competition in its purest form.  Athletes compete head-to-head to see who can run faster, throw farther, and jump higher.  Of course, competition isn't necessary for track to be entertaining.  I'm not sure I enjoyed German Fernandez's 3:55.02 mile any less because nobody was around him.  But the truly spectacular aside, it's infinitely more thrilling to see two (or more) evenly matched athletes pushing each other to their limits.  Add in some high stakes situations, like qualifying for a final or beating your rival team, and you get track and field at its best.

That's why I've been a little disappointed by the uproar against the NCAA Regional qualifying system.  The Big-12 schools said they want to get rid of it , and Oregon signaled tacit agreement .  Presumably, they'd rather spend the regionals weekend at a last-chance qualifier someplace, trying to get their almost-qualifiers off the cusp and into the meet.  Like in the good old days.  (It's no surprise that many small schools disagree .)

The old system, based solely off of the descending order list, simply took the top marks of the season and shuttled those athletes off to NCAAs.  It rewarded those athletes whose programs could recruit top talent and get that talent in the meets with ideal conditions to put up big marks.  In short, it benefited big programs from big conferences, who could afford to send their

athletes across the country to compete, often more than once.  For some events, like the 5000m and 10000m, nearly all the qualifiers came from two west coast meets: Stanford and Mt. SAC.  Nevermind that a time run in late March is only occasionally an accurate indicator of where an athlete is come June.

I have two problems with the old system.  First, the system itself should be emphasizing more competition, not less.  Athletes should be competing for place, not cooperating for time.  I think there need to be more scored meets during the year--dual meets, local championships, and maybe scored invitationals--and less emphasis on chasing times.  But a system that is based on the descending order lists places a premium on non-competitive, non-stakes rabbit-chasing.  Athletes get rewarded more for finishing 14th in the A-heat than winning the B-heat.

Second, it can incentivize bad coaching decisions.  The goal of any athlete should be to peak at the end of the year, for the championship meets.  But if getting into those meets is dependent upon how you do in your first few races of the year, the tendency will be to overemphasize those meets and overtrain to achieve top marks early.  Rather than building out a plan to maximize progress throughout the year, coaches are compelled to have their athletes chase marks.  This can hurt the national meet when these athletes show up injured or burnt out, which did indeed happen every year.

The regionals system was put in place to balance those problems, and it did so by dividing athletes arbitrarily (geographically) and then mixing auto-qualifiers with "at large" qualifiers.  It essentially added a huge prelim round to the NCAA meet, only it takes place two weeks prior.  And just like any prelim, if an athlete blows up and does terribly, they don't advance the final.

Yes, the regional meets have their problems, most of which stem from the fact that they are divided geographically.  The West Region had an appalling 24 auto qualifiers who took spots from athletes with better season bests in other regionals.  15 of these came in the sprints.  Needless to say it was an off year for the sprinters out west.  Then again, in the men's and women's 1500m alone, the Mid-West Region had seven athletes earn auto-qualifiers with season bests that wouldn't have got them in off the descending order lists.  And the East is sending four women pole vaulters who don't "deserve" to be there.  In all, I counted 76 spots that were taken with times that wouldn't have advanced in the old system.

But I'm not convinced the descending order lists would have been much better.  Despite only 5-7 athletes advancing by time in each event, there were still 56 athletes--33 women, 23 men--who qualified for NCAAs despite finishing 10th or higher in their regional meet.  Even in a strong region's strongest event,

if an athlete can't finish better than 10th--behind athletes with lesser season bests--I think it's arguable whether they deserve to be in the NCAA meet.  Maybe they just had an off day.  In that case, the best of the worst at regionals still qualify in this system.  But at least they don't prevent someone who's prepared better and timed their season more effectively to go instead of them. 

The Regionals qualifying system was a step in the right direction when it was implemented in 2003.  It has its problems, but the benefits to small schools and smart coaches far greatly outweigh the problems it has relative to the descending order approach.  Should it become a sacred cow that can't be changed?  Of course not.  But neither should it be abandoned completely.

At its heart, track and field is about competition.  Competition on the track should settle who gets to go to the NCAA meet, not competition to get into the A heat of an invitational in March.

Share on Facebook


Bryan ran cross country and track and field for UCLA, as well for Japanese ekiden teams while living in Japan. He now pretends to be a runner (mostly on weekends) and a writer (mostly after running). Check out his popular running blog Optimal Training and his distance running lenses at Buraian's Lensography . He welcomes your feedback via comment or email at buraian@lifeofburaian.com