A regular season should matter. But it doesn’t in college
track and field.
Because of the changes the NCAA made to its Regional system this
year, pretty much nothing accomplished in the regular season means
anything in the sport.
All athletes start on equal footing at four Regional meets and
have to finish in the top eight to advance to the NCAA
Championships, either automatically or through an at-large bid.
That means a team can have the best regular season in the
country, watch one or two of its better athletes false start or
have a bad day at regionals, and see its national championship
hopes go down the drain.
Take Arkansas, the defending men’s NCAA champion, for
example.
One of the Razorbacks’ top sprinters, defending 100-meter
champion Tyson Gay, flinched in the blocks at regionals and will
not have a chance to defend his title. Though Arkansas may still
have enough depth and talent to win, it’s still a costly blow
to the team’s hopes.
UCLA, too, got a taste of how a season’s worth of work can
be nullified by one bad afternoon. Senior Yoo Kim, the runner-up in
the pole vault at the NCAA Championships, saw his Bruin career come
to an abrupt end on Saturday when he failed to clear a single bar
in a thunderstorm at Oregon.
Kim, to his credit, did not complain about his fate, but
let’s be honest. There’s no way he shouldn’t be
competing in Sacramento, and the same goes for the defending
champion, Oregon’s Tommy Skipper, who also no-heighted on his
home track.
It’s not just the athletes who don’t qualify for
NCAAs that dislike the regional system. In reality it’s most
detrimental for the sport’s top athletes.
Elite collegiate athletes train to peak for their conference
meets in May. They train to be at their best at the NCAAs in June.
And they train to succeed at U.S. National Championships in
July.
Asking them to try to peak an additional time between their
conference meets and the NCAAs is counter-productive. Those who
peak at regionals often aren’t at their best at the NCAAs two
weeks later. And those who train through the meet run the risk of
seeing their season end early.
Even the most logical argument for regionals ““ that they
benefit the fans ““ doesn’t stand up under closer
scrutiny.
Because athletes advance automatically by finishing anywhere
from first to fifth place, there’s no reason for the top
athletes to lunge at the finish line, risk injury, or compete to
win at all.
Perhaps the most stinging indictment of the regional system was
the fate of UCLA’s Jessica Cosby, one of the nation’s
top throwers.
Cosby, who was battling a case of pneumonia, had to compete in
the shot put competition at soggy Hayward Field on Saturday
afternoon, even though she had been having trouble breathing prior
to the meet.
Had she sat out the meet, she would not have qualified for
NCAAs, and what has been a spectacular senior season would have
effectively been thrown away.
But in a courageous move, Cosby threw three times, finishing
second before being taken to the hospital in an ambulance.
Yes, that was an inspiring performance, but she shouldn’t
have had to compete. Her excellent regular season should have been
enough.
Quiñonez is thinking about becoming a Milwaukee Brewers
fan. Stop him and e-mail him at gquinonez@media.ucla.edu.