Your Non Race State Recap

By Jarrett Felix

            So a lot goes in to the state championships. I’ve shared some instant reactions to the meet from yesterday and I plan on doing some more in depth recapping, but I figured I’d share some more generic thoughts about things I’ve learned from the state meet. I want the focus long term to be on the athletes/competitors/awesome performances, so I’ve hid this post, but all the same I wanted to say a few things. So here comes a few patented etrain rants …

Two Relays: Are You Up or Down?

Gotta say, I didn’t like the new rules. It was kinda cool to see teams like GFS and State College go hard after a pair of relays, but I also really appreciated the bubble teams like Seneca Valley and CR North who both shined in their appearance. Those were the last two teams into the respective championships and they both earned medals. If each team was only limited to one relay performance, we could have perhaps had more stories like these in the state championship. Instead of those bubble teams we had a decent amount of “B” squads or teams that weren’t truly all in for their respective events. There were 7 teams that ran two distance relays at states (GFS, CB East, CB West, Pennridge, LaSalle, State College and O’Hara). Of those seven teams, two ran at least one relay without their best runner, three teams didn’t place in the top 5 for either relay and three teams came away with two state medals. Of course these produced the DMR and the 4x8 state title winners and five of the top six DMR squads (despite the doubling) so was it really that bad? Let me know your thoughts.

For the record, there were rumors about the PTFCA punishing teams who run “B” squads at states for next year. Can’t see a way that possibly happens and I’d be pretty upset to see anything like that leveled, even though I didn’t like seeing “B” squads take the place of teams who could have potentially run faster. If you are going to punish “B” teams in the distance relays, you should do it in the sprints too. And how the heck do you even judge what constitutes a “B” team?

Live Webcast

I’m way up on this. I’ve watched the webcast a couple years now. For me, it was a high quality video stream and I had no issues. You could see the whole race all the way around the track even when you weren’t in attendance which was sweet. Announcing I thought wasn’t too bad either (I liked it better than outdoors) and if you didn’t end up loving it, you could always mute it. The problem, of course, is that I am a distance runner looking to watch a select few athletes run the distance races. If I was a field athlete or parent of a field athlete, I’d probably be pretty pissed. I had no idea what was going on in that section besides a couple flashes to our state record holder. But unless they get a second or even third camera going, it’s going to be hard to get everything nailed down. It’s a hard job, I’m glad it’s not in my job description.

False False-Starts

So I gotta say this makes me upset. It would be one thing if we were under the old system where if you hit the time you were in, but now if you fake a false start to stay fresh for another event, you literally just wasted a spot that could have instead belonged to another runner who would go all out. This year Jeff Kirshenbaum was the most obvious case (we tweeted a GIF of his false start which is admittedly humorous), but there are guys doing this all the time in one way or another. Khai Samuels did it last year with the mile so he could be fresh for the 800 (I don’t remember if he false started or not but a jog around the track or a DNF is basically the same thing). Abington did it with a bunch of guys back in 2011 so they could be fresh for the relays. Heck, even last year at district ones in the 1600m, all the guys who ran the 16 at districts and then chose not to end up running it at states stole spots from other guys. Remember, PJ Murray ran 4:23 in the prelims but didn’t make finals (i.e. D1 had 13 guys who ran the SQS at districts), but because some guys didn’t do it in the finals and we had a ton of scratches, District One sent about half of that 13 number when we could have sent a full 8. I definitely don't blame these kids at all, it's not their choice to do this stuff and it's kinda hard to blame the coaches as well. It's just a broken system. As a kid who never made it to states individually (although I was never anywhere near this close), it sucks to watch other kids miss out.

But there is no good complaining about it if you don’t have a solution. You need to keep states a no scratch meet, otherwise there will be a ton of entries every year and a ton of guess work on how long the meet is actually going to take, how many heats of each event, etc. That matters a lot when you are dealing with timed finals. You also need to keep the false start rule in play because people will unintentionally false start at a variety of distances and you shouldn’t be punished for something like that. You could have a subjective rule, but subjective rules are tricky.

I think what this really comes down to is the short amount of time between finishing racing and inserting entries. Clearly some time between Sunday the 21^st and Sunday the 28^th (after they actually got a chance to think things over), Methacton and Kirshenbaum decided they didn’t want to run both events. If they made that decision on, say, Tuesday night, couldn’t we have given them the option to back out and then called up the next guy and offered him the spot? It’s not a perfect system for a variety of reasons (guys need to plan their trip, their training, the finances), but at least you give another kid the opportunity to compete. Maybe it’s somebody who was already entered in another event or somebody who already has teammates attending the meet. And to discourage all runners from entering all events and being able to scratch late, you have to pay the extra event’s entrance fee even if you end up scratching or something like that. You would be paying for it anyway when you false start right?

I don’t know, maybe I’m underthinking this one or maybe we should just trust our coaches to fully think their line ups through before entering, but there has to be a tweak made to the system. I hate seeing guys who have worked their butt off get left home for no reason. It’s completely unfair.

Make Sure There are No Hanging Chads

Coaches (and athletes, really) if you are out there reading this, I have a piece of advice: don’t take the PTFCA acceptance lists at face value. This year, the PTFCA qualifying sheets that were first released had a few tiny errors (which were correctly by the PTFCA with no issues I should add). I noticed a couple oddities on first scans and, clearly, so did a couple coaches so fixes were made. Those coaches were rewarded for their diligence by earning a spot in the state championships. I’m also glad that when the PTFCA added teams/individuals they didn’t kick out guys they already said were in (because technically when they added Hock, they ended up with 14 guys in the 3k and were only supposed to have 12, the last two guys, Sappey and Slavin who both medaled, were tied with the same seed and might have never made it in initially if Hock was entered on the first try). The PTFCA was very reasonable and flexible.

But my point is not necessarily to commend the PTFCA, but to remind coaches to be on top of things. There are teams/individuals that, based on my calculations, could have gotten in to states based on the cut off times and the conversion errors. I’m not sure if the coach’s didn’t know the situation or the PTFCA ended up denying some teams later on, but I hope coaches (and athletes) remember to stay vigilant because the PTFCA acceptance process is not perfect.

Now this going to sound like a brag or something like that, but I’m just saying it’s really worth either reading this blog or the updated standings or at least being in communication with other coaches checking in on things because it helps you to make sure you don’t miss something. I hopefully don’t sound preachy or judgy or anything like that, just trying to get the word out and help everybody involved.

All that being said, the coaches in PA do a fantastic job. We have a ton of really well run programs and each year I hear about guys lobbying to make sure their runners are in states or doing whatever they can for their athletes. I’ll always remember the Upper Darby coach (who I never have met or had any conversation with I should add) who entered his guy in the 800m last year and got him through to states when many other coaches didn’t bother.

The three major changes to the performance list on Sunday night came from three eventual state medalists: Sean Conway in the 800m (7^th), Dom Hockenbury in the 3,000 (2^nd) and Seneca Valley in the DMR (4^th).